5 New Ways an MBA Can Help You Conquer the Business World - CareerAlley

5 New Ways an MBA Can Help You Conquer the Business World - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. An MBA is the price of admission for landing the best jobs the corporate world has to offer. If you want a solid salary, respectable benefits and the chance to be associated with companies lauded in the pages of Forbes or Bloomberg Businessweek, a resume listing credentials beyond bachelors degree in business administration can put you light years ahead of the pack. Still, spending several years in graduate school can seem like a daunting proposition. Long nights of studying, group projects and time away from friends and family can be exhausting. You may find yourself asking, is an MBA worth it? The answer is yes, especially when you consider these five surprising ways an MBA can help to you transform your career and shoot to the top of the corporate ladder. Expand Your Experience To successfully navigate complex business situations, you need wisdom gleaned through experience. Simply having obtained a bachelors degree in business administration wont provide all the know-how youll need on the job. Most MBA programs, whether they are offered by site-based or distance education universities, provide opportunities to gain experience through hands-on, group projects, giving you the chance to learn from your mistakes before the fate of stockholders is in your hands. Better still, through case studies and course reading, you have the chance to learn from the performance of famous CEOs and lesser known business maestros. When similar situations come up in the real world, you will know what to do. Meet Your LinkedIn Connections Networking has always been an important part of graduate business studies. While learning management theory and understanding how to craft the perfect pricing strategy for your products are important, knowing the right people is essential. In the past, keeping up with your business school network was difficult and, as contacts drifted away geographically, promised less of a return on the time invested in maintaining those relationships. Today, social networking sites like LinkedIn make it easy to stay in touch with business acquaintances, no matter where the job market takes them. Take the time to meet other students in your MBA program and get to know what you have to offer each other. These relationships will pay off for the rest of your life. Interview Your Industry If your MBA program requires an internship, you are in luck. As Bloomberg Businessweek points out, the summer internship is really a two-month interview to determine if the candidate merits a full-time job offer. Its also your chance to interview your industry. Pay attention to the corporate culture you experience and how your skill set and personality mesh with the job at hand. The business experience an MBA internship can provide is important and can help you in any corporate environment, but the chance to try an industry out before you commit years of your life to it is priceless. See also: Make the Most of an Internship Get to Know Your Future Customers For many, the B2B sector is a major profit center. The businesses who will be your customers may someday be run by the students sitting to your right and to your left. Consider this your chance to do a little market research. While youre at, use your MBA training to learn what makes a company pull the trigger on a high-dollar purchase. Someday, your VP of Sales will thank you. Demonstrate Your Tenacity Completing an MBA program will be challenging. Stick it out and, in the end, not only will have a great resume credential, but you will have irrefutable proof that you can complete just about any assignment your boss decides to throw at you. Many managers wonder if they could successfully take on the world if upper management decided to give them the chance. As an MBA graduate, you will already have a clear answer to that question. This is a Guest post. If you would like to submit a guest post to CareerAlley, please follow these guest post guidelines. Good luck in your search. Visit me on Facebook