MBA – a good career choice, undoubtedly!

By Dr Pramod Kumar

One of the greatest dilemmas that confront students after graduation is – what next? What are the courses that can offer better job opportunities? Very few students know their career choice by the time they graduate and are not clear on what they have to do.  Most of them are susceptible to the advice of elders, friends, peers, career counselors or coaching class personnel.

When you look around, you can come across many courses which sound good, appear glamorous and creative but will they offer a steady job? Getting a job depends on demand versus supply and the ability of the individual. Yet people look for safe bets and some kind of hedging with the kind of course offering so that there is greater chance of getting into the job market. This is what an ordinary student’s quest is or their parents’ expectations are.

MBA – step towards a successful career

Academic achievements are important. In order to translate those achievements into a successful career by creating positive job outcomes requires a range of skills that need to be developed during the two years at a B-school. In this sense, an MBA is your first step towards a successful and well-paying career.

The programme teaches you to use your specialised knowledge to solve business problems by examining case studies. Going through the rigours of a B-school curriculum, you build skills that strengthen your talent in terms of leadership, business scenario analysis and decision making. The degree opens doors to a plethora of job opportunities and to a large extent facilitates getting a job.

A management course or MBA is considered to be a good degree, but the catch is we have hundreds and thousands of business schools and some of their degrees are as good as tissue paper. Of late, many management institutes have been closed down. IIMs and the top ranked 25 B-schools are difficult to crack because CAT is a tough exam and skewed towards those good at mathematics rather than aptitude for management, which I feel is not the case with cracking GMAT. While most of the students aspire to get into these top institutes but only 1% succeed.

What is the right B-school for you?

In India, we have a large number of good business schools who are very creative and innovative. They may not rank in the first 25 schools but are not any inferior to them. One advantage top business schools have is that they take the cream of the students and train them, which is relatively easy. I really appreciate those B-schools that take anybody from average to good students and turn them into shining jewels. Students have to look at those kinds of schools which are trying to be creative and innovative. Business schools should not be churning out managers but should nurture leadership acumen.

Executive jobs and careers are not a function of your degree, they revolve around your talent. A good B-school faculty should be able to track this talent and support your learning process. Today, technology is the back bone of the industry in all the functions and it is no longer expert knowledge. Learning IT, MS Office and MS Excel are general skills and not specialist skills.

Present business environment looks for those persons who do not believe in optimization or incremental increases but radical changes and ability to give new direction and standards. Students and parents should spend time to find out such business schools which impart not only academic rigour but also leadership practice while learning. Those are the schools which engage a lot of corporate professionals in addition to regular academia as full time and part time faculty to ensure that students get to learn what exactly happens in the corporate environment, so that the transition from education to job is easier and smoother.

Sometimes, lot many questions are asked about specialisations. Every specialisation has tremendous opportunities – be it marketing, finance and human resource management. Every position is up for grabs and what it requires is capability and competence.

Be a well-rounded leader than an aggressive manager

What I suggest to those who have decided to take up management as a career is not to worry if they cannot make it to the top ranked business schools. Look for those B-schools that are progressive with an evolving curriculum in line with business needs without sacrificing the core academic knowledge, and can make individuals well rounded leaders rather than aggressive managers.

As you learn and build your skill set, you also need suitable career opportunity to get started in life and hopefully build a great career. This is possible if your college or institute boasts of robust campus recruitment programme. Hoping to get ‘some job, somehow, somewhere’ can never be a career strategy. As you make your own decision, your information, quality of guidance and good choices can build your career or frustrate you till you settle down and call it your bad luck. Success is about individual drive, energy and passion for achieving results. These can come about only when an individual is goal oriented, clearly focused and willing to prioritise spending time for professional career choices and goals.

About the Author:

Dr Pramod Kumar is currently president, International school of Business and Media (ISB&M). He holds a PhD in Organizational Behaviour from IIT-Bombay. Dr Kumar has formerly been associated with Ruparel College-Mumbai, IIM Ahmedabad and been the chairperson - placements at XLRI, Jamshedpur, and served as ex-director at SIBM, Pune.

He has authored several research papers on management subjects and offers consultancy to multinationals worldwide. He also served on Government of India committees on Management Education.