The career benefits of getting an MBA are huge and we’ll go through a list of the main advantages here. Interestingly, you can mount a fairly strong case that an online MBA degree offers a greater career boost overall compared to an MBA degree that you get by attending a campus.
Why People Go for an Online MBA for a Career Boost
Acquiring a professional business degree, especially an MBA, produces both obvious and subtle benefits for your career. Moreover, those benefits often go beyond your professional goals and are even applicable to your personal life as well. An online MBA allows you to get those gains without having to travel for classes.
Whether you work in technology, finance, marketing or manufacturing, an online MBA degree will open up opportunities for greater career advancement and responsibility, as well as an increased financial reward. Stay with me to explore in more detail why people are choosing online MBA programs for a career boost over both the short and long term.
1. Keep Building Your Career While Studying
The ability to keep working full-time while you study gives an online MBA program a significant career advantage over on-campus counterparts. It allows you to continue gaining professional experience and building workplace relationships uninterrupted.
You can do continue working full-time while doing certain types of on-campus MBAs, such as executive MBA programs where classes tend to be held on weekends or evenings. But having to turn up to classes at all makes it much tougher to put in the required study hours without disrupting your professional life. You would also be restricted to choosing programs based near to where you live and work.
2. Networking Opportunities
An MBA program can help you build enduring connections that can open a variety of job openings to you. Students who are currently taking up professional programs will have higher business opportunities. Most universities allow you to get to know or interact with peers and other professionals that have years of on-field experience.
By obtaining access to a wider business network, you will surely gain a deeper understanding of the business environment and have better chances of landing your dream job. The benefits also apply to online MBA programs.
There are counterpoints to the argument that, with respect to networking, on-campus programs are better because you meet people in person. While in-person contact is great, online programs allows you to connect with more people and without geographic limitations. For example, online MBA programs from Ducere Global Business School include industry projects where students work with CEOs and other senior professionals on meaningful business tasks.
3. Increased Job Opportunities
An MBA qualification, whether you earn it online or not, lets senior managers know that you have something that distinguishes you from the competition. This engenders trust in you and increases the likelihood that you will be put you in charge of a team or other important tasks.
People who lack an MBA qualification sometimes find it difficult to climb up the corporate ladder and experience a “glass ceiling” situation. Studies have shown that MBA degree holders are more likely to obtain top-level positions in major companies.
With that in mind, earning a Master of Business Administration degree will qualify you to apply to executive positions and dramatically increase the career opportunities available to you. Here is a list of likely MBA career paths and job opportunities.
4. More Subject Matter Expertize
An online MBA can help you gain in-depth knowledge that will make you more credible and give a boost to your managerial, leadership and other skills. Clearly, having a professional degree adds a new dimension to a graduate’s talents. This qualification provides you with an excellent credential that many employers and companies see as superior to other educational attainment.
Online MBA courses are ideal for people who know what they want to do with their career, and are committed to becoming managers, and want to build a firmer skill base in a specific area. Studying online allows for more specialization because you can choose a program from anywhere.
When you choose to specialize in a particular field, you demonstrate mastery over a specific sector. Depend on your particular career path, this can be beneficial in comparison with someone without an MBA degree.
5. Increased Earning Potential
The potential salary boost from an MBA is often one of the utmost considerations when professionals decide whether to further their education. Many studies have concluded an MBA provides you with greater earning potential.
But the benefits do depend on which field you go into. According to U.S. News, MBA graduates who entered management consulting command salaries nearly $73,000 higher than those applicants who entered the lowest-paying industry. An MBA is especially beneficial in consulting because it gives you credibility with prospective clients and gives you the knowledge to communicate effectively about management tasks.
6. Develop Advanced Skills
Studying an MBA degree forces you to step out of your comfort zone, which will prepare you to compete in the highly contested business world of today. The wide range of complex skills and abilities you develop are tools you can adapt to the unavoidable changes in the marketplace, industries, and the ways people do business.
As you learn valuable skills, you will also gain more valuable insights that might lead you down a business path very different from where you had expected to go. However, it is important that students are able to leverage the experience and apply what they learn in the program to their current careers for real-time career acceleration.
7. Helps You Reach Your Full Potential
Online MBA programs generally require you to work cooperatively with a diverse group of professionals. Hence, they cultivate your collaboration skills, push you beyond your comfort zones, and increase your ability to adapt to changing business environments.
Generally, the skills that you can acquire from online MBA programs — leadership, creativity, intellectual, cross-cultural awareness, critical thinking and communication — will serve you well as you climb your way up the career ladder. Students are exposed to the process of screening, validating, and building new concepts, equipping them with the ability to test ideas in a real business and non-business settings.
I got my first job 2 years and I’m thinking about enrolling in an MBA. Is it a bit too soon? I know it could benefit my career but right now I also need to understand how to perform my daily tasks. I thought I could pause for a bit but I feel like everyone expects you to be hustling and grinding day in, day out.
Thank you!!1
I also think that one should go for online MBA degree without a second thought. Because through online MBA degree one can improve their communication skill. This also expands professional networks. And what you have said in the article – yes it open up opportunities for greater career advancement and responsibility, as well as an increased financial reward.
The current pandemic was a huge wake up call for me! I’ve been postponing applying for an MBA degree in e-commerce for years but now I know this is the next step. Just as you said, this will be way out of my comfort zone but alas, the benefits will make it all worthwhile.