Experience over degree
An MBA degree is not enough to get you a dream job

A management qualification from a B-School may not guarantee a lucrative job as companies now want their potential employees to have sweated it out in the corporate corridors before going for the MBA degree.

"A management graduate with no work experience may be poised to go nowhere with over 80 per cent of potential employers of MBAs looking for candidates with at least a year's prior work experience," according to a new survey of over 500 employers in more than 30 countries.

The phenomenon has also led to a large number of leading management institutes focusing on prior work experience in the selection process of students. "While a number of business schools in India and across the Asia-Pacific region will still accept students straight after their first degree, a growing proportion of top MBA programmes around the world insist on a significant level of hands-on experience at the workplace," the TopMBA.com research from the organisers of QS World MBA Tour has found.

One of the main reasons schools now insist on this level of experience is the expressed preference of recruiters for individuals who can 'hit the ground running', as soon as they graduate from an MBA programme, the TopMBA.com research said. The QS World MBA Tour is the world's largest programme for recruitment and information fairs for B-school applicants.

It has organised events in more than 70 cities across the five continents this year.

These events are organised by global education and career counselling major Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Its events are being held in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai this month.

"I would discourage a graduate with no professional experience to enrol in a management programme, and advise the person to work for at least a year and then go for it," Quacquarelli Symonds' Regional Director Biren Patel says. The survey found that over 80 per cent of potential employers of MBAs look for candidates with at least a year's prior work experience, just about 22 per cent said they are "willing to look at individuals who have clocked less than a year's experience before embarking on their MBA studies." The belief that prior work experience plays a key part in getting the most out of the MBA experience is also shared by the B-School students.

"Sitting in the classroom, during a case study discussion, it's easy to identify with the characters involved because as you can see a similarity between what you have experienced in the past and what the case study depicts," says Sandeep Gupta, who has worked with Cadbury Schweppes and Siemens before joining the Cranfield School of Management, UK.

"There's also an element of glamour and awe associated with words such as 'vision' and 'strategy' used liberally in an MBA programme which have little meaning unless you can fit them into the bigger picture. And that can only be done if one has prior practical experience," Gupta was quoted by TopMBA.com study as saying. Even if new MBA graduates having no prior work experience do bag a job offer, the average salaried received by them is much lower than those who've experienced the business environment in the flesh, the report said. — PTI