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.
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