Surprising Opportunties for MBAs

What opportunities are out there for an MBA these days?

Many new MBA grads are asking this question and the answer may surprise you.

To paraphrase an experienced, highly successful business person and MBA, the best thing you can do is forget about your MBA -nobody is hiring a piece of paper; they're hiring a PERSON -with a particular attitude and skill set.

This is not to undervalue MBA learning. It's simply to state that an MBA toolbox is only as powerful as the PERSON who weilds the tools.

The correct question therefore is; "How do I become the right person for the opportunities that are out there?"

In fact many of the success stories that are told by Executives and recent grads at VIU's Executive Hour presentations carry the thread of how the path they followed demonstrated that they were the right person for the opportunities that presented themselves (in opposition to the opportunity being right for them, a small semantic difference with a vast difference in results!)

The story of Sid, an MBA grad of 3 years now is a perfect case in point.

Sid's attitude and orientation toard work was evident from the beginning where, a fresh Commerce grad with a focus in Marketing, he worked in a major bank as a temp hire processing investment applications.

Demonstrating an excellent ability to handle routine and repetitive tasks, Sid was kept on as a filing clerk in the back office of the bank. This also, not surprisingly, he handled beyond expectation and was promoted almost immediately to higher levels of responsibility. 2 1/2 years later Sid had landed in a comfortable position and had a flouishing career in the bank.

Then Sid decided to further his studies with an MBA in Canada. He entered a 1 year condensed program with an internship. Sid attended internship prep classes and diligently participated in all of the employer speaker engagements at the University. At one of these engagements, he met with a wealthy local entrepreneur. An unpaid intership opportunity arose with one of the entrepreneur's companies. With the same attitude, determination and attention to detail Sid had utilized to climb the bank's corporate ladder, Sid now impressed the entrepreneur.

Completing the internship, Sid was immediately offered a job with a new start up the entrepreur had begun. The job didn't pay well, but it did provide Sid with an opportunity to further hone his skill set as a business analyst, and he stuck with it for just over a year.

In the meantime Sid's landlord had suggested that he should talk to her cousin who worked for Ernst and Young. Sid's immediate reaction was not to bother as he was an MBA not a CA. In spite of this he decided to connect with the contact and see what he could learn. Through an informational interview, Sid learned that E & Y actually provided a great number of services to clients that didn't require being a CA. Hitting it off well with the E & Y contact, she insisted that he be introduced to one of the partners at the local office.

Before meeting the partner, Sid did his due diligence. In addition to what he learned at the informational interview he scoured the internet for more clues to what the company did and how his background skill set would be relevant and attractive to them. When he finally met the partner he was only asked a single question; "Tell me about yourself". What ensued was a strategic conversation in which Sid managed to weave in several stories of his experiences that were directly relevant to an entry level role with E & Y.

Sid was offered a job with Ernst & Young shortly after and 2 years later is now in the same role as the landlord's cousin who he interviewed a couple years earlier.

The striking point about Sid's story is that he approached each phase of his career with exactly the same openness to learning and dedicated enthusiasm. He didn't wait around for the right opportunity for his skills. Instead he took the opportunity that was before him and followed through with it -until the next opportunity presented itself.

While looking for MBA opportunities don't forget to notice the plethora of opportunities right in front of you, even if they don't have an MBA stamped all over them.

Amazing Connections

The People Who Drive Business

No matter what business person I'm talking to, their business invariably comes down to one thing: people.

It might seem obvious, but many, many people act as if business is primarily about other things, like knowledge, education, savvy moves, creativity. These things are good, but all emerge from the foundation of people. What good is knowledge if it's not recognized? How does your education help you if the people around you aren't educated (and therefore don't believe you!)? What's savvy if no one agrees it's savvy? Is a failure ever given the title of creative?

To the point, job seekers, and internship seekers need to take the point deep into thier hearts and consciousness: business is all about people. It follows then that a key to internship and job searching is connecting with people, making a good impression and then following up consistently (note all three of these steps).

There are lots of tools out there now to do this - Facebook, LinkedIn; but in my experience the best way is the old fahioned way, talk to them, shake their hands, buy them a coffee!

It doesn't even matter if you've just arrived in a new country a don't know a single person. Providing you follow a few universal rules of ettiquette, you have absolutely no excuse for not being able to build a great network of contacts.

The network of contacts you build will be the people who mentor you, give you leads, get you jobs, become your clients, become your friends, and best of all - they are the people who introduce you to new contacts.

Stay tuned for the next Blog post on the topic of "The Most Powerful Networking Technique Known to Mankind".