They may not have even wrapped up their first year yet, but most members of the MBA Class of 2013 have already selected an industry preference as part of their career profile process, says the comprehensive recruiting network that is MBA Focus.

So, what types of employment are tomorrow’s MBA’s interested in? While there are few surprises among the industries that make up the top ten, there is some movement when compared to this year’s graduating class as well as alumni.

1. Financial
2. Consulting
3. Consumer Products
4. Tech
5. Energy/Utilities
6. Healthcare
7. Entertainment

Three industries round out the top 10 for the Class of 2013—with some notable differences from the classes that have gone before them. Advertising lands at #8 for these first-year students—but is 10th for MBA alumni, MBA Focus reports, noting that Media is the 9th most preferred industry for the class of 2013—but is 11th for this year’s graduating class, and 13th for alumni. And Nonprofits slide in at #10 for next year’s graduating class, but come in at #15 for both 2nd-years and alumni.

Also, Real Estate falls within the top 10 for the two more senior populations, but is 12th for the current first-year students, the survey reveals.

Many top-ranked MBA programs require students to select an industry preference, which helps channel employers to the best and brightest future leaders and streamlines career services such as resume coaching and mock interview practice, MBA Focus notes.

Are you wondering where such industries as telecom, environmental services or manufacturing fall in this list? For a complete breakdown for the class of 2013 MBA industry preferences, check out the original post on the MBA Focus blog.

(word cloud courtesy of MBA Focus)

Work experience is a large aspect of any MBA application because past performance is often a good predictor of future achievement. May came to us as she started thinking about applying to MBA programs. In the first meeting we reviewed her resume and I needed to ask dozens of clarifying questions to understand her career path. Clearly, May needed our help creating a compelling and concise story for her MBA applications.

May had grown up living all over the world as her family followed her military father’s career from Japan to Germany to Washington, DC. As a result, May was incredibly skilled at adapting to new circumstances and built relationships easily. Other great aspects of her candidacy included a 700 GMAT score and a 3.4 GPA.

May’s resume was organized chronologically and demonstrated a vast array of interests. For example, I could see from May’s resume that she was involved in a sorority, starred in several student theater productions, was an officer in the Asian-American culture club and The Film Society, and was part of a fashion show project while she was in college. I also saw a college internship at Morgan Stanley.

Post college May’s resume displayed far less clarity. Her most recent experience was as an office manager at a gourmet food importing company. Before that she had worked in sales for a high-end jewelry brand. I saw that she had worked for two years after school in Los Angeles at a law firm, and had also starred in two pilot projects for television networks – seemingly in the same time period. The overall picture was not clear in any way from the document May presented, and I was concerned her career goals might be as cloudy.

My clarifying questions helped me understand a bit more about May’s path. Her internship at Morgan Stanley had taught her a tremendous amount about banking and analysis, and also taught her she was not a good fit for the business. Through a connection she was able to audition for a pilot in Los Angeles, which led to a small part. Though the show wasn’t picked up, May was intrigued by Hollywood and wanted to take the time to try building an acting career. To support herself she took a job within a law firm. After two years as a struggling actor May knew she needed a change. A family friend ran the jewelry retailer, and May was offered a lucrative sales job. She enjoyed helping to build the business and was able to close several interesting deals with celebrities and wardrobe stylists based on her past connections. Ultimately May wanted to be more involved with running a business, and found an opportunity to manage the office and run a fledging business development group at a growing gourmet food importer.

Now May wanted to obtain an MBA from a school in California while she continued to work at the importer, with a goal towards ultimately taking over general management of a similar business or starting her own.

We started to unpack the common aspects of May’s background to strategize the best way to present her in her UCLA, USC, Berkeley-Columbia and UC-Irvine executive MBA applications.

During our discussion it was clear that May did an excellent job of building connections with people. Every single career opportunity post-college had been the result of a conversation with a friend or family member. As an actor, May had honed her skills as a relentless networker, and she brought these skills to the business development part of her current job. I could see the common thread of building and leveraging relationships in her entire resume. Then we needed to compose the story that showed how she had moved from acting to office managing. The challenge of her resume was that May had not only moved functions, she had moved across four separate industries. We parsed her experience down to key transferable skills: sales, communication, management and leadership. When we held this list up to each position, May was able to articulate the parts of each job that utilized those skills. She then composed the bullets of her resume to correspond. Finally, we worked on a summary paragraph at the top of her resume to tie the experiences together.

Most candidates don’t need to spend as much time on their resume as we did with May, but defining a clear strategy to explain her confusing background was the basis of several other aspects of May’s application. When we tackled her career goals essay and her interviews, May was prepared to communicate clearly and concisely about her key skills and talents.

The approach paid off, and May continued her education within the USC EMBA program.

To read more SBC Case Studies, click HERE.

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On Vault’s MBA blog Thursday, Madison Priest tackled a subject that will really get you thinking if you’re interested in CSR and torn between whether you should specialize in sustainability during your MBA, or just go for generic business skills.

Priest polled colleague Aman Singh Das, Vault’s corporate responsibility editor, and discovered that even though sustainability solutions require specialized knowledge and specific skill sets, executives still prize traditional business skills such as the ability to think systemically, understand complex legislation related to sustainability and financial analytic skills. 

As Singh explains from the company’s perspective: The reality of the current market is that an MBA is good for generic management skills, not specialization, when it comes to sustainability and CSR….

Companies say they don’t necessarily need someone who has done two years in-depth study on CSR guidelines and regulations. They have more value for someone who has managerial skills–someone who can lead departments and work sustainability into their role as an accountant, an analyst, etc.

Carolyn C. Wise, Vault’s senior education editor, adds her belief that when it comes to MBA specializations, you don’t want to close yourself off.

“If you’re totally set on one type of job, then absolutely specialize–particularly if you worked in that industry before…But if you are a career-changer, and you don’t know precisely where you want to go, specializations can sometimes hurt rather than help,” Wise says.

For more ideas on how to brand yourself and your specialization, and to learn Vault’s take on whether the rebounding market will generate more or fewer pure CSR jobs, read Priest’s original post here.

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According to new research from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, firms in the United States value IT professionals’ MBA degrees much more than IT experience. The study, published in this month’s Management Science Journal, reveals that an IT professional with an MBA degree earns 46% more than a counterpart with only a bachelor’s degree and 37% more than one with any other master’s degree.

“Our research confirms that getting an MBA is the single best move you can make to increase your value as an IT professional in today’s market,” says Sunil Mithas, Smith assistant professor of decision, operations and information technologies and lead author of the study.

“Education is more valuable than experience because it provides more durable and versatile conceptual skills. In contrast, IT experience has high rate of obsolescence–learning new technologies only makes a professional valuable for a few years when those skills are in high demand. An MBA education teaches how to evaluate new technologies or how to strategically invest in and manage IT projects, which makes for a more valuable long-term employee that can use those skills in a variety of situations,” Mithas adds.

Companies also place greater value on IT experience acquired at other firms than at the current firm, says Mithas and co-author M.S. Krishnan of the University of Michigan, explaining the high turnover culture in the IT profession. Also, many perceive job-hopping as the only way to get ahead in the industry. The researchers found no evidence that having both an MBA degree and significant IT experience boosted an employee’s salary more than having the MBA alone.

CIO.com says that, for rising IT professionals, questions about whether to pursue an MBA degree are urgent: They need to know whether it’s worth the time–two years of full-time study, or countless nights in after-work classes–and tens of thousands of dollars. A CIO.com debate has been bubbling for months: More than 500 respondents to an online poll were split down the middle as to whether an MBA is a great help or a waste of time.

Penelope Trunk’s book Brazen Careerist, The New Rules for Success, aimed at 20- and 30-somethings, quotes the advice of John Challenger, the CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Go get it, Challenger says, and if you can do it while you’re in your 20s, all the better for your future. But he adds: “Top business schools have a premium value. If you attend the third tier, do it at night because the financial loss and career stagnation while you’re in school do not outweigh the benefit of the degree.”