Career Challenges for an MBA Student

Career challenges for an MBA student are plenty. At every step of one’s career one has to prove their worth being an effective manager or a leader. Most of these professionals especially in India have to struggle with soft skills, entrepreneurial skills and leadership skills. This happens because in most of the Indian MBA institutes prior work experience is not mandatory and students without any prior work exposure fail to meet the industry expectations in terms of an astute decision maker.
An MBA student in India lacks in communication skills, presentation skills, team-building skills, business grace, etiquette, and management skills. Professionals, post their MBA, are expected to deal with their clients, customers and suppliers while managing subordinates, peers and superiors.
The next set of problem is lack of entrepreneurial ability and vision. Setting up one’s own business venture involves higher risks and returns. It involves having a business idea, mobilizing resources, proper execution skills and managing both internal and external forces and factors so as to pursue one’s passion of entrepreneurship. Most MBAs, especially in India, find it difficult to cater to this dream.
The next level of challenge is leadership skills. A dilapidated education system, backed by a traditional mind set of being followers rather than being leaders, is the root cause that does not encourage someone to take the driving seat. This is one of the major career challenges for an MBA student.
What an industry wants, is ready-to-use managers taking initiatives from day one and showing results of productivity. However, fresher’s quite often fail to meet the industry criteria. Many jobs are suffering due to lack of competent work force. Most of the MBA courses are not enough to make students capable of adopting and adapting to new things.
Ability to execute the challenging tasks at ease is another trait expected by the industry. Skills like adaptability, flexibility, assertiveness, team spirit, communication skills, leadership skills and last but not the least the passion to learn and grow are very important. To put it succinctly, they look for right mindset and skill.
The transition from being a manager to a future leader evolves through a number of traits. While a manager is a machinery, a leader is a visionary; a manager climbs the ladder while a leader places the ladder on the right side of the wall; a manger is efficient and a leader is effective. However, in the recent past there is a growing emphasis on managerial leaders which are a combination of managerial and leadership qualities and of course, the combination of hard and smart work.
The good news is, of late, the scenario is gradually changing and Indians are also going for leadership roles and entrepreneurial ventures. However, one need to understand that one can’t change one’s surrounding by restricting oneself to a comfort zone. A leader has to keep on shifting his orbit leaving behind his comfort zone and make things happen that contribute to the benefit of larger masses. ‘Create employment rather than being an employee.’ The quicker this mind set comes to an MBA student the sooner they will be able to assume a leadership role. Along with this, one also needs to improve one’s soft skills the industry looks for.