MBA SPECIAL .......................MBA programmes that get you where you want to go

MBA programmes that get you where you want to go





With some 13,000 graduate schools of business across the globe, the MBA degree has clearly become a commodity .

Even among elite schools, courses and case studies are pretty much water from the same well (i.e., finance, operations, marketing, accounting). So how do you choose? By using the rankings? Which ones? The Economist's? Businessweek's? The Financial Times's? And if you do, how do you tell the difference between a school ranked No. 6 and a school ranked No. 7?
Conventional wisdom will tell you that Harvard is for Fortune 500 jobs, Wharton for Wall Street, Kellogg for marketing and Insead for multinational entities. There's truth to some of it, but times change, and so do employers' recruiting preferences. The smartest move might be to choose your business school by focussing on a very specific outcome and, assuming a good fit personally , going to the one with an impressive record of helping students achieve the same. Period.

IF YOU WANT...

To Work At Amazon Go To Ross School of Business (University of Michigan)

This might come as a surprise: Amazon regularly hires more MBAs from top10 business schools than big Wall Street firms. And its demand is surging: In 2014, Amazon hired 40% more MBAs than it did in 2013, a large chunk of them from Ross. The e-commerce giant hired 27 MBAs from Michigan last year, displacing Ross's historical No. 1 recruiter, Deloitte Consulting, and 37 the previous two years.

The most senior Ross graduate at Amazon is Peter Faricy , class of 1995 and vice-president of Amazon Marketplace. Faricy says that while Ross graduates have traits common to most MBAs -analytic ability and problem-solving skills -some curriculum-related offerings are particularly well suited to Amazon. One course takes students into the field to solve a problem for a sponsoring company . Faricy also mentioned desirable soft skills -humility , listening and a hearty work ethic.

IF YOU WANT...

To Work At McKinsey & Company Go To Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern)

For an MBA, landing a job at McKinsey is a bit like trying to get into a competitive business school all over again. Except the field is much stronger, made up of only those who managed to pass the first hurdle. But graduates of Kellogg perform quite well the second time around. The school's MBAs are in demand at elite consulting firms, which hired 35% of its graduates last year, a higher percentage than at Harvard (23%) and Stanford (16%).

The top four recruiters at Kellogg in 2014 were McKinsey , Deloitte, Bain and the Boston Consulting Group. McKinsey alone has hired 215 Kellogg graduates over the last five years.

Elizabeth Ziegler, associate dean of MBA programmes at Kellogg and, more importantly, a former partner at McKinsey , says that consulting firms look for two specific things in MBA graduates: a natural gift for building trust-based relationships and strong problem-solving skills. The school's pedagogy is based on a team-based model, which develops the first. And its curriculum stresses the second, with a particular focus on helping students answer a question McKinsey consultants grapple with every day on behalf of clients: Do you know what problem you're actually solving?

IF YOU WANT...

To Work At Apple Go To Fuqua School of Business

(Duke) Silicon Valley hasn't always welcomed MBAs. After all, you don't need a graduate degree to hatch a bold idea in your garage. Steve Jobs, Apple's late chief, didn't finish college and was known to have disdain for “suits,“ whether investment bankers or management consultants. But the company , once the scrappy symbol of the tech counterculture, has undergone an evolution.

Two of Apple's top 10 executives hail from Fuqua: the chief executive, Timothy D Cook, and the senior vice-president of operations, Jeff Williams. And they are, apparently, loyal. Apple has hired 32 Fuqua graduates over the past five years, while also pro viding 42 internships for Duke students.

IF YOU WANT...

To Work In Private Equity Go To Stanford Graduate School of Business

Private equity has the most lucrative jobs for MBAs, but also the fewest.

“Only a handful of business schools on the planet can even pretend to open doors in PE,“ says Matt Symonds, co author of “ABC of Getting the MBA Ad missions Edge“.

While East Coast schools would seem an obvious choice given their proximity to Wall Street, private equity isn't tied to New York in the way investment banking is, and in recent years Stanford has managed to defy conventional wisdom. Its graduates' success in landing coveted private equity jobs has proved it is more than just a recruiting ground for California's technology industry .

In 2014, Stanford put 12% of its gradu ates into private equity jobs, a larger percentage than Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania (8.5%), Booth at the University of Chicago (5.1%) and Columbia (2.4%), and a shade less than Harvard (13%). While more Harvard graduates entered the industry, Stanford's starting salaries last year for private equity were the highest for any job at any school -ever. Median base salary was $1,70,000 (compared with Harvard's $1,50,000), and signing bonuses plus other guaranteed compensation took the total take up to $3,85,000 (compared with Harvard's $2,55,000). One lucky 2013 MBA actually received a shocking $5,22,000 starting package.

Madhav V Rajan, the acting dean, points out that Stanford's long heritage in teaching students how to scale small, fastgrowing companies dovetails perfectly with its more analytical finance courses to prepare students for jobs in PE. A recurring guest lecturer: Warren Buffett.

IF YOU WANT...

To Start Your Own Company Go To Harvard Business School

No, the world has not been turned upside down. The substantial resources Harvard has devoted to its entrepreneurial offerings in recent years are starting to show real results.By many accounts, Harvard has as strong a claim to being top start-up destination as Stanford does.

Anchored by its Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the school offers 33 graduatelevel entrepreneurship courses, with the secondlargest number of dedicated faculty after finance. But its push reaches well beyond the classroom. An annual New Venture Competition awards $1,50,000 in cash plus in-kind prizes. The school also assists graduates who are pursuing new ventures with loan reductions of $10,000 to $20,000. Last year, 21 student entrepreneurs got over $3,25,000 through the programme. Its biannual entrepreneurial summit gathers alumni with demonstrated early-stage traction, and an entrepreneurs-in-residence programme invites accomplished founders (and funders) to hold weekly office hours to advise students.

John A Byrne, author of eight books on business and founder and editor of Poets & Quants, a website that covers business education, ranked Harvard No. 1 in his recent assessment of startup culture. Stanford's graduates usually raise more money , he points out, but Harvard grads consistently start more companies.

IF YOU WANT...

A Global Education ..Go To Yale School of Management

Edward A Snyder is reinventing Yale's business school. Soon after his arrival as dean in 2011, the school created the Global Network for Advanced Management. The network has since assembled an impressive membership of 27 schools from five continents, including well-known names (Insead, London School of Economics) as well as lesser-known ones in China (Fudan University School of Management), the Philippines (Asian Institute of Management), Nigeria (Lagos Business School) and Turkey (Koc University School of Business).

The consortium has produced joint faculty research and case studies, and created online courses available only to students at network schools. Students also have the opportunity to pursue study at another network school -630 did so this March.

IF YOU WANT...

To Work In The Luxury Goods Industry Go To HEC Paris

HEC Paris isn't just about luxury -The Economist named it the top business school in Europe in 2014, and the fourth best globally -but the school is a no-brainer for an MBA hellbent on working in the luxury goods industry . Its proximity to Paris is clearly crucial. Students have the opportunity to visit stores, workshops and headquarters of a Who's Who of luxury icons, including the behemoth Kering (Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Brioni, Gucci, Puma), Cartier, Chanel and Hermès. Named for Kering itself, the five-year-old luxury program is restricted to just 50 students annually , and those 50 consistently find jobs with some of the biggest brands in Paris and elsewhere.

IF YOU WANT...

To Change The World Go To Presidio Graduate School

The youngest school on this list, Pre sidio, has been around only 12 years, created by a lawyer and a former advertising executive who believed that established schools weren't producing the kind of socially minded graduates that were needed. Presidio is doing well toward that end. It has placed sustainability directors at companies from Salesforce.com to Facebook, and its graduates have founded sustainability-focused companies like Muir Data Systems (data management for the wind turbine industry) and Mission Motors (electric vehicle systems).

Presidio is also one of just a handful of business schools where women (60%) outnumber men. Located in Presidio National Park in San Francisco, it has a campus-lite approach: Most courses are online, with one in-person weekend of classes a month. That helps keep costs down. A two-year degree is $62,400, about half the typical tuition fee. But those savings come with a price: Sustainability-focused MBAs give up bigtime starting salaries. Presidio's average is in the mid-$80,000s.

Duff McDonald

-New York Times