What are the parameters for selecting your Specialization? How can I select an Elective in such a short duration?

Ok we will get to point right away.

- Get to know yourself.

- Get to know the Functional Areas.

- Be balanced  >  Realist + Idealist.

Get to know yourself.

Do you have Career Beliefs that may be self limiting?  Do you beat on certain functional areas.  Are you willing to put in regular hours in going deep into a functional area. You can often find a lot about your self by asking friends about what do they think are your strengths, weaknesses, and applied interests.  You can supplement this with various assessments (including the Career Vidya Labs Assessments).

Get to know the Functional Areas.

This is the juicy one and requires a lot of effort.  But we can tell you the smart way.  Start reading about the functional areas.  Meet people in different functional areas.  And then keep a tab on yourself – what functional area(s) are you drawn naturally to – Do you get super interested in the mechanics of the stock markets, do get excited about Coke’s new jingle, do you get excited about the merger of two airlines.  You will notice there is often a more than general interest in a certain space.

Talking to people in the industry is very important.  Talk to all guest speakers (understand they will all have biases like all of us).

A special note here – Connecting other Interests to Functional Space

If you are drawn to articles on fashion, sport, entertainment – that’s great.  You can do a mix and match and find careers in this space.  MTV needs marketing, finance and HR MBAs too.

And yes put ample queries at the bottom of this post.

Be Balanced  >  Realist + Idealist.

If you have been extremely bad in numbers, skip the quantitative courses.  Be honest though, sometimes we have scored badly due to reasons like bad instructors, other interests at that time, lack of motivation, etc.

Do a reality check of your b-school.  Talk to seniors and faculty.  If your b-school has no strengths in your space of interest, then it is better to find the closest substitute at the b-school and pursue your interest through independent projects, readings interactions, and maybe shorter certifications.

This is where your managerial abilities to optimize under constraints will be tested the most.

How not to select a Specialization:

- “Friends or other well wishers feel Marketing is HOT so I will take it.”

- “I like people I will take HR.”

- “I am an engineer so I will take Systems.”

“Following the HOT.”

Everything is HOT if you have aptitude, interest and knowledge.  There are enough examples of marketing MBAs who are struggling in sales even after 5 years and many who have graduated to international marketing after having enjoyed sales for a couple of years.

There is no Specialization that is not HOT.

“I like people I will take HR.”

Or I don’t like numbers so I will take Marketing or HR.  You need to like people in every Specialization.  Finally all managerial or leadership responsibility is about people.  And as you get senior you will have to look at numbers very closely.  You can rarely rise by shirking from numbers.  It is better to get exposure to quantitative courses at b-school than miss a promotion later.

“I am an engineer so I will take Systems.”

Or I am a BBA so I will do Finance as I did in my BBA.  Selecting courses just for comfort looks good initially but when you graduate you discover your peers who took the more demanding unfamiliar courses have a more rounded appreciation of business and are often more effective than you.

So look forward to your queries and comments…

Does Specialization really matter? What do Recruiters think of specialization? Will you be stuck to a functional stream for the rest of your life?

… So you are in b-school after a demanding selection process (almost a rejection process) and “Boom” you have to choose a specialization ASAP.  For some this is an easy decision – they know very clearly their pathway or do not care BUT for most this can be a stressful decision.  Many questions crop up – What if I make the wrong choice? Will I miss the big placements? What do all these subjects really mean?

Our research tells us the following.

The era where you chose a specialization and were stuck to for the rest of your life is over.

More and more Recruiters are getting more and more Specialization “Agnostic.”

They are more interested in your Performance in the specialization you elect (the other word for Specialization is Elective).  Their viewpoint – we will train you BUT how committed are you to excellence?  Performance includes your knowledge of concepts and sound awareness of the functional space.

The MBA is not the end of your Business Education but the beginning.  By the time one finishes the first 5 years at work most managers have completed 5 to 15 learning programs (domain oriented, not soft skills).  The training is in diverse domains – sales, finance, operations, etc. and the participants are equally diverse – HR managers studying finance, finance managers studying operations, etc.  So, formal learning continues way after the MBA.

Specialization helps a recruiter have a meaningful conversation with you during interviews.  Everyone understands that they will have to train you to the specifics of the company.  For e.g. The tech giants hired 100s of HR MBAs over the last few years, trained them on HR products and the HR MBAs are doing international sales, marketing, and implementation across the world.

We also see an interesting development.  More and more students are supplementing their MBA classes with online research and learning material.  We find HR students who know more about the financial markets due to their readings, research and interaction with people in the industry, Finance students who know more about Branding or Operations students who know more about a recent merger.  And top recruiters understand the value of this self driven learning.

The most important role of Specialization

Career Reinvention.  We make our undergraduate (BA, B Com, BE, etc.) choices when we are below the age of 18.  We are guided more by our marks than by our real understanding of the world.  More importantly we are guided least by our knowledge of ourselves.

A specialization is a great way to signal to the world that you have chosen a certain path for the near future (long term, one can never say).  But it is a great opportunity to explore a whole new space in a committed manner and discover ones strengths and weaknesses.  This exploratory opportunity in education is very rare in the Indian context and the Specialization choice is an option one can grab.

So the easy part is to know that your choice of specialization will not make or ruin your career.  But it can be a great tool to re-invent you.  So you still have to pick one up. How to pick the Specialization – we cover that in the next piece “How to Select A Specialization?

Introduction

Career Vidya Labs is in constant conversations with working MBAs: from People who graduated a year ago to people who graduated 20 years ago.  An aspiring manager/leader can benefit from their feedback.  We interviewed MBAs with 3 to 7 years post MBA work ex, and this is what hey had to share:

Identify your Likes and Dislikes

The general feedback – there is a great career in every industry and every function so there is no generic “Ultimate” job.  The interviewees gave enough examples of MBA who have creates dream careers in areas of interest like sports, entertainment, media, etc.

Expand your Horizon

Get involved in at the least one real hands-on project each semester, even if the b-school does not require it.  The “wisdom” you will gather in your two years through these projects beats the theoretical knowledge of the classes and will give you the launch pad for an exciting career.

Don’t be Rushed

MBA is just the start of your career.  Do not let anything rush you into a job – the main theme was do not let salary considerations over-load your judgment.  Instead, focus on the learning the job provides.  Many alumni gave instances of how they are star performers now (in compensation & achievements) although they took a “hit” during campus recruiting.  They joined companies, which paid modest but had great training programs.  So explore the organizations.  Visit the company, meet people, and see if you would like to be around them most of the day.

Conclusion

The business fraternity has millions of Do and Don’ts for MBA students.  CVL continues its conversations to get a deeper understanding.