The Harvard business Press has published the authoritative, timely, and thought-provoking book ‘Rethinking the MBA’.

The book — authored by Harvard business School professors Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin and researcher Patrick Cullen – documents a rising chorus of concerns about business schools, gleaned from extensive interviews with deans and executives’and from a detailed analysis of current curricula and emerging trends in graduate business education.

The authors also provide case studies showing how leading MBA programs have begun reinventing themselves for the better. The book offers concrete ideas as to how business schools can surmount the challenges that come with reinvention, including securing faculty with new skills and experimenting with new pedagogies.

For decades, MBA graduates from top-tier B-Schools set the standard for cutting-edge business knowledge and skills. Now the business world has changed, say the authors of Rethinking the MBA, and MBA programs must change with it. Increasingly, managers and recruiters are questioning conventional business education.

Their concerns? Among other things, MBA programs aren’t giving students the heightened cultural awareness and global perspectives they need. Newly minted MBAs lack essential leadership skills. Creative and critical thinking demand far more attention.

Rich with examples and thoroughly researched, Rethinking the MBA reveals why and how business schools must define a better pathway for the future.

MBAUniverse.com brings to you exclusive excerpts from the book. Today we bring to you the first part of the excerpts from the book:

‘On the one hand, the economic downturn has provided some schools with a temporary respite from the forces buffeting graduate business education. Because MBA programs are often viewed by young people, especially those with few other career options, as a safe harbor for weathering economic storms, business school applications have historically been countercyclical. This crisis is no exception. In its aftermath, applications at the higher-ranked schools rose, although typically in a far more muted fashion than during past recessions, as did the number of takers of the Graduate Management Admissions Test, a likely indicator of future increases in applicants. Mid-ranked schools, meanwhile, have been busy promoting their superior job placements with regional employers and their specializations in energy, brand management, supply-chain management, and human resources as ways of beefing up their applicant pools and class sizes.

These advantages, we believe, while real and possibly significant in the short-run, are likely to be temporary, for most of the other forces unleashed by the economic crisis add to the already long list of concerns and unmet needs cited repeatedly by critics, the trends already underway, and the curricular changes that have been steadily gathering momentum.

Consider, for example, one of the longstanding selling points of leading business schools ‘the access they provide to lucrative, highly selective careers. As chapter 2 notes, students have long come to business school to gain entry to high-paying jobs in investment banking, private equity, and hedge funds. Even before the crisis, our interviewees reported, companies in these fields were starting to shift their hiring away from MBAs. As a result of the economic meltdown, access to these fields has dropped even more dramatically. Many jobs have simply disappeared.

According to one estimate, in the 18-month period ending December 2008, 240,000 people were laid off on Wall Street. Compensation has fallen as well; in some cases, it is now capped by law. To respond to this shrinkage in the financial sector, business schools will have to alter orientations and direction. They will have to attract a new set of recruiters, develop graduates with a different set of skills, and offer a different mix of courses. All are likely to lead to adjustments in business school curricula much like those described in chapters 5 and 6 of this book.

Meanwhile, part-time and executive MBA programs, which fueled much of the growth in business school enrollments in recent years, are currently facing increasing pressure. For many students in these programs, as corporations reduce their support, the economic proposition looks less attractive. business schools are finding that this growth engine, which chapter 2 notes has sustained many programs, especially those in the middle tier, for much of the last decade is beginning to sputter. To attract and retain students, business schools will need to consider changes in curricula that enhance the value of MBA training in ways that are responsive to the criticisms and concerns described in chapter 4.

Increasingly, we believe, business schools are at a crossroads and will have to take a hard look at their value propositions. This was true before the economic crisis, but is even truer in its aftermath. The world has changed, and with it the security that used to come almost automatically with an MBA degree. As a recent report observed: ‘On the nation’s B-School campuses, hope used to spring eternal. No more.’ High-paying jobs are no longer guaranteed to graduates, and the opportunity costs of two years of training’ especially for those who still hold jobs and are not looking to change fields ‘loom ever larger. To remain relevant, business schools will have to rethink many of their most cherished assumptions. They will have to re-examine their curricula and move in new directions.’

These hybrid programs are also a boon to schools, particularly as the schools look to boost revenue at a time when the recession has left endowments flagging and alumni donations are hard to come by. The programs are also less expensive for schools to run partly because students in the programs use fewer campus services and resources.

After the initial investment in a hybrid—which can be several hundred thousand dollars to $1 million and up—costs to keep the programs going are relatively low, says Dan LeClair, vice president and chief knowledge officer at the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the largest of three main business school accreditation bodies.

Professors and schools do the bulk of the work or preparation upfront but contribute less face time as time goes on.

When Sarah Fisher, a Johnson & Johnson employee, decided a few years ago to get an M.B.A. to enhance her chances of landing an overseas assignment, she looked for a program that was flexible—so she could keep working—but had enough prestige to get herpromoted.

She found such a program in Babson College’s Fast Track M.B.A., a seven-year-old part-time program that blends a limited amount of on-campus time with a heavy online component, including live streaming video lectures.

The Babson program, along with other hybrid M.B.A.s offered at a number of well-known schools, costs students roughly as much as a traditional full-time program and uses the same professors as the full-time M.B.A program. These programs even include group project work—a hallmark of many M.B.A. programs—which is done virtually via conference call or Skype.

“At first, I was reluctant,” says Ms. Fisher, as she worried that an M.B.A. achieved mostly online would have diminished value, even within her own company. But she enrolled in the program anyway in 2008 and the gamble paid off: In June, she shifted to brand management abroad for the company.

There are, however, notable differences between hybrids and traditional campus M.B.A. programs. For one, hybrid programs often have less stringent admission standards—Babson College doesn’t require the GMAT, for example—though there are some exceptions. These programs also tend to cut out elective courses, which can be valuable to career-changers. And students who want to take advantage of the school’s offerings find they have less access to faculty or campus resources, like career services, because they’re not regularly on campus.

Despite the potential drawbacks, the programs continue to grow in scope and size. Schools have reported that applications are up significantly in the past year. Duke University’s Cross Continent M.B.A, which is delivered 60% online, for example, saw a 50% increase in applications over last year for the class beginning in August.

Still, for students hoping to network with their peers or get the career guidance typical M.B.A. students receive, hybrid programs might disappoint. Since upward of 70% of class time is online for most programs, there is little face time with faculty and fewer opportunities for personal interaction between other students, something many b-school graduates say is the most valuable part of an M.B.A.

Scott Cronin, a Babson Fast Track grad and accounts supervisor at Fidelity Investments, says the program leveled the career playing field for him, and he saw classmates make successful career changes. But there was still lack of face time with fellow classmates, who are together all the time during a full-time program, he added.

Andy Policano, dean of the University of California at Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business, says that lack of togetherness is one reason more business schools haven’t launched hybrids.

“There just isn’t enough team building or interpretation of emotional quotients,” he says. That’s particularly true for those with scientific or engineering backgrounds who often need to learn soft skills that in-person interaction teaches, he says.

Duke and other schools that offer these combo programs, like Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh and Babson College of Massachusetts, insist that despite the obvious differences, the option provides the same training as a typical M.B.A. program while expanding the schools’ reach.

Bill Boulding, deputy dean at Duke, says the school’s hybrid program appeals to internationally based professionals who don’t want to relocate to rural North Carolina for two years but want a Duke education.

“We don’t have the same advantage as some of our peers who are located in a major metropolitan area,” says Mr. Boulding, adding that the school aims “to court the students who are aiming at international assignments with their companies.”

Marketing for hybrid programs is also being expanded at most schools that offer them, chiefly through building relationships with corporate human resource managers.

That effort is just as much about luring students as it is about proving that hybrid M.B.A. programs are as good as campus programs. Currently, how hiring managers feel about hybrid programs varies from company to company.

Since students of these combo programs typically don’t participate in campus recruiting, most won’t go head-to-head for jobs with their two-year counterparts and end up able to simply list their degree on a resume without indicating that it was achieved in a hybrid program.

Brett Good, district president of Robert Half International, a staffing firm, says many corporate hiring managers still have misgivings about the integrity of programs that rely heavily on Web-based technology.

Still, Mr. Good says that view has softened somewhat as those offering jobs become more comfortable with technology.

John Williams, a 2005 grad of Duke’s Cross Continent M.B.A. program, says he was able to command a higher salary and position at a technology-market-research firm after completing the program.

“For most employers, they said it was a good school, it sounds like a good program, and that’s good enough for them,” he says.

wsj.com

The program will be offered starting this fall at University Center in Sioux Falls.

“Because of Dakota State’s reputation for innovation and our distinct mission, this degree is different from other MBA programs offered in the area,” said DSU President Doug Knowlton. “Two information technology courses will be required of all students, and the students will be able to work with faculty to design specializations that would recognize unique courses and fields of study: logistics or sustainability, for example,” he said.

An estimated 35 students will be admitted into the program each year, reaching a steady-state enrollment of 90 students by the fourth year

A just approved 12-month program offers a master’s degree in business administration from NIU, plus one in international management from the University of Bordeaux, southwest of Paris.

The DeKalb school’s trustees approved the program on Wednesday. NIU is the first U.S. university to link up with the

For three weeks in November, and again in March, the class will travel to Bordeaux to study under French professors and meet with executives in that country.

About 25 students are expected to enroll, including about six from France.

Talk to careers advisor and senior figures at leading business schools and they say very similar things. Their recruitment numbers are about level with 2009, they’re cautiously optimistic that the market is improving, but they’re not yet certain.

Business schools are of course not in the habit of advertising declining post-MBA job opportunities, and a number of schools that were approached for this article were reluctant to comment. This has made it difficult to gauge how certain the thaw has been. However Jim Clayton, Director of the Graduate Career Management Center at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University says: “In general, things are about where they were this time last year, although there are more and more organizations beginning to post jobs. Things are warming up, but they’re not hot yet.”

For Jim, it’s too early to be able to tell whether this hiring is going to be sustained or not. The areas in which he can perceive growth in demand are the banks and healthcare. In these industries, he is seeing new healthcare organizations coming on to campus for the first time, while Bank of America has become one of this year’s biggest recruiters, “As we come out of this recession, it may just be that, as Bank of America were one of the first organizations affected, to let people go, they may just be one of the first to bring people back,” he says.

Across the Atlantic, Leon Richards, Manager Recruiter Relationships at Warwick Business School in the UK has a similar view.

“We saw a big reduction on financial services last year,” he says. “But, this year, they seem to be coming back into activity. For example, we have had Barclays on campus for the first time ever. Last year, activity across all industries stayed steady, and the drops in financial services and consulting were offset perhaps by rises in demand from the energy industry and the public sector. This meant everything stayed level. Financial services and consulting dropped away at the beginning of this academic year but have been the first to pick up in 2010.”

Industries in the frame

Other sectors that seem to be increasing hiring needs are strategy consulting, FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), technology and telecoms. This latter sector is of course maturing, and a number of companies are now putting together MBA recruitment programmes whereas before they were hiring less systematically.

“A number of sectors are taking the lead out of the recession, particularly for example technology-driven sectors such as Internet, media, e-commerce, hardware and software manufacturing, and telecoms,” says Jurek Sikorski, Associate Director at London Business School’s Careers Service with responsibility for Business Development (Healthcare and Technology).

Undoubtedly, there has been a lot of churn as business schools have sought out new types of employer to bring onto campus. The impression given is that, if hiring is rising, it is because lots of non-traditional, medium-sized and smaller firms are being tempted onto campus by the prospect of under-employed MBAs and in this way are making up for the drop in demand from more traditional employers.

On top of this, according to Leon Richards at Warwick, these traditional recruiters are naturally much more budget-conscious that they once were. Given that the cost of visiting campuses, running assessment centres and tying up the time of senior management can be as much as £15,000 per hire, in these straightened economic times it has made sense for recruiters to streamline this expense by concentrating on fewer schools, regardless of whether their numbers of recruits are actually up or down.

A similar cost-cutting trend identified at Warwick is for MBA employers to utilise social networking practices. This allows them to establish longer-term relationships with candidates, so putting the talent pool on tap for when they need it and saving money on the costs of traditional recruitment.

Political failure

The MBA recruitment market is not however simply a function of the economic climate; other factors can have an effect. Green energy for example was much touted as the beginning of the recession as an industry that offered a strategic direction for companies to take out of the recession.

“During these difficult times, finding a new driver of our economy is going to be critical,” says Professor Javier Carrillo, Executive Director of the Centre for Eco-Intelligent Management at IE Business School in Madrid in early 2009. “I think that that the environmental challenge will definitely provide a strategic direction to industry.”

Unfortunately the failure of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – the Copenhagen Conference – has left this industry without a way forward.

“In terms of green energy, there was obviously the disappointment associated with the Copenhagen conference in that it didn’t come out with a clear statement of what government needed to do,” says Jurek Sikorski at London Business School (LBS) “This of course would have really spurred the sector as it would have given companies clarity on their future strategic direction.”

Something similar could be said about banking and financial services which is still waiting for politicians to agree on the shape of new national and international regulatory frameworks.

Have MBA, will travel

A final trend is the tendency for today’s MBA recruitment to be orientated towards the emerging markets. Many companies have revised their business plans to target these areas as a source of future growth and this is where they are going to need their people.

“Companies are hiring into Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia,” says Jurek Sikorski at LBS. “Flexibility and mobility are therefore the big requirements for candidates. The MBA resource asset is something that can be moved around. Companies do see things this way and in their requirements they stipulate they don’t only want skills, experience and strong intellectual horsepower but are also looking for flexibility and mobility so that their business can benefit anywhere in the world.”

Visit Ross’s daily blog: www.mbascene.wordpress.com

The appointment of new Harvard dean Professor Nitin Nohria (left) with a background in leadership and ethics is a significant appointment, and one that follows a movement I noted in articles some years ago. For the grand old dame of business education to take such a visible move, notifying the world that is has taken on concerns about ethics,  shows a boldness that most people would not necessarily associate with the world’s most conservative school.  In light of recent criticism, such as the Phillip Delves Broughton book “What they teach you at Harvard Business School,” which was a fairly incisive criticism of the author’s perceived ethics of greed at HBS, to numerous articles blaming business schools like Harvard for the recession, HBS has had a harder than usual time at the hands of the public and media lately. Perhaps fairly.

There was ample opportunity for Harvard Business School to ignore the world’s – or at least the west’s – movement towards a more ethical way of teaching business education. There must have been numerous candidates and a sizeable shortlist for the position. Though I am not party to the discussions, I think we can assume the appointment would have caused major controversy within the corridors of Harvard itself with a lot of disgruntled opponents. But the school has stood its ground in light of the bare facts. The typical MBA student, as QS has noted in editorials going back some years, is far more interested in ethics and leadership and corporate social responsibility than ever before. The most recent QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey  and other research shows that candidates are making their business school choices and MBA graduates their career choices increasingly on perceived ethical standpoints. Harvard could have, but did not, choose to ignore this.

The dean-elect has not begun his work yet and it remains to be seen what changes he will instigate and and how quickly. One can only hope that criticism of his appointment, such as a recent letter in the FT, is based on genuine business fears from the hard-nosed business types who are just as entitled to their criticisms as I am to mine. To me the idea that “Asian business tigers” prowling the Pacific Rim are licking their lips at the utter demise of the American economy due to the appointment seems to me moderate hysteria. Let it remain to be seen whether Harvard turns out “touchy-feelies” from the school and then, even if this is the case, let’s see whether or not such acceptance of modern international and ethical values is such a bad thing after all.

Jose Ferreira is the Founder and CEO of Knewton

Recently, some business schools* have begun to accept GRE scores in place of GMAT scores.

Some MBA hopefuls were undoubtedly excited by this news. After all, the GRE has a reputation of being easier than the GMAT. It’s a more generalized test, and, of course-there’s no Data Sufficiency! What could go wrong?

But therein lies the problem: There’s no Data Sufficiency section on the GRE.

The GMAT is perfectly designed for business school students. GMAT questions are engineered to mirror the tasks MBA students perform every day in business school. Reading Comprehension-because you’ll be read­ing 50 -100 pages in case stud­ies every day. And Data Sufficiency-because you’ll be skim­ming each case’s exhibits and finan­cials to deter­mine which num­bers are key to crack­ing the case and which are irrel­e­vant. What about Crit­i­cal Rea­son­ing? Well, every day in class you will com­ment on other stu­dents’ argu­ments. And they will com­ment on yours, some­times in pretty snarky ways. So you need some facil­ity in argu­ments, if only to pro­tect your­self from that loud­mouth ex-banker in the Skydeck.

The GMAT is a great test. No, it probably won’t bring peace or spiritual enlightenment to the world. It isn’t the most fun experience of every test-taker’s life. However, it is very well-constructed, with very high scoring consistency. The GMAT excels at its job: that is, testing the skills you will need to be successful in business school.

On the other hand, the GRE General Test is, well, general. This test is designed to test students’ aptitude for graduate-level work-everything from PhD’s in English to a Master’s Degree in Psych. Obviously, the aptitudes need to succeed in one discipline aren’t the same as the aptitudes needed in others-no single test can adequately measure all these aptitudes. In order to succeed in business, and in business school, you need very specific skills. The GRE doesn’t measure these particular skills all that well. The GMAT does.

So why are some business schools accepting the GRE? Well, the GRE is getting better-and it’s about to be significantly revised in order to improve even more. But mostly, the decision to accept the GRE is about access-especially internationally. Many candidates in overseas locations don’t have access to the GMAT. So business schools figure, “If we accept the GRE, we might just find some great candidates who otherwise wouldn’t be able to apply to business school, and who might add an MBA application or two to their pile of Masters program applications.”

For these candidates, the decision to accept GRE scores is a fortuitous one. But the bottom line? If you can take the GMAT, you should. While admissions officers at schools accepting the GRE will accept a GRE score in lieu of a GMAT score, that doesn’t mean they won’t be skeptical. If you submit a GRE score when it’s clear you could just have easily have submitted a GMAT score, it could definitely hurt your application.

Besides, Data Suf­fi­ciency is fun! And more importantly, Data Suf­fi­ciency is equally hard for every­body. It is also highly coach­able. So even if you take a diagnostic and think there’s no way you’ll be able to achieve a competitive enough score to get you into a top b-school, don’t fear. Knewton’s Test Experts have devel­oped the most pow­er­ful strategies for Data Sufficiency-and other question types-out there, and we’d be happy to share!

Fuente: ibtimes.com

Recent studies show that people holding MBAs can make substantially more money over a lifetime than those with an undergraduate degree only. Depending on the graduate’s industry and specialty, the pay increase may range from 10% to 82%. Research also shows that an MBA graduate will likely experience a return of investment on tuition within three-to-five years.

“While salary differential studies can be controversial, what can be stated definitively is that earning an MBA sets you apart,” Christian said. “A Concordia MBA graduate will be a much more desirable hire and a considerably more valuable employee because he or she will have the training to be a strong leader, a critical thinker and a problem solver.”

“Job satisfaction and overall life satisfaction increase with an education that is relevant and meaningful. The Concordia MBA is unique in its philosophy of developing the whole person,” Dr. Linda Ford, Concordia MBA Program Director, said. “The Concordia MBA enables individuals to transform themselves in order to transform their communities.”

Concordia University Texas launched its MBA program in early 2010. The Concordia MBA is designed for anyone with an interest in post-graduate business education who is looking for a rigorous program that fits into the life of a busy, working professional. The degree can be earned in two years with classes only one night a week.

Students are admitted into a cohort — they stay with the same classmates throughout the program. In order to attract students with diverse academic and professional backgrounds, Concordia is offering several options for students to meet prerequisites. Online study guides or lessons on CD will be offered to those lacking a traditional business education.

“Our students hone the ‘hard’ skills of accounting, finance, economics, marketing and business strategy,” Christian said. “On top of that, they develop the solid leadership skills they need to make a positive difference in the workplace and beyond.”

For more information about Concordia’s MBA program, visit MBA.Concordia.edu or call (512) 313-3000.

prnewswire.com

While the GMAT exam is the most common test that business schools accept, more career.com/mba-schools/mba-degree-programs.html” target=”_self”>MBA programs are starting to take GRE scores into consideration as well, according to U.S. News & World Report. Some of the top MBA programs in the country are now beginning to accept the test, which is typically used for graduate school admissions.

The news provider reports that of the 433 MBA programs that they surveyed, approximately 115 of them – or 27 percent – were accepting the GRE.

It may be a good idea for individuals to seek out an MBA degree. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, MBAs typically make $221 more a week than those with just a bachelor’s degree.

Ross Geraghty talks to some leading business schools and attempts to unscramble the spaghetti for you.

In a sense this is a question in two parts. First, and please don’t forget this, what is it that you, the individual graduate, want? Secondly, what do recruiters say they want for the jobs and careers that you are getting your education for? Particularly since the economic downturn, corporates and business schools proactively confer on business education. Recruiters tell the top business schools what they expect from their business managers and the schools respond.

Schools meanwhile work hard to retain individuality and educational rigour; the debate raging around the MBA academic world right now is to what extent corporate governance and ethics should become a core feature of MBA and other business programs.

MBA or Masters?
Essentially, MBAs are a ‘post-experience’ qualification in general management, usually requiring three or more years of work experience, though four to eight years is most common. Schools such as mba.com/school_profile/imd/”>IMD in Switzerland, have students with an average of seven years while Executive MBA, or EMBA, courses are targeted at those with executive experience, ten or more years generally.

The vast majority of MBA courses stress the general nature of the education – there are specialist MBA courses, such as MBA in Wine Management at Bordeaux, but let’s not discuss that here. An MBA graduate will emerge from their program conversant, at least, with several core subjects including marketing, strategy, leadership, entrepreneurship, operations, human resources and so on. This gives them a holistic overview of how businesses work.

David Bach, Associate Dean of the MBA and Professor of Strategy at IE Business School in Spain, says that 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, for example, where the Finance 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 MSc in Finance won’t. This is recruiter-driven. “The big banks want 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 assumption is a graduate of MA in Finance won’t have do those kind of roles.”

Simon Stockley, Director of Full Time MBA Programs at Imperial College Business School, London, 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.”

Trends
Despite this, trends picked up by the QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey 2009, which surveyed thousands of MBA applicants internationally, show that more and more younger people are interested in a business education, especially in the developing economies of Asia. My own experience of the QS World MBA Tour, which visits 65 cities in 35 countries, shows that Asian candidates in particular are younger than those in Western Europe and North America.

Business schools have to respond to such trends by creating courses more appropriate for a less experienced age group. This is where the Masters course comes in.

Masters courses are ‘pre-experience’, targeted at immediate graduates and those who do not necessarily have work experience.

Simon Stockley says that his school has responded to the trend for younger people to want to get into business schools straight out of university by offering an MSc in Management program. 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,” he says.

David Bach says that taking students with less than three years work experience on an MBA is rare: “We require five years [experience] 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.”

Course focus and teaching styles are essential differences between an MBA and a Masters. Masters courses, says Stockley, “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.”

MBA courses tend to focus on teamwork, lots of contribution in class, learning from peers and networking and communication skills.  In this sense the professor is often a hands-off guide for students’ debates, guiding them towards problems rather than providing conclusions, allowing students to make mistakes and research thoroughly themselves.

Specialize or generalize?
Many graduates want to start focusing early. They may say that maths is your strong suit, and that they are not interested in marketing or HR, for example. The business world needs very strong accountants or HR or operations or people with other specializations, so a Masters in Finance, Accountancy, HR and so on are best option for many.  Of course this also allows the graduate to get straight into education again without necessarily having to go into a management position for a few years in preparation for an MBA.

In salary terms, the MBA is perceived to have a slight edge, however the difference between an MBA and a Masters graduate with four years postgraduate experience in a specialization is small. For those wanting to specialize, the MBA may be too general, and you may 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.

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 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.