The MBA qualification is designed to develop strategic thinking and empower you to reach career goals required for a role in senior management.

If you are in full time employment, or ready to leave university you may want to consider the opportunities that acquiring an MBA may offer you and the career doors that it will open.

Here are the top ten signals that may indicate that you are ready to dedicate the next one or two years of your life and studying for an MBA:

• You already have some experience in real world business, have a reasonable idea about business practice and want to take this experience to the next level.
• You are in a middle management position and feel that you have the ambition and drive to progress through your existing company.
• You are a university student who is dead set on going straight into business school and have a compelling reason for getting an MBA before gaining work experience.
• If you are looking for a complete career change, an MBA provides you with the skills set to do this and make you more attractive to a wider range of potential employers.
• In certain industries very few people hired straight from university gain promotion to advanced positions, for example, in the banking or consultancy sectors. An MBA is necessary in most firms in these sectors.
• If you are planning to become an entrepreneur running a business, an MBA will give you the business and marketing exposure and grounding needed to maximise the potential growth of your company.
• You are planning on expanding a business idea and become an employer and need to know effective ways to manage a team and human resources guidelines and regulations.
• Although an MBA is not essential for a leadership role, if you aspire to leadership, it is a valuable set of skills to have at your disposal.
• If you are struggling to communicate with people in a more senior role than yourself, an MBA will give you the business language you need to converse more effectively and to influence others.
• If your current employer wants you to become a more resourceful and better qualified employee and is willing to invest both time and money into furthering your skills set.

If so, how does this fit into your career master plan?
If you are self-funding your study, look into scholarship opportunities, as well as loans. Traditionally MBAs have been funded through loans. Banks have been willing to lend to post-graduates in the knowledge that once the MBA has been attained there would be a substantial increase in expected salary.
Also, look into financial support from the business schools you are considering – some provide lending schemes to help with costs.

An MBA is a very useful qualification to have under your belt whether you’re in engineering, finance technology, consultancy, the sciences or an entrepreneur with great business ideas to pitch to potential investors. Furthermore, the contacts you meet during your MBA study will often become useful allies in the future.

You may also be interested in reading interviews with the winners of the SMF MBA Scholarship.