Admission into a top-ranked B-school in India or abroad is a dream for a large number of students today. Students are willing to work hard towards achieving the dream but sometimes don't understand the requirements for the same. Firstly, we need to understand what the kind of work is, that comes the way of MBAs after finishing their studies and this will help in comprehending what they must possess before entering an MBA college. MBAs will normally enter the management of a company or an organization and can expect leadership positions in such large organizations.
To this end, they need to be well-versed with the world around them and possess excellent general awareness. This will assist in correlating organizational success with myriad happenings in the world and being able to predict well in advance, how changes in the environmental impact of their organization. For instance, anyone who wants to build a career in the automobile sector today must understand climate change, emission norms, green fuels, Paris Agreement, Trump's policies, Peak Oil, and a host of other things before s(he) can become a leader in the automobile sector. Building general awareness is similar to exercising. It takes a sustained effort of three to six months at least to start showing results. Start working on it today.
Things Every MBA Candidates Should Know
Be strong at a variety of reading sources. This will come in handy when you prepare for exams like CAT or GMAT. Start easy with newspapers and move on to fiction books and then on to non-fiction. This will help you to gain a good knowledge base as well as a sound and logical opinion on things that impact you and your organizations.
If you are in college, it is a good idea to work for college societies and committees as well as participate in at least some activities. These will make you realize the importance of teamwork, common goals and leadership. Working with people will make you a team person and improve your people skills. Such experiences contribute to making you more mature and telling you how real life works and can be very different from a classroom setting.
Try playing sports, especially team sports. Unfortunately, our education system does not prepare us for failure, which is extremely common in the real life. Sports are full of failure and mimic real life. Hence, you will understand how resilience plays a critical role in motivating oneself and in getting up after every defeat and moving on. This will help you motivate yourself and your teams.
Be consistent and thorough with your college studies. MBA interviews will commonly check the soundness and conceptual clarity of candidates. People, who understand their concepts at the college level and can explain them to a panel of senior people, are likely to do well in MBA as well as in real life. Learn how and why your studies are relevant to real-life situations so that the panel becomes convinced that you are capable of applying classroom learning to real-life scenarios. Some people don't like their choice of graduation subjects and thus lose all interest in college studies. Such candidates, when they reach MBA interviews, are normally rejected on the base of their poor knowledge of their subjects. A panel thinks that if you could not motivate yourself to study then the same pattern might get repeated in case you don't like some of your subjects in an MBA college. So don't use lack of interest as a lame excuse for your low knowledge. Instead, work hard now and improve your marks and understanding of the subject.
Do multiple internships while in college. Work with large organizations to understand how processes and systems drive such an organization. Conversely, work with startups to understand how life is in a dynamic, fast-paced and unstructured work environment. Appreciate the difference between the two! You can work in multiple functions like Marketing, Finance, and HR and so on, to further appreciate the difference and see what interests you. Work in different industries with the same function to understand how e.g. marketing may be practiced differently in the hospitality industry versus the FMCG industry.
Gaining work experience before MBA is a two-way street. MBA colleges look for fresh graduates for their fresh approach, academic rigor and a student's perspective to improve their classroom discussion. At the same time, people with work experience tend to be more mature and can contribute to real-life learning from their work experience. So you should apply for MBA in your final year of graduation. If you get through a good college, you should join that but if you don't get through a college that you like, try next year and start to work in the meanwhile. That way you understand the exam better and can normally attempt it with more surety!
Ankur Jain
The Chief Knowledge Expert of T.I.M.E. (Triumphant Institute of Management Education), Ankur Jain have completed BBS in Marketing from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Delhi and also holds PGDBM from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. He leads teams of academic professionals to update knowledge and improve delivery of services to aspirants.
