Education and the Career Trajectory

Finding the right career trajectory for your ambitions can be the key to finding the right career.

For the graduate keen to enter the challenging and potentially lucrative business world, the task can seem daunting at first. Should you be thinking about an MBA, and if so a general one or a specialist course such as MBA in Oil and Gas or Wine Management? Is an MSc a better idea for you and if so, what to specialize in? Finance? International Management? What if your future lies in PhD territory?

City institutions such as banks and management consultancies are proactively taking the lead on business education by telling the top schools what they expect from their new young leaders and managers. And it is clear that they increasingly require an educated workforce that can hit the ground not just running, but accelerating.

Simultaneously, business school graduates are seeing an increase in demand year on year. The benefits are available to all parties. Figures recently released by TopMBA.com, the world's leading postgraduate business school research, show that salaries and bonuses for graduates are accelerating away from those who do not have the comparable qualifications.

Almost all good undergraduate degrees can prepare you for postgraduate business study. Schools are taking proportionately fewer people with business as their first degree and are utilizing the diversity available in courses from Engineering to Medicine, Law to Humanities. The key question for the aspiring business postgraduate should be: Which direction is best for me?

You should be thinking about what is often referred to as "career trajectory" as early as possible, but don't forget that this will not commit you exclusively to whatever decision you make; you can change tack whenever you want. A large chunk of people with PhDs never considered such an undertaking until well into their postgrad careers. Likewise there are some who planned for academia only to land their ideal careers straight out of their MBA course.

While keeping an eye on the future, the nearest step in your education trajectory is the most important. What kind of person should do an MBA as opposed to any of the excellent Masters courses available worldwide?

Essentially, MBAs are a "post-experience" qualification while Masters courses are "pre-experience". David Bach, Associate Dean of MBA programmes and Professor of Strategy at IE Business School in Spain, says: "Some schools are letting exceptional people on MBA courses with little experience but the minimum tends to be at least three years. We require five years at IE Business School; however we do sometimes take candidates with less experience if they have a brilliant trajectory because we value diversity in our classrooms."

Penny Paquette, Special Assistant to the Dean at Tuck School of Business in New Hampshire USA, agrees: "The MBA is a professional degree designed to prepare students for positions as business managers and leaders rather than researchers or teachers. Students with at least one or two years of work experience are able to relate what they learn to the real world of business rather than just abstract theories and concepts they have been exposed to in the classroom. This is the reason in most of the top MBA programs the majority of students have previous work experience. In general, other masters programs in management are more academically focused, the majority of students have no previous work experience, and many graduates go on to get a PhD or DBA. So, decide what your goals are and choose the degree that is right for you."

As a result of this trend towards younger, highly ambitious people, business schools are taking the lead in good business practice by diversifying themselves and creating courses more appropriate for a less experienced age group. This is where the Masters course comes in.

Simon Stockley, Director of Full-time MBA Programs at Tanaka Business School, Imperial College, London, says: "There is a trend for younger people to want to get into business schools straight out of university; we therefore started to offer the pre-experience MSc in Management programmes. These are designed to provide recent graduates with some differentiation in the labour market when they are not experienced enough or prepared for the MBA. You'd tend to take the MBA later on and for one of three reasons, for career advancement, which is the dominant driver; to make a change in your career; or for learning more about entrepreneurialism."

Course focus and teaching styles are another essential difference between an MBA and a Masters. Masters courses still introduce graduates to general management but in a different way. Some cover the same material as parts of the MBA but are more didactic in manner with fewer case studies, less debate and a different style of teaching that is more lecture-based. MBAs tend to focus on teamwork, lots of contribution in class, learning from peers and networking and communication skills.  So if you feel this style is not playing to your strengths, maybe the more didactic Masters course may be for you.

Perhaps you also want to start focusing early. If maths is your strong suit, rather than leadership or communication, and you want to get a head start early in your career, a Masters in Finance, for example, could be your best option. The MBA may be too general for your skills and experience at this stage, but you feel ready to start studying very soon. Likewise, if you want to differentiate yourself in management and aren't ready for an MBA, Masters in Management courses are designed for you.

Another thing to consider is course length. The North American MBA model tends to be courses of two years in length whereas the European model has shorter courses, usually of one year. The jury is out as to which is better for the individual. You should be asking where you want to work after your studies (a North American MBA will benefit you in that region). How long can you afford to take out of your career to do this  don't forget that not only are fees expensive but that not being able to earn during your studies plays a big part. Can you afford to study for two years? Will the networking and time taken to contemplate your future be worth it?

These differences are what aspiring business postgraduates should be looking at. It's important to stress that MBAs are far more general in their approach and, though academically rigorous, you'll learn a set of skills that may not appeal to you if what you want to do is pure finance. David Bach says: "The MBA trains young professionals in general areas of management and to emphasize personal communication, leadership and management skills that cover all the areas. In the MBA you roughly do 25% class time in finance and accounting where the MA is 90% pure finance."

He goes on to say that the general nature of MBA courses, by definition, offer a very firm grounding in the other core skills such as operations, HR and organizational behaviour whereas those in Finance won't. "This is because the big banks are coming to us for students at the cutting edge of financial skills, derivatives, financial engineering, which are electives in an MBA but a core part of the MA. The banks say they need this as they already have people in HR and operations - the assumption is a graduate of MA in Finance won't have to do that kind of role."

Simon Stockley echoes this: "The Masters in Finance is a more quantitative degree featuring a lot of pure maths to equip graduates for corporate finance and Investment Banking jobs. It's a direct response to requests we have from the city. Virtually all of these graduates get careers in financial institutions."

Having said that, the MBA is still rightfully considered a major business qualification, particularly, as Simon Stockley says, "from one of the big schools. Reputation is important and people should do as much research as they can to find the school that has the best fit for them."

The QS TopMBA.com Recruiter Survey shows, as David Bach says, that "the MBA is the degree of choice for management careers in investment banking, consultancies and other industries too." The Survey, created after QS received responses from 489 international MBA recruiters, showed that there has been a 24% increase in demand for MBAs worldwide with the technology sector in particular (29%) showing high demand.

As the table shows, salaries are increasing at a higher rate for MBAs than those without the qualification. Opportunities seem to be extremely high and the generalist nature of the programme is seen as a definite boon by most of the companies surveyed. Jacinta Low of OCBC Bank, Singapore, says: "We view MBAs as our pipeline of future leaders. As MBA graduates they are expected to accelerate their learning and contribute to the organization quickly. Their work experience makes them a more stable and mature workforce, compared with other graduates."

The key thinking, then, is: think about your strengths, about where you want to go, about what style of course suits you best and start to plan your career trajectory early.