Nowadays, having an MBA is one of the tools with which you can develop your corporate career and have a competitive profile in the labor market. Some of the benefits of studying an MBA are that you will develop personally, you will acquire various skills such as critical and analytical thinking, you will acquire knowledge from the hands of experts, among others. Since companies need diversity in the training of their staff to enrich their organization and obtain better results, by studying a Master in Business Administration, you will become the ideal candidate. For this reason, choosing the MBA to study is a very important decision, since what you can offer to companies will depend on it; Not to mention the benefits that this graduate degree will have in the personal and professional sphere.
To decide which MBA is the most suitable for you, it is important to make a deep and honest reflection of your motivations to study it. Sometimes professionals decide to do an MBA because they want a better salary, job opportunities in a foreign country to live there, they want to change areas, etc.
Once you are clear about your reason (s), you can begin your search for those MBA’s that support your decision. To do this, you will have to take into account the following to find the right MBA for your interests and goals:
- Your past work experience: There are several competitive MBA programs that require work experience. This is the case of Executive MBA’s that have a seniorfocus, so it is ideal for people with managerial positions who are interested in updating or reinforcing their knowledge and skills. For this reason, classes for this type of MBA are usually taught on weekends because, having an important position within an organization, they usually look for an option that allows them to combine work and study.
On the other hand, the Full-Time MBA is focused on recent graduates or people who have little work experience and non-managerial positions, and who need to specialize to continue advancing in their professional career.
- Your present situation: Most likely, when you finish studying your chosen MBA, your career path will be boosted and your career will change to the direction you have defined. On the one hand, as already mentioned, studying an MBA can be the opportunity to develop yourself in other areas or live in another country. In the latter case, a postgraduate degree abroad is the most appropriate. Likewise, it is important that you take into account whether or not you want to continue working while you are studying, since the modality of the course that best suits you will depend on it: face-to-face, online or combined.
- Planning your career: Your career plan should be individual and, therefore, should not be a replica of someone else’s plan. Remember that the aspirations and situations of each person are different, and you will have to think about the plan that will lead you to your professional and personal fulfillment.
- Your basic career or degree: It is important that you take into account that if your degree career is in the Administrative area, it is not convenient for you to study an MBA. This is because, by counting said degree, you are already familiar with the strategies and tactics that are taught in the MBA’s. In this case, you should do a specialization that helps you understand how the organization relates to the world, to mention a few examples, a master’s degree in the area of international relations, geopolitics or political science.
When you have chosen the type of MBA that best suits your needs and objectives, you will have to choose a prestigious institution with the most appropriate program for your profile, where to study. To name a few of high prestige, which will undoubtedly give you tools that other schools could not give you, they are The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, London Business School, Harvard Business School, and others recognized worldwide for their academic quality. We recommend that you analyze the variables listed below when choosing the universities where you will apply:
- Accreditations and certifications: Make sure that the university has international certifications (and that there are more than one), as well as that it has quality accreditations, as this is an indication of high quality of teaching.
- Position in world ranking: Investigate the position of the university in which you are interested, as well as its intentions to continue improving its position. This means that they have worked on teacher training, research, job opportunities for their students, among others. We emphasize this as this way you guarantee that the graduate to study is a competitive MBA and that you will study at a university of global prestige. A clear example of the universities with the best ranking are MIT, Harvard and Stanford, which usually occupy the first positions.
- Business environment: Analyze the possibilities that the institution offers you in terms of increasing your networking network and employment opportunities. If your reason for studying the MBA is to work abroad, this point becomes very important when choosing the institution.
- Postgraduate cost: Studying an MBA is one of the best investments you can make. However, doing so carries both a monetary and an opportunity cost. Consider everything you will have to do in order to study and complete your MBA successfully. Remember that there are different scholarships and financing that will help you meet your goal and that for no reason the monetary cost should be an impediment to benefit from an MBA.