So, you slogged through torturous graduation years to land up on the much-needed job and had a moment of contentment. Soon enough, you start slogging through the office as well and realise that this is not the scene you imagined or wanted at all. A lot of us feel stuck with our current job profiles and it seems almost impossible to somehow shift to a more interesting role. You may try applying to such roles through online platforms but that takes you to another level of realisation. A single reply after showing interest in a thousand openings and interview calls are as scarce as a pink rhinoceros. Let alone the selection process in which you hardly stand a chance against people having some background. Then your career baba friend tells you to go for an MBA to get rid of all your miseries. But still a doubt rings in your head, “how exactly am I going to rub away my past and have a rebirth in the B-School?”.
All these events happened in my life three years ago and I was able to successfully (though not easily) shift from finance to marketing. I wish to share my learnings about this transformation through seven points that you can keep in mind during your MBA journey.
1. Your CV should scream out your preferred role
One of the major tasks in a B-School is to put all you got into a piece of paper which reflects how you stand out from a huge pile of other papers. Though the catch is, the average time spent on looking at a CV is less than 30 seconds. Therefore, right from the beginning, the words you choose to put in your CV should precisely tell the reviewer that you are extremely interested in the role they are offering. You need not have any prior experience in the field you desire to work in, but the way you express your past matters. For example, if you worked in IT sector before and wish to go into finance, highlight more on projects you did for banks, NBFCs etc.
2. Stay focussed for summer placements
As you already know, summer internship plays a significant role in your career. For one, you can get a Pre-Placement Offer (PPO) or else you can have a pretty strong brand on your CV for final placements. There’s undoubtedly a lot of pressure on you during placement season and it’s easy to get diverted away from your goals just to get placed early or go for the more lucrative offer. I fell for a strategy role in finance sector just because they came earlier to the campus. Hence, try hard to not get swayed away by what others are doing and be hard-headed in your choices because they are the reason you decided to go for an MBA. And in case you messed up like me anyhow, simply focus on how to portray your summer experience in your resume so that it shows your real interests. Don’t worry, summers aren’t the end of it.
3. Network and learn with the right people
By now you must have understood the harsh fact of student life: not everything can be learned from books, most of the precious knowledge is out there on the street. Talk to more and more seniors, juniors, batchmates, Executive MBA folks, profs, alumni, guest speakers and the list goes on. Earlier, I thought of marketing as a very creative activity for which one needs to have good right-brain skills. It was only after interacting with relevant people that I got to understand that it is rather a very data-driven and analytical activity.
4. Competitions and projects to your rescue
Whenever you feel like you’ve nothing to do for days while in a B-School, you should know that something is not right. Competitions and live projects are the most fun yet rewarding things you can take up with your friends. They give you a chance to be part of company’s innovative projects and if you’re lucky, you can get a handsome monetary reward, Pre-Placement Interview and national recognition. I have seen some batchmates getting their dream jobs through management competitions. But even if you don’t get all that, you always learn something by participating. I personally could never win a competition to the end, but I fortunately got selected in further rounds in multiple marketing competitions. There are many rounds in any given competition or project and you might clear some of them which will give you a strong edge.
5.
Second-year electives are indispensable
After following a similar course structure with your batchmates, you finally get a chance to choose electives of your liking in the second year. Logically speaking, most of your electives should be related to the role you want in final placements. Things get on an advanced level academically in the second year and you will learn tons of useful concepts. Two-thirds of my electives were in marketing and some of them taught me tangible statistical techniques used in day to day life of a marketeer. On the other hand, don’t hesitate to choose an elective you’re deeply interested in studying.
6.
Profs can be genies
I would like to share a personal story here. I felt hopeless in the second year because I had my summer internship in the banking industry in a strategy role but what I desired since the beginning was a marketing role in the FMCG industry. I took half an hour time slot from one of the best marketing profs on campus to discuss my situation. The discussion went on for a good three hours and I realised that all my fears were fictional. He made me recognise that what I really needed to do is to focus on what I can do now to show my genuine interest to employers rather than just going with the flow. And yes, that’s what I did and got the job in my very first interview process. With years of experience and expertise, profs can be your guiding angel so do reach out to them.
7.
Be flexible but don’t give up till it’s out of your hands
There will be rough waters in your voyage and flexibility can not be taken for granted. Sometimes, even after trying our hardest we might realise that some matters are simply out of our hands. If you don’t get the exact role as you thought, there’s no need to think that it’s all over. People have transformed their profiles after years of experience in one industry. People have successfully grown-up for 30 years in roles they thought were not meant for them. It’s a matter of knowing where your true interest lies and moving forward towards that incessantly.