The Marriage of the Technology Industry and MBA Graduates
Positions in leading finance, banking, and consulting firms have traditionally been dream career choices for management graduates pursuing their MBAs. Picking schools sought after by such employers is typically one of the graduates’ first attempts to fulfill their aspirations.
However, in the past couple of years there has been an increased demand among graduates to find good jobs in the technology sector. There is a welcome push-pull in supporting this marriage—among technology employers as well as the management schools and graduates. Technology MBAs are becoming popular and offer students excellent full-time and part-time options to pursue their programs.
A couple of years ago, technology players such as Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook steadily positioned themselves among the top ten most sought after employers by these graduates. In the current year’s ranking, Google is number one, ahead of the power management employer McKinsey.
Amazon has a selective list of schools that it goes after, including Wharton, UCLA, Dartmouth, and Carnegie Mellon. Amazon hires four graduates for every five hired by the leading management consulting firm, Bain & Co.
Turmoil in the financial sector has been a major reason for management graduates to start exploring options outside the core finance and banking domains; however, this has now given way to bigger and better reasons that the technology sector needs to be proud of.
Innovation is one of the top quoted reasons for the increasing interest of these management graduates in the technology sector. Better relevance at work and the potential to showcase greater impact are other top reasons for this shift in interest.
An interest in switching domains post MBA is also seen by the industry at large as a welcome change since that is one of the major reasons these graduates enroll in these programs. For those who still have a passion for finance, there are ample job opportunities—such as financial analysis and reporting in technology companies—which give them a good mix of job opportunities, innovation, and stability. In addition to the big players, the playing field of technology startups is very promising for graduates to get into and demonstrate their value.
It is heartening to see that graduates show a natural tendency to get into the technology sector rather than seeing this as a forced move due to their odds in the financial domain. With the right mix of a holistic business view and their collaborative efforts with technology engineers, MBA graduates have a very promising career to build in the technology space, creating a win-win situation for themselves and their employers.
