Career makeovers with an executive MBA

Ipsita Sarkar Gupta | shiksha.com

For a working professional looking for a career makeover, an executive (one-year) MBA could just be the perfect option. Shiksha.com caught up with three people, who witnessed significant career changes after completing such executive management programmes.

Meet Vijay Ramaswamy. He passed out of Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad in 2010 and had six years of prior work experience. “MBA helped me to further nurture my career. Back in 2009, I was working as senior engineer. After completing the management degree, I was immediately absorbed as a Senior Product Manager in the same field. This career progression could have otherwise easily taken some six to seven years,” he says.

Then are success stories about changing streams too.

Rahul Jain worked as a news correspondent with a national daily for almost eight years. “My career had peaked. After eight years, there were very limited growth options in a media house for me. Transitioning to management side of media business is practically impossible,” says Rahul. So he decided to pursue a one-year MBA from ISB Hyderabad (passed out in 2011). Today, he is working as the Vice President of a healthcare firm.

The journey from a reporter to managing a brand not only involved complete change of fields, but a significant salary hike. “The commensurate salary after my postgraduate degree was witnessed a good jump,” says Rahul.

Vijay too received a handsome hike. “My overall compensation figure went up by almost 60% after the management programme. I also got stock options,” he says.

But for Elijah Johnson, it wasn’t about the money or seniority in management. “I wanted to take up entrepreneurship. As an IT technical staff in an electrical firm, my resources and networks were limited. Only an MBA could have opened up the opportunities I wanted. But since time was of the essence for my entrepreneurial venture, I opted for a one-year MBA from ISB,” says Elijah. He launched a successful e-venture later on.

Whether it is about changing fields or getting a significant jump in salary or starting your own venture, one-year MBA has been the reason behind career makeovers for many candidates.

“The course fee (of one-year MBA) is quite high. But in the long run, it’s worth it,” says Vijay.

(All names in the story have been changed on request)