Tag Archives: Business Skills

Blog, MBA Tips

Why Do Companies Prefer MBA Graduates?


In a business landscape that is becoming ever more complex and difficult to navigate, a company’s ability to hire assets is important. Although candidates with business degrees are becoming more and more common, the need for experience and specific training at a higher level is becoming very desirable.

If you are looking to climb the ladder, or indeed to become an integral asset within your given sector, then you might be considering the idea of an MBA. As you may know, the MBA is no small undertaking; it requires time, funding and energy. So, here’s the question; is it worth it?

Arguably, the answer is yes. Having MBA written next to your name on your CV is a huge advantage. That is not to say that having this qualification makes you a shoo-in, as companies are also more and more interested in the type of person you are; your attitude, ethics and personality. Having said that, to succeed in the quest for an MBA qualification, dedication and resilience are required.

Let’s look at what employers like about MBA graduates, what you stand to learn by undertaking one, and which desirable specialities you may want to develop.

Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving
The advantage of being a ‘box-fresh’ graduate of any high-level qualification is how up to date their references are, and a fresh perspective on the issues surrounding their industry or subject. Two of the key skills taught by most MBAs are both critical and strategic thinking. Throughout your training, you will have come up against various simulated scenarios, some common and some rare, ensuring that your ability to think in this way is limber and informed.

This is also true with the skill of creative problem-solving. Fresh MBA graduates are drilled in solving new and uncommon problems and are extremely aware of what is going on in their industry right now. When you have been in a business with a certain focus for some time, it can be difficult to see how to deal with issues that are far removed from the original remit of said business.

Financial Training
The MBA will equip you with a comprehensive knowledge of the intricacies of the financial sector; how it works, how to operate within it and how it relates to the wider business community. This is essential knowledge. In order to take calculated risks, an excellent understanding of finance is not only desired but required. It is an essential component of a business’ success.

Leadership and Communication Skills
Leadership and decision-making skills come naturally to some, but to be truly effective in leadership, training and refinement is required. Mid-level leadership is hard to be good at; it takes balance, patience and respect for a company’s values. This is also something that MBA graduates are great at. Even if leadership is not a specific focused skill in their training, the very nature of group projects, partners and general teamwork requires one to better their leadership and communication skills.

Marketing
We live in a world where marketing is more important and more complex than ever. The market is getting ever more crowded, the platforms we market on are growing and branching off, and marketing techniques are becoming more specific. Having a solid foundation in modern marketing is essential, and something that you are guaranteed to gain by gaining an MBA degree.

Collaboration
Collaboration is tricky. In order to collaborate effectively, you need to be able to hold on to and believe in your own values, but also be able to compromise for the good of the collective cause. It requires a lack of ego, equal respect for others and a light touch. Again, an MBA, by its very nature, fosters this skill naturally. Collaboration is a skill that is often underrated or forgotten, but one that is vital to the smooth running of a business and to make wise decisions.

Organisational Behaviours
You’d be surprised how hard it is to find employees with excellent organisational skills. This is perhaps down to the preconception that organisational nous is something you either do or do not have. However, this is not so, it can absolutely be taught; it is a skill that can be acquired and nurtured. An MBA fosters essential skills such as this to optimise both the quality and the efficiency of your work. This is another thing that employers find extremely attractive.

The MBA is as valuable for equipping you with technical skills and knowledge as it is for helping the individual become a good team player. The skills and behaviours covered above are just a handful of the assets acquired through the study of an MBA.

Gaining an MBA is worth the considerable financial investment because it opens new career opportunities, boosts your employability, significantly increases earning capacity and allows you to develop an international network of contacts that you can call on for years to come. As well as your management skills being a draw for global employers and exciting start-ups, employers will also be impressed by candidates’ ability to build and maintain influential networks.

If you are a professional ing engineer seeking a scholarship to assist with your MBA study, visit the applications page.

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Finding the Right Talent for your Business

A company is only as good as the people in it but how, in an ever-changing and developing recruitment environment, do you get the most talented and most fitting candidates to walk through your door?

Many companies have become frustrated by an apparent ‘lack of talent’.  The truth is that there is an abundance of aptitude and flair in virtually every sector.  What many forget is that the company-employee relationship is two-way and that, as an organisation, you must be as attractive to applicants as they need to be to your business.

If you are struggling to hire your dream team, then settle in and peruse our tips, to see if there are areas in your recruitment strategy that could do with a tweak or a rethink.

Your Corporate Profile

One of the most difficult things to do in business is to put yourself in the shoes of others. You may be racking your brain as to why you are not attracting applicants. Profile and reputation are more important than ever, as many elements of your business are visible, your reputation and history are easily accessible to potential employees.  Social media and the culture of branding across all aspects of life mean that the ‘online shopfront’ of your business must be on point. So, how do you look from the outside? What does your company look like to those who don’t already work inside it?

What kind of applicant are you hoping to attract? What demographic? What experience?  What attributes and values? Now you must think about whether your brand appeals to the target recruits.  How visible is your brand in the marketplace? Does the business look like a big enough player in your industry; is the business innovative/cutting edge or have an ethical stance – or whatever values your target employees expect?   

What Do New Graduates Want?

Businesses crave fresh, energetic, relevant and hungry graduates. Hiring these vibrant, ambitious new professionals give companies real energy and new perspectives on problem-solving. However, graduates are not only looking for good salaries.  In fact, studies show somewhat of a decrease in this being the most important factor when seeking long-term employment. When you are scouting for young talent, consider the following:

Progression Opportunities: More than half of graduates now state that the potential for career progression is the number one thing they look for in a job. So, your offer should include a clear structure for progression and professional development opportunities.

Culture: A positive and exciting work environment is now an essential ingredient for a desirable job. In 2017, over 60% of workers under 30 said that they would trade a higher salary for a positive social and professional climate around their job.  Is your company doing enough towards employee happiness and wellbeing?  Not only is this more attractive to applicants, but high workplace wellbeing has been linked to optimum productivity.

Flexibility: How flexible is your working structure? Many millennials have been known to favour less money for good flexibility. With it now being so easy to work remotely, people are also looking for the option to operate from home for some of the time. Can you implement this in your workforce?

Your Recruiting Methods

This is perhaps the biggest problem facing companies looking for the best recruits; how do you get the message out there? How do you reach the people you want on your team and how do you extract the best from your applicants? Well, there are some traditional recruitment methods that have become forgotten in recent years, yet still work extremely well.  There is also a torrent of new ways to get the freshest talent to knock on your door.

Traditional Methods

Newspaper Advertisements: Now, it could certainly be argued that this is outdated.  However, research around the world suggests that this is still a very successful way to reach candidates.  For many, the job pages in the papers (both online and paper publication) are the ‘go-to’ starting point for job searches. So, don’t turn your nose up at this method just yet.

Temp Agencies:This is a sound way to get ‘no-strings-attached’ potential staff through the door. Temp agencies are often teeming with skilled fresh graduates just making a living whilst they wait for the right job to come along. By getting a temp in, you have no obligation to ask them back if they aren’t up to scratch. If, on the other hand, they are wonderful then you, and they, might feel that a perfect match has been found!

Internal Hiring: Never overlook the brilliant people who already work in your organisation. Not only is internal hiring/promotion the simplest way to fill roles (as they already know, and are part of, the infrastructure of the workplace), but it is also the safest way to hire; no risks taken on sub-par skills or questionable personalities.

Modern Methods

Social Media: Yes, it does seem obvious. And yes, social media does have a somewhat controversial reputation, but you would be remiss not to use it to your advantage. We are all glued to our devices, there’s no getting away from it, so social media recruitment posts and advertising will broaden your pool of applicants. Another bonus of this method is that, in the grand scheme of job advertising, using social media channels is relatively low cost.

ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems):  These systems are becoming increasingly popular with businesses of all sizes. ATS essentially deals with all your recruitment needs, cutting down on administrative load, and creates a database of talent that not only corresponds to your current needs, but also keeps candidates on file for future opportunities. There is an ATS to fit any business, check out some of the best software options here.

Open Ended Job Advertisements: This is an interesting development. The standard job description is changing in nature. It has become not uncommon to leave off job titles and parts of job specifications. The idea is that a more diverse range of professionals will apply for the posts, basing their application more on the content of the prospective job as opposed to the title.

Updated Interview Techniques and Job Auditions: ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ is an interview question that is soon to be left in the past. Interview techniques are changing; there are a number of ways to get a better read on your candidate with a few tweaks in your technique, check out a few here. We are also seeing a rise in the ‘job audition’; getting candidates to spend a few hours in the job for which they are applying to see if they really do match up to their CV.  This is a much more practical and telling way of assessing a potential addition to your team.

So, there we have it. How many of these tips and techniques will you be trying out for your business? The addition of just a handful of these ideas will help you to populate your business with a talented and driven workforce that is just as positive about working for you as you are to have them on your team.


Photo: Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash

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The Unlauded Benefits of Soft Skills

Too often, graduates from higher education and business schools are not taught to acquire soft skills before going into the workplace. Their focus is typically on training and education, alongside job preparation and technical skills.  However, without the appropriate soft skills, their work is an uphill challenge that comes with a steep learning curve. In this post, we take a look at the soft skills graduates need to begin learning, and why.

Communication
Writing for Salesforce, Stuart Leung explains the problem:  “Despite the supposed ‘disconnect’ of the digital age, humanity is still a very social species, and unless we as individuals understand how to communicate, cooperate, and coordinate with others, we are at a significant disadvantage – especially in the workplace.  In fact, according to Mark Murphy (author of Hire for Attitude), 46% of new hires fail in the first 18 months, and of those new hires, 89% fail for reasons associated with attitude.”

Clearly, employers are going to be looking for candidates with soft skills like communication, especially if it curbs an alarming 46% fail rate.  Attitude problems are perhaps harder to predict in a new graduate, but a good communicator is likely not going to suffer from these as severely.  Conversely, companies that have a glut of effective communicators are far less likely to lose key employees.

Learning the intangible
Rosemary Haefner of CareerBuilder (@haefner_r) says: “Saying that you’re a team player is not enough; you have to show it.  Provide an example of how you worked on a team to accomplish a particular goal.  Provide an example of a high-pressure situation that you handled with ease.”

Teamwork is just one of several soft skills that employers are looking for.  They’re also after responsibility, leadership, problem-solving skills, decisiveness and adaptability.  The truth is that many of the desired qualities in candidates are intangibles, unknown before introducing an employee to the working environment.  And the problem with these intangible skills is that they are notoriously difficult to teach.  Attributes like decisiveness, cultural awareness and emotional intelligence are hard to acquire; they are often innate talents, rather than learned ones.

In most instances, it is a challenge to develop soft skills through study alone – it is something that progresses over time, with experiences of both success and failure.  The Director of HR at the Lawn Tennis Association, Vicky Williams, argues: “Most things can be taught, other than passion – people are either born being passionate or they’re not.  That’s an innate skill. But if you take teamwork as a leadership competency, while somebody cannot go from completely unskilled to being A-starred, their leadership journey equips them to be better than when they started out.”

Value
There is no question that employers value soft skills.  In surveys, qualities like “team player” and “good communicator” are always high on the list.  However, soft skills are terribly difficult to teach directly.  The best thing employers can do is create an environment that facilitates the learning of soft skills, and giving their employees a firm grounding in what competency in these skills should look like.

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MBA Scholarship Awardees Share their Experiences

£300,000 of SMF Scholarship Awards Help 10 Talented Engineers Attend Top Business Schools

Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, Stanford and LBS are welcoming 10 awardees of the Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA scholarship.

The awardees each received £30,000 towards their study costs.  They are Kofoworola Agbaje who chose Wharton; Nicholas Asselin-Miller, Qiang Fu and Andrew Glykys are attending INSEAD; Mukunth Kovaichelvan is studying at Kellogg; Imogen Rye is at Stanford, and the other four awardees – Benjamin Banks, James Diaz-Sokoloff, Matthew Dixon and David MacGeehan – all chose to study at London Business School.

The SMF Scholarship scheme is run by Engineers in Business Fellowship (EIBF) which helps young engineers fulfil their aspirations to become business leaders by supporting them financially in gaining business skills including leadership, strategic thinking, marketing, economics and finance.

The value of Sainsbury Management Fellows awarded now totals £9 million.  During this time the scholarship has helped over 300 engineers forge outstanding careers in diverse areas including the corporate sector, social enterprise, charity, healthcare and education.

The success of the scholarship scheme is measured not only in terms of the career achievements of the SMFs but in their contribution to society.  For example, 153 SMFs have founded or co-founded businesses valued at £4.6 billion, creating 18,000 jobs; 265 SMFs support and mentor young engineers, helping them with career or entrepreneurial goals and 122 SMFs are actively involved with charitable organisations.  Several SMFs teach business and innovation as visiting professors at universities, including the EIBF President, David Falzani.

After graduation, the scholarship awardees become Sainsbury Management Fellows and become SMF Alumni.  Many say that the Alumni is, perhaps, the most rewarding part of winning a scholarship, because of the lifelong support. The Fellows benefit from ongoing career and entrepreneurship mentoring which can often lead to important collaborations and high-level networking via SMF, the Royal Academy of Engineering and other leading institutions.

Commenting on the purpose of the SMF Scholarship David Falzani said, “The world is changing at an unprecedented rate, creating new challenges for UK businesses, these include globalisation, cross-culturalism, the rise of the Asian markets and flux in international politics, the economy, technology and environmentalism.  The need for multi-skilled engineers is actually increasing.  The SMF scholarship expands the pool of business-minded engineers available to employers.  The more SMFs we nurture, the more they can help boards make sound strategic decisions and deal with the challenges arising from new paradigm shifts.”

New Applications Invited
The SMF scholarship is open to engineers with the potential to gain leadership roles early in their careers, who have a clear vision for their MBA study and career aspirations.  Candidates submit a written application and shortlisted candidates undergo a panel interview with members of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Sainsbury Management Fellows.    Find out more about making an application.

To learn directly from 8 of the successful awardees, click the grey panels on the right and read their Q&As.