Are you a Hunter or an Explorer with your post-MBA career goals?
View(s):Business school and the MBA, in particular, is a great opportunity to discover your real professional calling. The admissions office of the most recognized MBA programmes in the country expects you to be specific about your post-MBA career goals at the point of applying, and not when you graduate. However, the idea of sharing a year or two with individuals from all walks of professional life, cultural backgrounds, and personal ambition seem tailor-made for exploring ideas and devising a career path for the next 10 years or so. Added to that, business schools lie on a royal spread of assessment and coaching to help you define your professional road map.
Mr Dhanushka Kulathilaka, one of Sri Lanka’s most respected and sought after post-graduate business consultants today, describes students as falling into two distinct career categories – ‘hunters’ and ‘explorers’.
The hunters have things fully mapped before they arrive on the campus, single-mindedly pursuing a career in investment banking or strategy consulting, etc. They are quick to network in their chosen field, arrange interviews with target firms for their internships or field work, and use the MBA to build the knowledge and competence that will serve them straight out of school.
The explorers on the other hand have enough self-awareness to recognize their talents and potential, but are using the business school experience to consider various career paths, imagine entrepreneurial pursuits, and try their hand at a wide range of classes and activities.
Certain MBA programmes may have more hunters, while other MBA programs may have more explores. For example an MBA graduate who graduated with an Australian MBA programme, prior to her MBA was working in advertising at one of the top advertising agencies in the country. Tired of the corporate ladder, and keen to embrace a different culture, she used her studies to develop a jewelry business that now, one year after she finished school, attracts a global client base. Along the way she picked up a financial toolbox, used input from fellow students to develop new communication channels, and got the inside story on luxury brand management.
She has come away from the MBA experience doing the job she dreamed might be possible, though perhaps not the job she expected to do. This is a typical example of how explorers behave.
So my message this week goes out to the hunters. A recognized MBA programme together at a good business school which has been in existence for a long time in the country has the power to completely transform the career expectations of individuals, even those who thought they knew exactly what they wanted to do. Hunting for a job at one of the top Blue Chip or multinational companies in Sri Lanka is an understandable goal, but the MBA is a golden opportunity to explore other options, and to learn if your calling is elsewhere. And, in increasingly unpredictable job markets, even if you are set on a particular discipline or sector, having a Plan B is a good idea.
Perhaps one of the best things you can take with you to the business school is an open mind. Email your comments to: givemeyourcomments@gmail.com
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