Earning An MBA Is Not Enough, You Must Learn To Apply Your Skills

Are you planning to pursue an MBA for a better career? But can an MBA degree guarantee success? Let’s have a look....

Nowadays most B-schools and colleges are providing an array of options to students for pursuing business degrees. With growing challenges in the corporate world, earning an MBA has become more important now than ever before. But simply becoming an MBA graduate does not mean that you will climb the success ladder. No matter how much business schools say that an MBA is a guarantee towards a better career, I believe that you will achieve success when you utilise your business knowledge effectively to develop innovative ideas and solutions for your company.

Is An MBA Enough?

In today’s corporate world you will find more individuals who are either pursuing or have already earned an MBA degree. I agree that nowadays being an MBA graduate opens up various new career opportunities which can enable you to achieve your professional goals. Moreover with intense competition in the global job market, having an MBA degree can give you an edge over others and add value to your resume. But I can tell you right now that it is not enough.

Joanna Smith Bers, Managing Director and Talent Officer for DB Marketing Technologies in New York, said “Colleges seem to churn out MBAs like tissue paper. There may have been a time when those three letters actually distinguished job candidates from the pack, but no more. As a senior manager at a business insights management consulting firm, I have found that the MBA is more embellishment than substantive.”

Earn The Skills, Not Just A Degree

Hence you must take the effort to set yourself apart in different ways by not only acquiring business skills and knowledge, but also effectively applying those skills in a business setting. Ahmed Sharawy, an MBA graduate and an aspiring entrepreneur, believes that being able to use your knowledge to develop business plans and strategies is as important as, if not more, than earning an MBA degree. He said “The way schools and people talk about MBA, makes students and candidates believe that graduation is an achievement that entitles degree holders for a better life. But the real achievement is using what we learn to come up with innovative ideas and incubate them long enough to be successful and useful.”

This means that you will need to gain significant work experience in a relevant field either before or while you pursue your MBA degree. Your experience will demonstrate that not only you have the critical skills, but you also know how to use them at the work place to improve your productivity and add value to business.

Going The Smarter Way

But the fact remains that pursuing a full time MBA programme does not leave any space for you to gain work experience by doing even a part-time job. This is perhaps one the biggest challenges of traditional full time business programmes. I guess this is why numerous students from around the globe are now going for online MBA pathway programmes for the excellent flexibility and convenience it offers. As there are no fixed or scheduled classes, you can easily choose to work a full time or part time job and also pursue your online MBA simultaneously. Moreover, you will be able to apply what you learn at the workplace and hone your skills further. This will allow you to develop efficient business plans and strategies for your company by using your MBA knowledge.

Once you have completed your top up MBA programme and acquired adequate work experience, you will have a shot at boosting your employability to a great extent and make you a desirable candidate to prospective employers.

The Bottom Line

So if you think that simply by earning an MBA you can become a hot-shot manager at a Fortune 500 company, then you couldn’t be more wrong. Getting an MBA is certainly not a bad idea, but you need to keep working on yourself to build your career.

Manpower’s Holmes says she doesn’t want to discourage anyone from getting an MBA, but that students should understand there are limits to how much it can help. Dora Vell, an executive recruiter from Waltham, Massachusetts, said “It’s not the degree. It’s what you do with it. An MBA is just noise.” She adds “It doesn’t help me every day, but it made me feel smarter and gave me more confidence.”

What do you think? Feel free to share your views and opinions on MBA and how it can help your career. We would love to hear from you.

Is An MBA Needed For Creating A Rewarding Finance Career?

Do you want to pursue a career in finance? Are you thinking about getting an MBA? Will an MBA degree boost your employability and offer you excellent career opportunities in the financial services sector? Let’s have a look...

MBA For A Finance Career

An MBA in finance will provide you some great opportunities to start your finance career. You can work in multinational corporations as a financial analyst, financial advisor or an accountant. To help aspirants achieve their career goals, globally reputed B-schools like London Business School, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Business School are currently inviting applications for the MBA programmes they offer. But can an MBA degree actually help you in building your finance career? Or is it just a waste of your money?

Most people believe that simply by getting an MBA you will be able to amp up your career. However, the fact is the progress of your career basically depends on your skills, abilities, knowledge and experience. However, an MBA qualification can definitely open up new doors to better opportunities. It depends on you how you make the most of these opportunities and use your skills in the workplace.

Is An MBA Enough?

Your MBA education will prepare you to start your finance career with confidence and knowledge so that you can add value to your company. To make the most of your MBA degree you will need to possess intelligence, specific skill sets, experience and money or the capacity to take student loans. Moreover, you also need to make the right connections with the right people so that you can work in the best positions in financial services.

According to the efinancialcareers CV database, it has been observed that if you wish to make your career in trading, then there isn’t any sense in pursuing an expensive MBA programme. Apparently, merely 7 per cent of trading professionals who have posted their resume on efinancialcareers database in the last one year posses an MBA degree.

Why You Need An MBA

An MBA can significantly help your career if you are planning to build your career in the investment banking division or IBD as more than 15 per cent professionals in this field have an MBA qualification. In the United States, MBAs are particularly widespread in this sector with almost 19 per cent IBD professionals with MBA degrees, as compared to 13 per cent in Europe.

Furthermore, if you plan on working in private equity in the future, then spending huge loads of money on your MBA can be worthwhile. The private equity sector comprises of the highest volume of MBA qualified professionals in financial services, with American private equity firms with the most MBA graduates. However, it was found that MBA graduates comprise of only 19 per cent and 22 per cent of the total PE populations respectively.

So if you are planning on building a rewarding career in the financial services sector, then you should consider the fact that most of the professionals in the financial services sector are not MBA qualified.

How are Business CoursesTransforming The Lives Of M.Ds ?

You are a successful doctor. You are delighted by your profession as a healer and you have helped millions of people by treating them and by prescribing the best medicines. Yet you feel that the infrastructure of your medical unit or hospital or wherever you are employed needs special attention.

Areas such as primary care need special attention. One needs to understand the business of healthcare, from team management to budgeting and accounting.

Having a Diploma can help you earn more money. It can help you stay employed. It is an indication to your employer that you're willing to do extra work to succeed.

Why are business courses essential even if you have an M.D?

Maria Chandler, the president of the Association of M.D./M.B.A. Programs and herself a recipient of both degrees, mentioned that the degree combination “fast tracks” graduates who aspire to reach the zenith of their career. The current nominee for surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, who is thirty six year old, holds both degrees, has successfully established multiple organizations.

Those with dual degrees have a particular edge when it comes to hospital administration, a field that has traditionally employed M.B.A.s as leaders and M.D.s as middle managers.

According to a New York Times analysis in May, the average annual salary for a hospital administrator is $237,000, compared with an average of $185,000 for a clinical physician. A 2011 study found that hospitals with physician CEOs outperformed those with non-medical leadership.

Vinod Nambudiri, a fifth-year internal medicine and dermatology resident at BWH and a graduate of Harvard’s joint M.D./M.B.A. program stated that “Just like you wouldn’t want a school superintendent to never have taught, you don’t want the person leading your hospital to never have taken care of a patient.”

The number of joint M.D./M.B.A. programs in America has grown from six to 65 in 20 years. (From 2011 and 2012 alone, the number increased by 25 percent.) More than half of M.D./M.B.A. programs started after the year 2000, and most offer a cost-effective course of a five-years duration.

The M.D./M.B.A. may also be attracting more high-performing students to the specialty of primary care. Business-minded types often search for problems that need solving, and primary care gives them plenty of opportunity for that.

Gellis started the grassroots network Primary Care Progress. In primary care, doctors may be able to work a combination of clinical hours and entrepreneurial work hours.

The benefits run both ways: Chandler says that earning an M.D. may help make business-minded people more careful and compassionate. Businesses who hire M.D./M.B.A.s tell her that these graduates are “ethical businessmen” who use the medical creed to influence their actions in the business world.

Fast Track your Business Degree

Getting yourself enrolled in business diploma courses is one very flexible way of fulfilling your desire of getting a BA/MBA Degree. It gives the student an opportunity to save time and money and move straight to their final year of their Bachelors or Masters in Business. Plus opting for them through online study is enormously beneficial for professionals in the medical profession since time is a big concern for them.

An online diploma programme provides them the necessary flexibility and independence that allows them to juggle their professional responsibilities or their MD degree along with their online study.

the mode of study is quite easy, all course material, lectures, discussions, explanations and references will be provided online.

You will find completing both your M.D and your business course to be less cumbersome. These courses that are approved by renowned awarding bodies are the single best option for study. This is because then finding employment in any medical unit will not be a great challenge.

The Diploma in Business Studies aims to provide students with the ability to develop lines of argument and make sound judgments in accordance with basic theories and concepts of the subject area and the ability to communicate these accurately to a range of peers.

A range of personal and professional skills that can be used in a wide range of situations and contexts is acquired by an aspiring student. Support and guidance to develop as independent learners is achieved and you acquire a range of transferrable skills.

You will discover how challenging it is to be an administrator of any hospital. It will give you a clearer perspective of the lives of human beings.

If you have any comments for us, don’t hesitate to send us a feedback.

Is an MBA Degree Crucial for Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur?

With a number of people inclined towards business sector, entrepreneurship today has become a highly popular MBA specialisation. However, pursuing entrepreneurship degree alone does not guarantee you of roaring success.

Today, the academic circle is hotly debating about the importance of an MBA degree for a career in entrepreneurship. In sharp contrast, it is also a fact that lots of thriving entrepreneurs observably do not have MBAs. Almost each MBA programme cost approximately £50,000 a year, and it would not be wise as an entrepreneur to burden yourself with debt before you have even started. Most times, they think that money invested in MBAs could be better spent hiring office space or building a trial product.

Nevertheless, MBA students are more and more showing inclination towards entrepreneurship. According to a recent survey conducted by Graduate Management Admissions Council, almost 11 percent of MBA alumni having graduated between 1959 and 2013 currently run their own businesses. And, most top business schools have tailored MBA programmes to make sure they instil the required skills crucial to set off own company. “Schools now offer many more organised extra-curricular options, including entrepreneurship clubs, venture clubs and pitching competitions,” says Aled Owens of QS Top MBA.

MBA programmes attracting the top talent

London Business School offers a wide portfolio of eight different programmes meant to educate students about everything associated with the life-cycle of a start-up. The Centre for Entrepreneurship of Cass Business School provides their recent alumni access to a venture fund, which already has invested in seven start-ups, the biggest of which is Alva with annual turnover of £2m and employs 25 staff.

But the MBA programmes itself are not the sole reason to pursue the MBA courses. These courses have attracted the top talent of the world with an acceptance rate of less than 10 percent for top 10 programmes. Who knows if the fellow students become your future business partners or prove crucial as your future go-to network? Jim Hall, Executive Director, Entrepreneurship Centre at Said Business School, says, “this is where entrepreneurship happens.’

Some people even argue that these business schools should not be considered as substitute for the school of life, but the truth is that many business schools like Warwick bring in faculty with real-life entrepreneurial experience for delivering their knowledge to prospective entrepreneurs.

The early spark matters

However, Taavet Hinrikus, Skype’s first employee and co-founder of peer-to-peer money transfer business TransferWise, and Insead alumnus seems less convinced as he says, “People skills are critical when working in a start-up. Yet the classes at the typical school do not teach enough of them, instead setting team projects and tasks that merely allow natural interpersonal skills to flourish.”

Even faculty at business schools accept that no lecture or workshop could offer a student eureka moment. Nick Badman of Cass says, “You have to have a basic itch or spark that needs to be ignited.” But, if are inspired, business schools can enhance your chances of success by instilling key skills, such as time management, innovation and design, entrepreneurial finance, required to begin your own venture and equip you with the confidence to make use of better ideas.

Basically, MBA degrees are broad and teach you the fundamentals of everything from marketing, finance and law to taking risk. So, even if you are planning to work for a big business house, the MBA course will offer you up to two safe years. The worst outcome could be that you graduate with an MBA degree and obtain a good job.