Traditionally, Executive MBA (EMBA) students have sought career services that focus on managing their careers with their current employers. But with fewer companies sponsoring their executives to pursue MBAs, and more and more EMBA students paying their own way, the demand for services has increased and also changed character.
Susan Dearing, executive director and EMBA career coach in the UCLA Anderson Executive MBA program, spoke with Top MBA about her role in helping to guide and advance the careers of a new generation of EMBA students.
EMBAs, unlike most full-time MBA candidates, have 10-12 years of professional experience; but if they are looking to move into a new area or change companies, they may need much the same coaching that less experienced graduates rely on.
“Students need to understand the process of finding work, which is all about getting out there and knowing how to research the job market,” says Dearing. “This allows students to target and identify job opportunities that are going to be the right fit for them. The networking process is particularly important — being able to create relationships [that] put students in a position where they can hear about opportunities when they come up. They won't just be relying on the advertised job market or the job openings that are posted in various places. A commonly quoted statistic is that 80 percent of all executive-level jobs are never advertised, they are filled through word of mouth. So, there's a big emphasis here on what the process is for finding those kinds of unadvertised jobs.”
Susan Dearing is the best! She is a wonderful resource for students. She is the standard bearer for career services for EMBA programs.
Posted by: Kmlnyc | 03/25/2015 at 09:30 PM