By: John Helmers, Associate Director of MBA Career Management, Leeds School of Business and Member of the 2015 – 2016 Board of Directors, MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance
What can you do with an MBA? Anything! Therein lies the beauty and the curse. An MBA provides you with an immense portfolio of tools, but doesn’t train you to be any one thing. As such, in my 6+ years in career management working with over 500+ MBAs and alums, what I have seen is that an MBA allows people with a clear vision to apply those tools to seize upon opportunity. Typically that takes one of two forms, career switchers and career accelerators.
Career Switchers are common, as many students enter a program knowing what they don’t want to do (i.e., what they have been doing), but still haven’t identified exactly what they want to do. A full-time MBA program offers them the opportunity to research and explore a number of areas with a chance to “kick the tires” during the course of a summer internship. The path is certainly steeper for switchers, but at Leeds we require all first year MBAs to take a class called Professional Development which encourages exploration early and often. I have seen some remarkable career switches take place, from a concert pianist turned medical device marketer, to a journalist turned technical product manager. For those who are diligent and dedicated to the process and who have clear goals and vision, an MBA rewards them with immense opportunity.
Career accelerators generally have a smoother path, as they have worked in an area that they enjoy and are simply looking to expand their opportunities within that realm. Experience plus education always beats one of those elements in isolation, and students who enter a program with experience in a specific functional area or industry are frequently able to accelerate their careers more rapidly. We have had controllers become CFOs within just a couple years of obtaining their MBA, and consultants become Managing Directors and Vice Presidents equally fast. When you can apply classroom learning to direct experience it is that much more meaningful.
Opportunity is abundant for MBAs, but those 3 letters alone are not a professional panacea. An MBA enhances your career prospects but it also elevates the competitive playing field, so for those who are ready to compete at that level it will provide them with the opportunity to do so.
