One of the greatest dilemmas that confront students after graduation is what next?
Which course is better?
What are the courses that can offer better job opportunities?
Very few students know by the time they graduate what they have to do?
What is their career choice?
Most of the guys and girls are of the floating population susceptible to the advice of elders, friends, peers, career counselors, or coaching class personnel.
When you look around and scan, you can come across many courses that sound damn good, and appear glamorous and creative but will they offer steady jobs?
Getting a job depends on demand vs. supply and the ability of the individual. Still, people are looking for safe bets and hedging the types of courses they offer so they will have a greater chance of getting a job.
This is what an ordinary student’s quest is or what their parents’ expectations are. Management courses or PGDM/MBA are considered to be prestigious degrees that can lead to a variety of job opportunities. But the catch is we have hundreds and thousands of business schools and some of their degrees are as good as tissue paper. Recently, many management institutes have been closed down.
IIMs and top 25 schools are difficult to crack because the CAT exam is very tough and skewed towards students who excel at mathematics rather than aptitude for management. One can easily crack the GMAT, but not the CAT.
Most of the students aspire to do well in these institutes and only 1% succeed in getting into prestigious schools. Still in India, we have a large number of reputed business schools that are very creative and innovative. They may not rank among the top 25, but they are still worth as much as these 25 schools.
One advantage TOP business schools have is that they take the most talented students and train them relatively easily. I really appreciate those business schools that take anybody from mediocre to average students and make them shining jewels. Students should look at those kinds of schools that are trying to be creative & innovative. Business schools should not churn out managers but rather develop leadership material.
In the current business environment, organizations seek people who do not believe in optimization or incremental increases, but in radical changes and the ability to set new standards.
Students and parents should spend time finding such kinds of business schools that impart not only academic rigor but also leadership practice while learning. Those are the schools that employ a lot of corporate people in addition to regular academia as full-time and part-time faculty so that people learn what exactly happens in the corporate world so that the transition from education to a job will be easier and smoother.
There are sometimes a lot of questions about specializations. Every specialization has tremendous opportunities – be it marketing, finance, or human resource management. Every position is up for grabs and what is required are your skills and competencies
What I suggest to those who have decided to take up management as a career is not to worry if they cannot make it into top business schools.
Look for those business schools that are creative and innovative and whose curriculum is changed according to business needs without sacrificing core knowledge and can make individuals well-rounded leaders than aggressive managers.