To be 2 or to be 1

Jatin Bhandari

I met with an applicant who had completed a one year MBA from a top global MBA programme in 2008, and he was keen on applying to other schools in the US this year. While he was working with one of the Big 4 Auditing firms in India, he was still not satisfied with the kind of role he had or even the remuneration that he was getting in exchange for his services. He had worked for three years before starting this one-year MBA in 2007, and it did not work for him - at all.

What do you think happened?

If your mindset is "I have no idea of the industries or functions and will explore them once the MBA gets started", you are at a stage of life where you cannot afford a one-year MBA programme.

• One year MBA programmes are meant for people who have some idea of the nature of the post-MBA jobs they will be recruiting for. They can have confusions, but those confusions have to be very informed confusions i.e. they will know what factors to assess before jumping into any of the available alternatives.
• Two-year MBA programmes are meant for people who are very open to experimenting and are willing to spend another year into learning what are the other alternatives that are available in various industries and functions. People with work experience of less than five years should normally look for a two-year MBA. The ones with 5 to 7 years of work experience should consider both the alternatives based on the stage of their careers.
• If one is looking making a significant switch in career (industry/function), one needs an internship. For example, barriers to entry are the lowest in investment banking only when you go through the internship route. Most of the bulge bracket banks would like to meet you several times before taking you for full-time positions. The full-time conversions without an internship are tough given the competitive nature of certain industries
• If you are working with Infosys or any other IT firm and are keen on moving over to products (working for product management positions with Microsoft), you should take the two-year MBA route. You should look at building the concepts in the first year, try out an internship, assess various alternatives after the internships, and do the full-time recruiting in the second year along with building your base in product management and marketing related courses.
• If  you are already working  in the product development teams and work with the product managers on a daily basis, and are now keen on making a switch  from development side to management side of the products, I think you can do that with a one-year MBA too ( US will not offer many one-year MBA programmes with strong placement support and you will have to explore Canada, Europe, and other global destinations. For someone willing to make a career in India, ISB is a good alternative too.

In nutshell, create a future that you are trying to capture through an MBA programme. An MBA is a means to an end and not an end in itself.

The writer is Founder and CEO Pythagurus