Got Your Degree? Now What?

OK, so you’ve got your MBA. Now what? If you thought that big-name companies would be jamming your voice-mail and inbox with high-dollar job offers, think again. Unless you’re in a very unique specialty and already on someone’s radar, most grads will have to slug it out for a job right along with everyone else.

Let me go back to that last sentence because it mentions 3 distinct groups:

Those with a unique specialty (preferably one in high demand)
Those already on someone’s radar
Everybody else.

A Unique Specialty

In today’s tight job market, you need something that’s going to allow you to stand out from the crowd. One of the best is to have tailored your degree plan in an area that’s in high demand by companies you’d like to work for.

Didn’t think that far ahead? If you’re entire degree plan wasn’t tailored towards, say computer game design or the impact of online social networking or any one of today’s “hot topics,” then do a close check of your coursework. You might have done a case study or a paper on a specific market segment or emerging trend that you can use to help target prospective employers.

If you did plan ahead and did tailor your degree plan to a specific market or emerging trend, by all means make the most of it. Identify the companies that are the major players in this area and make sure each one of them is aware of the work you’ve done. Already being knowledgeable in a specific market will put you head-and-shoulders above those just looking for a job.

On Someone’s Radar

If you’re not already on someone’s radar when you graduate, why not? What have you been doing for the past 2 years? What you should have been doing is networking, networking, networking. I’ve mentioned in other posts that perhaps one of the most important things you should evaluate when selecting a graduate school is the type of network they can plug you into. This includes alums and the current teaching staff but it also includes relationships that the school might have with local business and community leaders.

If you’re not already on someone’s radar screen, you need to get there fast. Start with the Alumni Association and see if there’s a past grad working for a company that you’d like to work for. Contact them and ask for their help in meeting the right people that can either bring you aboard their departments, or recommend you to a colleague.

Do the same with every professor you ever took a class from. Let them know what companies you’d like to work for and in which areas and ask if they know anyone that might be able to help you. Do everything you can to tap into their network of contacts. Ask for recommendations, ask for introductions, ask for names and phone numbers. Above all, ask permission to use the professor’s name when contacting the people they recommend.

Getting yourself on an employer’s radar is a matter of constant networking. There’s someone out there that can really help you by making an introduction or by giving you someone’s phone number to call. All you have to do is to find that person. You do that by networking.

Everybody Else

Please don’t tell me you waited until you graduated before you started looking for a job. If you did, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. In today’s job market, employers are not going to come to you. You have to go to them and somehow get their attention. You’ve got to stand out from the crowd – and the 100′s of resumes stacked on their desk. Go back to the previous two sections and start networking. Make sure you emphasize any special projects or case studies you were involved in. Find a way to stand out, identify a unique talent or combination of skills that you have that no other job candidate has – and then never stop telling everyone why hiring you will benefit their company.

In short, you’ve got to never stop selling yourself and your skills, especially if you’re looking for your first job. If you’re already employed, this advice still applies only you’ll be selling yourself to other department heads instead of to other companies.

In short, once you’ve gotten your degree, you should start using it. But that means that you should have had a job-hunting plan in place while you were getting your degree, not waiting until after. You need to already be on someone’s radar with a pre-identified unique talent or specialty that you’ve been developing over the course of your studies. You need to have been working your network (as well as the network of everybody you know).

So now what?

I thought that once I got my MBA, I’d have all the answers to every business question. Little did I know that getting an MBA would give me more questions than answers!

So now what? So now you keep learning. You find out that in the real world,things don’t always follow the neat equations or business models that are outlined in the latest Harvard Case Studies. In short, you start to become an MBA instead of just having one.

Hiram
MBA, University of Houston