So you have decided to join the MBA program.

Welcome, you would be following thousands of others who have gone through this path and done well.

The natural follow-up to MBA is a corporate career.

A corporate career offers you a number of personal benefits in course of time through experience and maturity.

It sharpens your thinking skills. Improves your interpersonal skills. Blends your communications and people skills. Develops your leadership skills.

Rewards you with position and remuneration. Widens your personal contacts and network. Ultimately yields personal satisfaction .

But all these do not come through simply by wishing for them.

A good management institute prepares students for corporate careers by providing you with the essential theoretical background. Offer you opportunities to practice these lessons through cases, campus event management , hone your skills through regular academic/semi-academic and sports competitions, enable you to test yourself by competing with students from other colleges, enlighten you by seminars, hackathons, industry visits, talks by industry experts, provide alumni contacts, and full two months internships with real corporates where you experience first-hand corporate working.

And from my personal experience, you learn also a lot through peer learning from your own batchmates.

However, all these are just the external influences and would lead you only part of the way. Where you reach depends to a very large extent what you bring to the table from your side.

Are you really ready for the challenge, are you prepared to run the marathon, are you capable of holding your own on facing hurdles,.

Simply put, are you the right material. And if not are you prepared to work your way through to come up to the level?

Our beloved late President APJ Abdul Kalam sir exhorted young students “Dream Big. But work hard to realise those dreams”

This advice applies to you squarely.

From the day one you have to start building strong foundations of YOUR OWN SELF to be ready for the challenge at the end of your two year study.

You have to develop the right aptitude, attitude and enthusiasm to learn corporate ways, take on issues and deliver.

Obviously this has to be built upon strong foundations. Such as the following:

  1. Basic operational skills: Efficient Reading; Effective Writing; Smart Computer Skills.
  2. Mental astuteness to discern emerging issues; resolve to sort them out.
  3. Personal skills: Being Alert and Motivated; Integrity and Dependability
  4. Interpersonal skills: Communicating; Influencing : Team working

How do you acquire and develop them:

  1. Study the trends; Understand what skills are in demand; Today and Tomorrow.
  2. Self examine your Skills Portfolio now., Honest Self-SWOT
  3. Identify the skills deficit. Make certain to fill them up quickly.

A. LAYING THE FOUNDATION

1. Reading: Efficient reading to quickly comprehend, grasp and retain essentials

  • Company Procedures, manuals and operational guidelines.
  • Periodic instructions and processes.
  • Government, Institutional notifications and updates.

2. Writing: Mastery of various types of Corporate drafting

  • For Informing and Influencing.
  • Learning to avoid confusion, miscommunication and mistakes

3. Computer Skills: It is simply impossible to survive today without mastering Computer skill

  • Get proficient with the latest on AI and its various adoptions
  • All of Word Documentation ;Excel; PowerPoint
  • Attractive Presentation material
  • Animation, Jawa and other software
  • Python, R and other Big Data manipulation software
  • Continuously updated on regular changes and new developments in software

How to develop these:

  1. Read Newspapers, Business Journals, Blogs, Think-Tank Reports
  2. Be keenly aware of what’s happening around, domestically and internationally.
  3. Learn fundamentals of Economic, Business and Legal issues.
  4. Maintain a personal library of up to date directories, dictionary, thesaurus, subject books.
  5. News clippings, articles collection. Prune them periodically.
  6. Keenly follow technology trends and learn more on your own from appropriate sources

B. SHARPEN YOUR BRAIN:

  1. Creativity: Corporates look for persons with creative minds and out-of-the box thinking, coming up with fresh view points and viable solutions.
  2. Sound Decisions: Whatever decisions are suggested should solve problems, not create new ones.
  3. Influencing: People differ. A team can function effectively only if all are in tune, convinced and persuaded.
  4. Self Assessment
  • When you face a problem, are you able to look at it from all angles, in an impartial, non-judgemental way
  • Are you able to come up with new ideas? Listen and Learn.
  • Are you able to devine in advance, consequences of any decisions, in the short run and the long run?
  • Are you able to present your opinions in an organized, convincing manner?
  1. Problem Solving:
  • Developing the ability to discern workplace issues.
  • Assemble essential information
  • Develop Alternate solutions
  • Identify the Options and execute the Optimal one.

How to develop these skills:

  • Read and solve as many Business Cases as you can. Do not wait for the Professor to give one as a class assignment. Look up from the Library resources.
  •  Read mystery novels. Learn to put two and two together. Solve the mysteries yourself and check with the book conclusions.
  • Learn Chess, Sudoku, Logical Puzzles, Crosswords. Anything that sharpens your mind.
  • Develop a taste for reading non-fiction and read extensively beyond your area of concern.

Build your Self Confidence and Presence

  • Assess your skills, skill gaps, fill up the deficiency
  • Build your Self Esteem and create your Positive Self Worth
  • Enlarge your network and connectability.
  • Create solid dependability
  • Through all these start working on creating your own charisma.

A corporate career is not a hundred metre dash. It is a marathon and requires considerable effort and consistent practice from your side.

All the best on your studies leading to a good and growing corporate career.