An MBA: Great Start, But Not the Finish Line
In today’s employment climate, MBA grads shouldn’t expect companies to line up to hire them based solely on the degree, says a recent article in Canada’s Financial Post.
Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco, author of the piece, contends that before the acceleration of information technology innovation, internationalization and the growing spread of layers upon layers of complexities that these changes bring, individuals with a post-graduate degree could sit on their education laurels. That’s no longer the case.
But make no mistake: an MBA is still as valued in the corporate world as it ever was.
The real value of an MBA, says Jeff Aplin, executive vice-president of Calgary-based David Aplin Recruiting, is the broad-based understanding of business across marketing, finance, HR, strategy — all the functional areas of business operations.
“If people have a general understanding of each of those functional areas and they also have the ability to think on their feet and also to perform under a lot of pressure, those are the characteristics that people tend to hire for and those are the characteristics people can develop by going through an MBA program. An MBA grad is one way to identify the person who has been successful in going up the learning curve quickly.”
The bottom line here is that having leadership skills, the ability to motivate and inspire others, the ability to analyze the details, and the drive for continuous self-improvement as a lifelong commitment is paramount for career success as a business manager and leader in this day and age.
(image courtesy of Flickr user IHP, CC 2.0)
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