Understanding the Intricacies of a Career Change

By Pavel Kantorek Updated Jan 23, 2020

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Introduction
Why does career planning matter?
Why is seeking career guidance necessary?
How can career training activities help?

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This article is sponsored by ESSEC Business School.

Learn more about its Global MBA Program.

A career change can be defined as a change of country, field or function. It seldom happens that you can change all three. Claire Gaudissart, career development manager at ESSEC Business School, explains that while MBAs are often viewed as a means to seek a career change, it’s not straightforward, and is all about making the right tradeoffs.

Why does career planning matter?

Undertaking an MBA is quite a challenge; it’s like embarking on a journey and therefore requires serious preparation, of which career planning is an essential part. Not everybody needs an MBA; anybody who chooses to do one must know why and how it’s relevant for their career path.

“Career planning needs to be both focused and flexible. Focused, because that’s part of your motivation for applying for an MBA, and you’ll need focus to get through the application process, to write your essay, and to be convincing during interviews. Last but not least, once you’ve started the MBA, your focus will be the foundation that you build upon. Flexible, because doing an MBA is going to change you so much. It will open so many doors and options that you will need to explore and adapt to. If you have no base you cannot build, but if your plans are too rigid, you might miss opportunities,” says Gaudissart.

Full-time MBAs are so academically intense that participants often forget about career planning. That’s another reason why it’s wise to plan ahead and start thinking about what you want your next steps to be, regardless of whether or not you want a career change. Participants often postpone their career planning because they feel overwhelmed by assignments and end up panicking a couple of months before graduation because they don’t have a clear target.

“Time is scarce during an MBA so the further you are in the process of career planning before diving into the MBA waters, the better. At ESSEC Business School, for example, we see that the best success stories come from students who from day one had a clear idea of their target (country, field, role, type of company) and who never missed an opportunity to work on their job search or to network,” says Gaudissart.

Why is seeking career guidance necessary?

Career guidance is essential in the MBA program because candidates need support to structure their strategy. Incredibly enough, many experienced professionals have never had the opportunity – or the foresight in some cases – to sit down and think about their choices and their goals. They sometimes feel they are facing a blank page and are at loss to fill it in.

“When choosing an MBA, candidates should look closely at the quality of the career coaching. That may be a question to ask current students,” says Gaudissart.

She adds that cultural background plays a part in how far students are in the decision-making process. “Very diversified cohorts inevitably imply that participants are at varied stages in their reflection. One-on-one sessions are therefore absolutely necessary in order to address their specific needs. The career coach acts like a sounding board, he or she challenges the plan, gives input, guides the participants and helps them gain awareness. The main goal being to adjust the career plan and make sure it’s achievable. A participant whose plan is to transition will need career guidance to gauge whether their plans are realistic to make sure he or she doesn’t waste precious time and energy targeting something out of reach,” says Gaudissart.

In addition to coaches, many business school offer access to mentors. These are also very important guides, though in a complementary role to the career development manager. They are usually executives who offer support on advice based on their own experience. They can be of valuable help to someone seeking an MBA career change, as they can reach out to their own network.

How can career training activities help?

On-campus career training activities include workshops on topics such as crafting personal branding tools such as resumes, pitches, summaries, interview preparations, etc.

“At ESSEC Business School, for example, Global MBA students find these interactive workshops are very useful because of the previous experiences each participant can share with others,” says Gaudissart.

“Given the changing trends in recruiting, these workshops provide precious information on how to market yourself effectively. This is all the more important for those seeking a career change, for which you need to master the art of selling yourself. They need to understand how to present themselves and their experience from a different perspective, which means using the right key words for their target jobs,” she says, adding that transitioning means understanding and adapting to achieve a goal, which requires some amount of career training activities.

An MBA can be a great path to a career change, but you will need to put in the effort yourself. Nothing will come on a plate.

This article is sponsored by ESSEC Business School.

Written by

Pavel Kantorek

Mansoor is a contributor to and former editor of TopMBA.com. He is a higher and business education specialist, who has been published in media outlets around the world. He studied English literature at BA and MA level and has a background in consumer journalism.