Careers for MBAs: Selecting the Right Employer

Most applicants will apply to a particular business school with the aim of realizing long-aspired MBA career opportunities. But even for the most determined of MBA career seekers, there is a great deal of soul searching that needs to be conducted before transitioning from business education to employment.

Part of the reason that the top MBA programs are the best in their game is because they ensure that their students are given every opportunity to secure their ideal MBA career option.

Here, the fundamental requirement from students is that they make themselves available for school-organized schemes, whether they be industry internships, networking events, on-campus recruitment fairs, access to specialist portals catered to careers for MBAs, or leveraging the contacts from business school.

Utilizing contacts made at business school, plus those inherited through alumni networks, as well as their own and those of their classmates is the “name of the game” these days according to Paul Lindblad, assistant dean at the Paul Merage School of Business, UC Irvine.

That, and nurturing the soft skills needed to make new contacts during brief encounters such as those at school organized recruiter events.

“Developing your informational interviewing and networking skills which you will utilize over a lifetime is part of what you are gaining by earning your MBA,” says Lindblad.

“What you aren’t getting is your own personal executive search service. Anyone who thinks this is what business school can provide MBA students is living in a fantasy world, one that simply doesn’t exist.”

All of the top business schools have departments designed to give advice in MBA career options, such as honing networking and interviewing skills, helping organize industry internships, and placing candidates within a wide range of careers for MBAs.

“We encourage our students to thoroughly research all employment options early on in the course,” says Morea Josias, careers services at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB).

“To do so, we arrange sector networking early on in the MBA – where students can practice their networking skills by meeting alumni who are already working in the sectors they are interested in.

“We then arrange a comprehensive on campus recruitment program later on in the year, where students can listen to – and meet – recruiters face-to-face to find out more about their companies,” Josias says.

But while business schools excel in expanding the MBA career opportunities of their students before placing them in front of eager recruiters, they can’t ensure that their student’s make the right decisions for them when the time comes.