How can you take advantage of your Executive MBA experience?

MBA Careers Manager, Anil Ram, explores the different ways the Careers team can support your Executive MBA experience. 

There is a plethora of reasons why you may have decided to undertake your Executive MBA; from learning new skills and developing your existing ones, navigating your career path to the next level, supporting yourself through a career change and many more.

Your Executive MBA will support you in achieving these goals, but there is so much more on offer that can aid you in identifying and assisting you in your next step.

Below are five key ways you can utilise the CareersPlus services to help you get the most out of your time at WBS:

1. Self-reflection

Before you embark on your new career journey, it’s vital to know more about yourself. From identifying your own strengths, areas for development, interests and what really matters most to you, this will help pave the way forward.

We appreciate self-reflection can be difficult or even a new concept to some, however, it’s a crucial tool in how we support individuals in their Executive MBA experience. Students have access to a Career Management Module where the first three sections are solely dedicated to self-awareness.

Furthermore, throughout the induction process, all students are invited to undertake a psychometric test and have access to wider tools such as; Hogan Assessments, Insights, MBTI and Strengths Profile. Following on from these assessments, students can debrief with qualified individuals to discuss and harness the learning from their psychometrics.

2. Individual support

There are three different types of support available to all Executive MBA students.

You have access to unlimited Career Coaching sessions which offer impartial, client centred careers support. In these sessions, you could focus on adding value in your current role, application reviews, developing networking strategies, interview practice and preparation, utilising social media to become a thought leader and so much more.

Executive Coaching meanwhile is an ideal way to focus on developing a strategy for reaching your goals, clarifying where to go next, exploring the options available to you and supporting you in employing tools and developing techniques to achieve career success in an increasingly competitive job market.

All Executive MBA students are provided with three hours’ worth of coaching which can be utilised in a variety of ways. Students have access to a global and exclusive coaching panel and can continue to work with their coaches after their initial allocation by purchasing further sessions.

The WBS Mentoring Programme is an award-winning programme where our senior alumni give back to support current students and alumni. You can join the mentoring programme for a small additional fee and after a very thorough matching process, you will be allocated a mentor for a two-year period.

3. Skills workshops and webinars

One key advantage of the Executive MBA is the alignment of the academic subject knowledge and careers content. Workshops are built into academic timetables and complement current modules in addition to covering wider topics such as; stakeholder management, communicating change and developing ‘courageous conversations’ with professional actors to help practise and develop those real-life challenging conversations.

4. Build an effective network

By careful and intentional design, your Executive MBA is geared to help you develop networks with your current peer group through rotational syndicate groups.

Taking this further, you will be invited to a variety of workshops both in person (when safe to do so), hybrid and purely online. These sessions can be part of the Change Maker series, external guest speakers, panel events and Clubs that have been set up by fellow MBA students.

Whether you choose to undertake a consulting project or dissertation at the end of your MBA, this may also present the opportunity to target a specific industry and/or organisation to help develop networks, knowledge and even access hidden opportunities.

5. Utilise the online resources

We have a wide range of online resources available; from software allowing you to see company information collated in one location, to salary negotiation training, interview simulation software and access to the Financial Times as well as other tools on offer.

To get further information, please email careersplus@wbs.ac.uk