If you are thinking about enrolling in an online MBA program, you may already know that earning an MBA can change or advance your corporate career into management with the additional skills and knowledge you can learn. By getting a Master of Business Administration degree, you can grow your business acumen, increase your earning potential and your marketability, and gain practical skills through real-world applications and business strategies that can carry you well into your career. In addition, earning an MBA can help you start building a professional network of peers, faculty, alumni and industry leaders and policy-makers within the community.
What you will study in an online MBA program
Giving you both flexibility and convenience, a typical online MBA program offers courses that form a solid foundation in business management. Courses include the traditional business administration disciplines of managerial accounting, corporate finance, global economics, statistics, marketing strategy, operations and supply chain management, manufacturing and production, information technology, legal issues in business, communication and leadership. Some MBA programs allow you to focus your studies in a particular area, or specialization, during your second year. Healthcare management is one such specialization.
During your coursework, you will learn essential MBA skills and competencies, such as leadership, teamwork, collaboration, problem-solving and analytical skills, negotiation, compromise, time management, adaptability, strategic thinking, communication, quantitative/research skills, presentation, project management, and evaluation skills. Because an online MBA program is tailored for you, you will learn these practical skills through actual situations you may encounter in your current job and will likely face in the future as you grow in your career.
Interpersonal skills – those competencies that show how adept you are at communicating and building relationships with a wide variety of people and that can set you apart as a leader – top the list of abilities, skills and knowledge employers desire most when interviewing MBA candidates for hire (8.6 on a scale from 0 to 10), according to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s 2013 Global Management Education Graduate Survey. The annual QS TopMBA.com Jobs & Salary Trends Report says that “soft” skills have always topped employers’ wish lists. Interpersonal skills are necessary to help you work with and inspire others, whether you are working with clients or peers, or those you are managing. The report says that leadership was the skill MBA employers were most satisfied that MBAs possessed.
Today’s employers are using social media more often to recruit new MBA graduates. According to the GMAC survey, a majority of employers find new talent from employee referrals (66 percent) and networking events (53 percent). Employers surveyed emphasized to students the importance of developing networking skills as part of their professional MBA skills and competencies. Creating a social account on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter is a norm for today’s professional. According to Jobvite, a recruiting software platform that helps companies target potential quality employees, LinkedIn is the preferred social network recruiters use for their recruiting efforts, with 95 percent using it to search for and contact candidates, and 93 percent using the social platform to keep tabs on potential candidates and to vet candidates pre-interview.
Succeed in business
An online MBA program is more than learning about how modern businesses is run. Earning an MBA can give you an edge over the competition by arming you with indispensable business acumen, skills and abilities that will equip you to assume a leading role in the business world. The knowledge and professional competencies you learn in an online MBA program can put you at the top of the list for available positions in any work environment.
Learn more about UT Tyler’s online MBA program.
Sources:
http://www.eduers.com/Business/MBA_Key_Competencies_Skills.html
www.mba.com/us/the-gmat-blog-hub/the-official-gmat-blog/2013/oct/soft-skills-at-work
http://www.businessmba.org/programs/mba-skills-and-competencies