One study surveyed MBA graduates about their perceived financial and nonfinancial costs and benefits of their professional degree. Surprisingly, increased confidence was one of the highest-weighing and most important nonfinancial benefits of earning an MBA degree. By earning this degree while also balancing work, family, social life, and other personal commitments and not losing your sanity you will find an immense sense of reward and personal achievement.
There are different ways you can establish credibility in your firm and in your industry. You could volunteer for a project at work that stretches you beyond your comfort zone and shows off your hidden talents to company management. You could begin a solo side business or co-found one with family or friends to establish early credibility as a budding entrepreneur.
But the academic version of street cred in the business world is the MBA degree. Much of the knowledge and hard and soft skills you gain from earning your MBA is applicable across many industries.
You become more skilled and versatile regardless of your industry or job title thanks to widely applicable qualities like leadership, critical and analytical thinking, creativity, and communication. Unlike career-specific advanced degrees like a teaching credential or a medical degree, an MBA can transfer easily to many industries and offer you a wide array of careers throughout your life.
MBA graduates often possess an innate and insatiable curiosity. They know there is always something more to learn, and they endeavor to learn it. Earning the degree hones their ability to dig into competitive analyses, study emerging industries, and stay on top of all the newest developments, technologies, and trends in their industry.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing. The strategic thinking skills you learn while earning your MBA are not only applicable in the business world but across various areas of your life such as your personal goals and finances.
MBA graduates often find themselves communicating better at work with colleagues, bosses, or employees. But these communication skills can also apply at home with your significant other, kids, parents, or siblings, as well as in social situations such as networking events or company functions.
Being a better communicator is essential in everyday life, no matter where or when you communicate your needs and ideas for solutions. To earn your MBA degree, you have to attend classes and study sessions, complete assignments on time, and push yourself to work through rigorous, complex coursework.
Possibly, you have to do this while you continue to work. All of this takes a level of self-discipline that you may not take to naturally, but can cultivate with time and effort while working through the MBA program. When searching for someone to entrust with team leadership, hiring managers may turn to a candidate who has earned a business administration degree, demonstrating a good blend of soft skills and decision-making expertise.
Not only can an MBA degree open the door to more job opportunities, but it can also increase your earning potential. Hiring managers seeking employees for high-salaried positions who have the potential for further advancement are looking for employees who have already shown their skills and dedication to management excellence.
Completing an MBA program can help you earn that distinction. Furthermore, MBA graduates may have better job prospects when the hiring market is tough. Large employers, including household names such as Google, Amazon, and Netflix, often focus their hiring on business school students, and that did not change drastically in the hard-hit pandemic economy. Earning an MBA can be an important step on a career path that leads to high-level opportunities, the earning potential that comes with those positions of authority, and to a greater level of security in those important roles.
Those reasons are compelling, and may be enough to have you consider enrolling in a program. There are many other advantages, however.
These are more subtle, but can positively affect your trajectory in business. While career advancement, job security, and increased salary are some of the most sought-after benefits of an MBA degree, there are other hidden advantages you should also consider.
While going through an MBA program, you can gain knowledge and experience that helps in surprising ways as you pursue your career. The best business schools will help students emerge as well-rounded and skilled professionals, and this type of education goes beyond the syllabuses of the core classes.
In your MBA program, you will collaborate with like-minded students and have plenty of networking opportunities to meet other professionals. You can foster meaningful connections with a number of people who can deepen your understanding of the business world:. Business is not contained by borders. In an increasingly globalized business environment, the perspective and contacts you can gain from professionals in an MBA cohort are invaluable. While many online MBA programs address international markets in books or discussions, the regimen of MBA studies offered by the Carson College of Business can take your education a step further and help you explore world markets firsthand.
An international field study can help you build the confidence to go global in your career while earning credits toward graduation. You can also connect with business professionals from other countries and become familiar with their cultures, lived experiences, expertise, and unique perspectives.
Outside of your MBA program, consider honing your global knowledge by attending conferences and networking events. You may learn about business concerns around the world in preparation for your own career. Job site Indeed defined transferable skills as those that are useful to employees across various jobs and industries. This includes a mix of soft and hard skills that an MBA program can help you refine. Through discussions and collaboration with your cohort, you will develop these in-demand soft skills:.
As an MBA student, you will also complete practical and relevant assignments that can help you perfect these hard skills employers desire:. You can highlight these capabilities on resumes and during interviews. Of course, the MBA concentration you choose may also influence which skills are the most important to cultivate. For instance, a career in finance will require serious accounting expertise, while a marketer may emphasize their skills with search engine optimization.
An MBA program will ensure you hone the most important interpersonal and technical expertise — such as leadership skills — that every position requires, as well as the ones unique to your concentration. One of the most compelling elements of a well-designed MBA program is the way lectures and independent study are interspersed with case studies and examples based in the real corporate world.
Faculty members with connections and experience as business leaders can provide insights into the way these situations have played out in the recent past, and let you and your fellow students develop realistic solutions to authentic problems.
No amount of studying theory can take the place of actually developing a strategy that will resolve a problem, and by working through these exercises and projects, you can get a real feeling for what it takes to be a business leader. Accelerated MBA programs are also an option for people looking to earn the degree in a shorter period of time. Kellogg launched the first one-year MBA program more than 50 years ago for candidates with the focus and discipline to earn their degree in 12 months, and other schools like Cornell and Duke have added similar offerings.
The accelerated option is not for everyone, but if you have a business background and the need for speed, it may be the answer. To expand and diversify your network. A part of enrolling in business school is becoming part of a community of future leaders and well-connected alumni. At Kellogg, our global alumni network spans 65, people across more than 15 industries. Those connections add up, and the case is similar at many programs.
I was recently talking with a graduate who was in the running for a job at a large e-commerce tech company, but suddenly became stuck in the hiring process. An alum with connections at that company made an inquiry, discovered the issue was a delay in HR, and provided a recommendation that moved her application forward.
Most MBA programs offer access to networking events hosted by clubs and employers, as well as affinity networks and student-led conferences — all opportunities that could expand your reach, and therefore, your chances of success in the business world. It takes passion, proactivity, and hard work to expand your knowledge and skills. And MBA programs are just that: very hard work. Most students who enroll have a track record of professional success and are seeking further development.
If you are feeling doubts about your current role, or struggling to advance at the pace you want, there are other steps you can take first. For example, you can step up at work by asking your manager for a stretch project in your area of interest and seeking out their critical feedback. You can also try cultivating relationships with people whose careers you admire to find out what they did to get where they are. With this level of engagement, you might learn more about what you really want, set new goals, and be positioned to take full advantage of an MBA program when, and if, you choose to pursue one later on.
Your parents offer to pay for it. Students who get the most out of business school and reap the benefits in the future are those who want to stretch themselves academically, professionally, and personally. You can take advantage of online platforms, go to conferences, or even participate in volunteer programs to build your skills and your network.
There are plenty of other ways to pay for an MBA, like through fellowships and employer sponsorship. So, the default is to go to business school. Boredom can take the form of frustration — with not being recognized, not getting better projects, watching others get promoted. This is an invitation to pause and reflect: Why are these opportunities going to other people and not you? What skills do you need?
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