Minding your business

Updated on: Monday, July 12, 2010

An MBA can provide skills to make an individual more marketable and provide a greater career choice. But you need to research your choice of school to ensure that it matches your personal requirements.

Step 1: Why an MBA?
The first step is to analyse your personal motives.

* Do you want to carry on working while you do your MBA, or study full-time and look at new career opportunities?

* Is a salary increase what matters, or international experience?

* Is your primary goal to broaden your education and horizons, or to develop specialist skills for career enhancement?

An honest self-assessment will help you choose a focused selection of schools.
QS research demonstrates that MBA applicants around the world take an MBA for career-related reasons, to learn new skills and build a professional network, although ‘enabling a career change’ has noticeably increased in importance in recent years.

Step 2: Identify career goals

* Narrow down the type of career you might like to pursue, balanced by a realistic self-assessment of your skill base.

* Most B-School application forms ask for your career aspirations; they want to see a cogent explanation of where you want to be in the future and how that school can help you get there.

Step 3: Budget and study mode
The full-time MBA is still by far the most popular programme in terms of candidate numbers. The standard period for an international full-time MBA in the USA is two years. In Europe, London B-School and IESE offer a two-year course, whereas IMD, INSEAD, IE, Cambridge, and other leading courses are one year.

In Europe, the annual cost of an MBA can be from £5,000 to £40,000 for tuition, with books and living expenses extra. However, financial aid exists. Scholarships are offered by a variety of organisations, and many local banks offer low-start loans for the period of your study.

Step 4: Determining the criteria
Our research indicates that the most popular selection criteria are: scholarship availability, quality of academic staff, ROI, relevant specialisations and career placement record, with rankings coming only seventh.

Minding your business

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