Does an MBA make sense for you?

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Does an MBA make sense for you?

Thousands of people have found that an MBA was the right choice for them. GMAC® knows it can be difficult to make that choice. We have worked with business schools around the world for nearly 50 years, so we know better than anyone how the MBA can change your life. We have provided information and tools below to aid you.

Here, learn about the degree and yourself to determine if the two are a good fit. CareerLeader® can help you determine if your interests, abilities, and values are steering you in the right direction. See what types of careers exist for MBA graduates with our Vault and WetFeet career information. And realistically consider the value an MBA would give you with our informative articles and podcasts from corporate recruiters and MBA alumni.
source:mba.com
 
Re: The MBA in the Marketplace

The MBA in the Marketplace
What will an MBA do for you? Find out from those who know—MBAs and the companies that hire them.

What Corporate Recruiters Say?
Each year, the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®) conducts a comprehensive, global survey of corporate recruiters who hire recent MBA graduates. In the Corporate Recruiters Survey, we ask, among other things, what recruiters look for in new MBA hires, how they make hiring decisions, what qualities they value most in MBA employees, and what skills and abilities they wish MBAs had.


This article highlights results from our 2006 survey. We hope it will help you understand what recruiters are looking for, so you can make sure you are well prepared when you start to look for post-MBA employment.


Where Companies Recruit MBAs, and How This May Affect Your School Decision
One of the ways graduating MBAs find post-MBA jobs is through companies that have a relationship with the career services office at their business schools. Those companies must choose the schools at which they wish to recruit. Corporate recruiters tell us they like to recruit at the schools that have consistently produced highly qualified MBA job applicants for them before.


Once you decide on a career path and begin to look for the right school for you, make sure that as part of your school search, you find out how successful the schools you are interested in are at placing graduates in jobs in your desired field. Also, find out what companies recruit at the schools; if none of those companies interest you, you might want to look at other schools that have recruiting relationships with companies where you would want to work.


What Corporate Recruiters Look for in MBA Hires
Recruiters have indicated what characteristics of potential new MBA hires are most important in their hiring decisions. The top 10 are as follows:

cultural fit with the company
proven ability to perform
strong "soft" skills, including communication and interpersonal skills
strong "hard" skills, including quantitative knowledge and technical skills acquired in the MBA program
specific background (e.g. engineering, science, liberal arts)
MBA functional area/concentration of study
evidence of adaptability
strong management skills
prior internship/work experience related to the industry, job, or company
years of professional work experience
What does this mean for you? The top three characteristics—your cultural assimilation, proven performance, and communication and people skills—may be just as important to your job prospects as all the other skills you learn in your MBA program. Make sure you develop good leadership and presentation skills; you could have the best budget-management skills, but if you can't communicate well with your colleagues and clients, your skills will be of no use to an employer.

Also, make sure that you pursue jobs in industries and companies where you are confident you will be a good fit. The CultureMatch section of the CareerLeader® online self-assessment will help you determine the industries, jobs, and companies with the right fit for you.



Why Employers Like MBAs and What They'd Like to See Improved
Why do recruiters like MBAs in general, and how do MBAs measure up to expectations the most? What skills could MBAs stand to improve? Here are the top five items on the recruiters' lists:

Most Attractive MBA Skills
ability to think analytically
ability to think strategically
quantitative skills
leadership skills
oral communication skills
Skills That Should Be Improved
people management skills
leadership skills
ability to make decisions with imperfect information
interpersonal skills
written communication skills
Clearly, employers find that MBAs have well-developed quantitative and analytical skills, but they would like to see even stronger management and leadership skills.


So how do you measure up, pre-MBA? Do you have the skills recruiters are looking for? What skills and abilities do you wish to develop in an MBA program?


Unrealistic Expectations: Don't Let Them Stand between You and a Job
To help you prepare to succeed in the job placement process, we asked recruiters to tell us what barriers they encounter when trying to hire new MBA grads—the deal-breakers that can derail the hiring process. The top three barriers they cite have to do with the inaccurate assumptions of MBAs:

unrealistic salary expectations
unrealistic job expectations
unrealistic view of advancement opportunities
To avoid the pitfall of unrealistic expectations, make sure that you thoroughly research the careers that interest you, the backgrounds of people who succeed in those fields, and the salaries those people command. Also remember that the school you attend, the location of your intended job, your work experience, and your academic performance, among other factors, can affect your salary and prospects for advancement. Be prepared for those realities before you start interviewing for a job; it'll stand you in good stead to get the job offers you want.


Graduate Management Admission Council® and GMAC® are registered trademarks of the Graduate Management Admission Council®. All rights reserved.
 
Re: What Graduating MBAs Say?

What Graduating MBAs Say?


One of the things everybody considers before deciding to go for an MBA is what the value of the degree will be to them. We thought it would be helpful to your decision making to learn what MBA students about to graduate say about what the MBA means to them.


We know from our surveys that despite varying backgrounds, schools, and career aspirations, most graduating MBAs feel that the overall value of the MBA degree is high, and most say they are satisfied with the benefits of the degree. MBAs also report that they have more career opportunities and a significant boost in pay as a result of their degree.


Each year, the Graduate Management Admission Council® surveys thousands of graduating MBAs to ask questions about—

what they expected from their MBA programs and post-MBA employment,
how satisfied they are with their degree, and
what career paths they chose.
This article is based on information we received from more than 6,000 MBAs from the graduating class of 2006 who participated in the Global MBA® Graduate Survey. These MBAs come from a variety of full-time, part-time, and executive MBA programs and schools around the world. Although the information we share in this article is from our 2006 survey, it is largely consistent with what we have heard from graduating MBAs every year since we first conducted the survey in 2000.

How Graduating MBAs Rate Their MBA Experience

Most graduating MBAs are very positive about the value of their degree, compared with the monetary cost of earning it. Sixty-three percent rate the overall value of their degree as outstanding or excellent, and another 29% rate it as good.

But what does "MBA value" mean to the class of 2006? When the graduating MBA students we surveyed rated the value of their degree, they took into account three different kinds of benefits of the degree: the instrumental benefits (what the degree would help them achieve), the personal benefits (how the degree helped them grow as individuals), and the intellectual benefits (what they were able to learn).


The most important influences over how highly people rate the value of their degree are the quality of their school and program (particularly the curriculum, faculty, and school culture) and how they feel about the benefits of the degree (for instance, how it will increase their earning power and job opportunities, help them improve personally, and help them develop their knowledge and skills).


So, when it comes time for you to choose your MBA school and program, remember that quality counts, and be sure to know what you are looking for in terms of the benefits of the degree—it's likely to make you happier with the value of your MBA once you graduate.


Bottom Line: MBA Salaries
But what about those salary perks? We've learned from surveys of corporate recruiters and MBAs that the salaries paid to MBA graduates are higher than those paid to people right out of college and people who graduated with other kinds of master's degrees.


The typical MBA in the class of 2006 made US$61,302 before earning the MBA degree and expects a post-MBA salary of US$86,350—that's a 41% increase, and an immediate return on the MBA investment.

Of course, the typical salary is an average of all salaries; the range of pre- and post-MBA salaries includes some that are much lower and some that are much higher than the average. Factors that will affect your actual post-MBA salary include the following:

your post-MBA job function
the industry you work in after graduation
the geographic region in which you work
your pre-MBA professional experience (including whether your experience base is in the field you pursue post-MBA)
MBAs on Choosing a School and Program
Armed with all this information about the value of the MBA to you and out in the marketplace, you'll be better able to make some good decisions about where to attend school, but it may also be helpful to know how most MBAs have found their schools.


First, you should know that 62% of graduates in the class of 2006 would recommend their schools to someone else who is interested in the degree—so we know they believe they made good decisions. What factored into their school choices? Historically, the biggest influences have been—


the quality and reputation of the school,
the financial cost of the school,
personal fit (whether the school was right for them as individuals), and
location.
There are a few things you might want to think about when you are shopping for the right school. The first is that, to people choosing an MBA program, good school quality and reputation are assurances of a return on investment upon graduation; low-quality programs are not likely to offer the kinds of benefits and opportunities high-quality programs do.

Another consideration in your choice of schools and programs will be cost. You might assume that those who paid a lot for their degree would have a harder time saying it was all worth it, but the exact opposite is true—those who felt they paid a lot valued the degree most. Some of this may have to do with consumer psychology, which tells us that things that are expensive are more valuable than things that are inexpensive. But another explanation for this phenomenon could be that those who did not let high prices discourage them from attending the school they really wanted to attend were glad they made the financial sacrifices to go to the school of their dreams. We're not saying you should go broke to get your MBA, but we are suggesting that there may be some trade-offs in exchange for choosing the less expensive school.

One more thing you may want to consider as you approach a school decision is how you will use published rankings. For instance, when we asked the class of 2004 how they rated the value of the MBA, we found only one factor that caused people to value their degree less, and that was their use of published rankings in their school decision. That is to say, the more the graduates had depended on published rankings to help them choose their school, the less likely they were to give the value of their degree a high rating.

This finding might suggest that when people focus on school rankings, they don't necessarily investigate the attributes and quality of a business school for themselves. It's important that you define quality for yourself, and that you make sure that the school you choose offers the curriculum, faculty, and services you will need to further your career goals. (For more information about choosing the right school and program, see the Find Your Program section of this site.)

Every step you take in the beginning to find the school that matches your needs will increase the likelihood of your being one of the majority of graduating MBAs who say the degree delivers on its promise.



Graduate Management Admission Council® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admission Council®. All rights reserved.
 
Re:What MBA Alumni Say?

What MBA Alumni Say?

You may still be wondering if the MBA is a good value to you. You have read articles and looked at some schools, but you would like to have insider knowledge about the value of an MBA degree. What if you could talk to some recent MBA graduates and alumni and learn what they think about the value of the degree? Are they satisfied with what they learned and with the jobs they are doing? What would they do differently if they could?


Twice a year the Graduate Management Admission Council® surveys MBA alumni who have been in the post-MBA job market for one to five years to find out what they think about their MBA degree and what it is doing for them in their careers.


In general, MBA alumni report higher salaries than before they earned the MBA, high rates of job satisfaction, confidence that they did the right thing by earning an MBA, and satisfaction with the career opportunities that their MBA skills bring. This article summarizes key findings from the 2005 MBA Alumni Perspectives Survey.

Alumni on Post-MBA Employment
Job Satisfaction, Placement, and Advancement
The majority of MBA alumni are pleased with their jobs and their career progression since leaving business school. Most would strongly recommend their job, would decide without hesitation to take the same job if they had to make the decision again, and say their jobs are very much like the jobs they wanted after graduating from business school.


Forty-one percent of the MBA alumni got their first post-MBA job after graduating from business school. Thirty percent worked for their post-MBA employer during business school, and another 11% had an internship or work project with their post-MBA employer. Five percent of the alumni were self-employed when they graduated.


Overall, 38% of the alumni one to five years out of business school have received at least one promotion in their current job since graduation, and nearly a quarter of that percentage has received three or more. The average salary increases reported ranged from 10% for graduates with one year of post-MBA employment to 27% for graduates with four years of post-MBA employment.


Most MBA alumni say they could not have gotten their current jobs without the management education training they received as part of their MBA degree.

The Why, Where, and What of Alumni Jobs
MBAs both immediately before graduation and a few years out of school consistently cite the same top factors for taking their post-MBA jobs and staying in them: opportunities to learn new things, job autonomy, challenging work, and opportunities for advancement.


Alumni say the most important MBA skills they use on the job are the following:

interpersonal skills
the ability to integrate information
oral communication skills
the ability to think analytically
The large majority of MBA alumni work in their countries of citizenship (80%). Sixty-six percent work for multinational companies, 18% work in national companies, and 17% work in regional or local companies.


The following list shows what percentage of MBAs are working in various major industries:

22% work in products and services
20% work in finance and accounting
15% work in the technology industry
14% work in the consulting industry
8% work in manufacturing
8% work in the healthcare or pharmaceuticals industry
8% work in the nonprofit or government industry
3% work in energy and utilities
Satisfaction with MBA Choices and the MBA
Most alumni say they definitely made the right decision about pursuing their MBA degree (75%). They were less sure about their choice of schools; 53% said they definitely made the right decision about their schools, and 36% said they probably did. Eleven percent said they probably or definitely did not make the right decision. (Don't be like them—see the Find Your Program section of this site for help in making the best school decisions for you.)


With regard to choosing the right type of program (e.g., full-time, part-time, or executive), the large majority of MBA alumni—78%—say they definitely did. Finding the right MBA concentration is another matter; only 55% say they definitely chose the right concentration, and 37% say they probably did. This result suggests that these alumni may not have had a good enough sense of what they wanted to do with their degrees when they chose their concentrations. To ensure that you choose the right MBA concentration when the time comes, see Self-Assessment: The Real Edge.

MBA alumni generally express a high level of satisfaction with the benefits they gained from their graduate management education. They express the most satisfaction with the following five benefits of the MBA:

the opportunity to improve personally
gaining desired credentials
an increase in career options (this is historically the number-one reason people go for an MBA)
development of management and technical skills
preparation to get a good job in the business world
What They Would Have Done Differently—What You Can Do Better
We asked the MBA alumni what knowledge and skills they wish they had acquired (or acquired to a greater extent) as part of their MBA education. In retrospect, MBA alumni say they wish they had received more education or training in the following areas:

managing their careers
conducting financial analysis and preparing budgets
developing a strategic plan
developing their networking skills
recruiting, managing, and maintaining staff
These hindsight observations by MBA alumni can help you make better educational choices in your MBA program so you will have fewer—or, we hope, no—regrets about what you should have learned when you were in school.


The good news for the alumni is that MBA learning never stops; with new degree and nondegree programs being offered all the time by business schools and corporations, MBA graduates can gain the knowledge and skills they need to continually stay ahead of the knowledge curve in their jobs and industries.



Graduate Management Admission Council® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admission Council®. All rights reserved.
 
Re: Business Publications

Business Publications


Business publications, both online and print, can help you evaluate your career goals, get a sense of the value of an MBA, choose from among MBA programs, and prepare for school and job interviews. We recommend the following sources of cutting-edge business and industry news.
 
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Re: Get Yourself Financially Ready for the MBA

Get Yourself Financially Ready for the MBA

It's never too early to start thinking about how you will pay for your MBA, even if you are still figuring out what business school program is best for you. The majority of students use some kind of financing to help pay for their degree, and for most, loans are a significant and important part of the financial aid package.

If you are likely to need financial aid, make sure that as you prepare yourself to be a successful business school applicant, you take steps to ensure your financial success in the application process.

Get Your Credit Report and Your Credit Score
Before you apply for financial aid, you will need to review and understand your credit profile. Your credit profile consists of a summary of your credit history and your numerical credit score. There are three major credit bureaus that track credit history:

Equifax
Experian
Trans Union
Getting your credit profiles is easy. Each of the three bureaus allows you to purchase either a single credit report or a report with information from all three bureaus. You will want to review information from all the bureaus, because lenders may report your credit history to one, two, or all three of those bureaus.

Review each of your credit reports carefully to determine whether all the information is accurate. If any information on the reports seems inconsistent or incorrect, you can file a dispute. To do so, visit the Web site of the bureau whose report contains the questionable information, and follow the directions to file an online dispute.

If you find something in your credit report that isn't accurate, you will need to file a dispute with each of the bureaus reporting the information. Working with one bureau won't resolve discrepancies in the other bureaus' reports.

In addition to checking for mistakes, you should review your reports for lines of credit (such as credit cards) that you no longer use. When you apply for a student loan, as with any other sort of loan, the less available credit you have, the more attractive you will look to your lender.

Here are some tips for handling your open lines of credit:

Do
Close cards you aren't using (like the store card you opened up to save 15% on a purchase).
Maintain sufficient credit to use in case of emergency.
Don't
Don't close all your cards at once. Instead, do this over a period of a couple of months.
Don't open new lines of credit or take out any new loans. The more people look at or "pull' your credit history to give you credit, the worse off you are.
Pay Off Debt
Now is a great time to pay off as much debt as you can. There are two reasons why you should do this. First, the less outstanding debt you have, the better you will look to lenders. Second, once you start business school, you will likely live on a tighter budget, and you won't want to have a lot of extra payments every month. Remember, consumer debt can't be deferred during the course of your studies.

Adjust Your Expenses
Now is the time to reassess your monthly expenses and pare them down wherever possible. Your vehicle might have been your dream car when you purchased it, but you should determine whether you can make the payments once you are in school, and whether you will even need the car once you're in school. You might be surprised at how small changes in your purchasing habits will help out in the long run.

Educational financial aid is designed to help with educational expenses only; additional monthly expenses (such as car notes or other consumer debt) will not influence the size of your loan award.

For More Information
For information about applying for financial aid, visit the Make Your Decision section of this Web site and see Paying for Your MBA.

For more tips on improving your credit score, visit myFICO - FICO Credit Scores | Get a Free Credit Report Online.
 
Re: Assess the R.O.I. (Return on Investment)

Assess the R.O.I. (Return on Investment)


Graduate school is one of the biggest investments you will ever make in yourself. Before you commit to going for an MBA, one of the important questions you'll want to answer for yourself is, How much return will I get on my investment?


We recently asked graduating MBAs of the class of 2006 to compare the overall value of their MBA degree with the cost of earning it. The overwhelming majority were very positive about the value of the degree, rating it outstanding or excellent. One way to improve the chances that you will assess the value of your degree similarly is to do a good job of weighing the relative costs and benefits of the degree up front.


You should only begin to think about the costs and benefits of your degree after you have determined that an MBA degree will help you attain your goals. That is, before you calculate the costs and the return on your business school investment, do some self-assessment to determine what industries and job functions fit your skills, values, and interests, and make sure that the MBA will help you pursue your desired career.


Next, consider the costs of your degree as you would any large expenditure of time and financial resources. Given that about 70% of MBAs received financial aid to pay for their education, you should decide whether you are willing to make a similar financial commitment. (If you need an income but don't think you can work and go to school at the same time, keep this in mind: A recent U.S. Department of Education study showed a surprising result: 75% of MBA students overall and 61% of full-time MBA students work more than 35 hours a week.


We're not saying it's easy to work and go for your MBA at the same time, but most MBAs manage to do it. Don't think you have to give up on your MBA dream just because you need your paycheck.


Calculating Costs
The first step in figuring out what your MBA will cost is to determine what tuition and living expenses you will incur and the type and amount of financial aid you will realistically be able to obtain. Carefully consider how much of your financial aid offer is in the form of loans and prepare a budget for your living expenses to figure out whether the loans will cover all your expenses.


Also consider—

loan interest and principal repayment
relocation expenses and any associated change in living expenses
"opportunity cost": factor in any income you will lose while in school. Part-time programs allow you to keep a full-time work schedule but, in most cases, take longer to complete than full-time programs. In a full-time program, if you don't work while in school, you will lose income for the length of the program; however, full-time programs are typically shorter than part-time programs and will allow you to get back into the job market with your MBA and earn an MBA salary quicker than part-time programs will.
Incidental Costs
You will incur expenses as you search for an MBA program, during the application process, and as you begin searching for a postgraduation job. You will likely want to narrow the list of schools to which you apply because of the costs, time, and effort involved. Costs add up quickly. Be realistic about what you will need to spend to apply to each school. Factor the following expenses into your budget:

testing fees, test-preparation materials, and other miscellaneous costs
application fees (ranging from US $40 to US $200), including fees for submittals using Web services or CD-ROM programs
phone calls
transcript request fees
corporate networking visits
postage or express delivery services
travel expenses for recruiting events, interviews, or campus visits
Weighing the Benefits
Finally, evaluate the benefits of the MBA degree in terms of higher salaries and more career opportunities now and over the course of your career. Also consider higher skill levels in management and business, better job preparedness, the opportunity to meet and form lifelong relationships with your MBA classmates, and the personal growth and satisfaction that come from earning an MBA degree. These are all benefits of the MBA that make graduates feel satisfied with their degree.


An MBA can open doors to a range of personal and employment opportunities. If you consider all the costs and benefits in light of your unique goals and circumstances and decide that an MBA is what you want, you can approach the next phase of your school decision confidently, knowing that you are about to make a wise investment in your future.
source:mba.com
 
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