This is a question I believe is close to hearts of most final year b school grads. If you happen to be in a above average b school you do have options other than typical sales job which any MBA grad is flooded with during placement season.
When I talk about myself, there seem to be atleast some options. I can get into a marketing job by working for a well known marketing company, one of the better employees atleast going by feedback from some of my acquaintances. I can also can into a bank or state government job or NGO or a research agency of repute. All these jobs have their own pros and cons, but evaluating these options and deciding upon the right one is a daunting challenge.
There could be four broad criteria for evaluating the options, salary, job quality, future prospects and last but by far the most important, interest. I believe most of us including yours truly focus too much on monitory aspect of job comprising on other important aspects. I believe this is the main reason for many MBAs leaving their first job in first year.
Has therefore a MBA graduate become too greedy? I believe the answer is a probable no. Unlike West, where work experience of atleast three years is a necessity, in India even a fresher can easily get into a premier b school provided he cracks the entrance exam. Because of his lack of experience, he is unaware of his interests and ends up joining company paying a higher salary.
So does that mean that people with work experience are in a better position and last longer in their job got after finishing MBA? There is no statistic to prove or disapprove this theory. But as per my interactions with some of my more experienced colleagues, I believe they too are only marginally better off than their novice counterparts. They might have a better idea of their job aversions but that doesnot help them much in deciding their future. The reason for that being plethora of options available offering them diverse job profiles and the limitation of work experience. Their job only gives them exposure to certain aspects. Therefore I believe that also place monitory criteria as utmost importance as this is the most tangible criteria.
So does that mean money is the most important criteria? Well if you are not sure of what is the that you want, then I believe this is the best option as normally a company paying high salary would also have high expectations and would give work commensurate to that experience , going by trends I believe in future too would it would remain the driving force in placement process.
Monday, November 16, 2009
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I am also trying to find the correct answer for the question you have put right on the top. One thing is sure as you rightly pointed out, money is the main driving force for many participants. The difficulty in making right choice depends entirely on how far we have understood ourselves, our present situation and how far we have visualized our futures. Though I have not understood myself completely (probably never!!)the present status and future aspirations seem not so blur. For me money indeed matters a lot. But I am seriously concerned about growth (In fact rate of growth) in the career. I am ready to compromise to some extent in salary part in the initial period but never in growth prospectives. A greater career need thorough understanding of the bottom line of the respective business. This, I believe, would certainly demand us to have ground level experiences(both in developmental and corporate field). Only thing which I am concerned about so called 'ground experience' is the market recognition with out which any amount of experience is obsolete. Let us see how the things go...
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