Ways and Means to Undergo the Credibility Check
Demand for quality and employable MBA pass-outs are increasing every year and this has given rise to considerable number of institutions offering MBAs with different value-propositions (dual degree programme, student exchange programme, etc) titled differently (MBA, PGDM, PGDBM, etc). Hence prospective students and professionals aspiring to take up MBA have a variety of options to choose from and they search for benchmarks and guidance across the web and offline to make their investment and time of study worthy enough. One of such valuable aid is the B-school rankings that are published every year by different credible media institutions as a research result of great minds. Even though such B-school rankings published aid the prospects a lot in deciding, the two things most of the prospects misses out while going through the rankings are,
a) Not knowing the factors and their corresponding weights for the selection and ranking of a particular B-school and
b) The distance between the two consecutive ranks eg: The scores earned by 7th ranking B-school and 8th ranking B-school may be 400/500 and 220/500 which actually makes a huge difference. We may think that won’t the institutions undertaking ranking process would have been wise enough to do it in the best possible way, but each and every research has its own drawback and as ranking system is easily understood by mass audience they are also left with no choice. Hence we as prospects also has the responsibility to go to the bottom of it and select the apt B-school to make our time and investment worthy.
The two points mentioned above may look trivial for a prospect who seeks only for a good placement after MBA but it makes a lot difference for the prospects who dream to build something of their own or for those who are very much passionate about bringing a difference as a professional in their future job. Hence considering the media rankings alone is not the right way for selecting a B-school in addition to that we need a little tapping work to do. But please note here we does not ask you to make a research but just recommend you to travel some extra mile by putting simplest and smallest efforts that can obtain quality and credible information which are easily available with a tap of your finger for…. somewhat a planned destiny!
All that you need to have to travel this extra mile are,
i) A Smart Phone or a Computer connected with internet, your Linked In and Facebook IDs
ii) Interested specializations (keep it as less as 3) in MBA (eg. Finance, Tourism, Human Resources, etc) even though you will specialize in 1 or 2 it is too early to say which are those before you take up the course, so have few specializations in your mind
iii) Have a list of B-schools that you wish to join
Once you have these then we are Good- To- Go! the down listed are the few credible ways that helps you in finding necessary information to zero-in an apt B-school.
Online- Socialize:
i) LinkedIn:
Connect to the Linked in page of B-schools you have shortlisted, it will offer you credible alumni connections who are professionals at different geographies and lines of business. Their details can be obtained by viewing their profiles in the view profile page.
ii) Facebook:
As every other place Facebook can help you wonderfully. Find the alumni page of the institutes you have shortlisted
Once you do (i) and (ii), select few of the members in the page and send them a message about your willingness to join the B-school from where they passed-out and request them for some help in this regard. Many would surely reply and thereby you can ask them the below questions pertaining to,
- Job opportunities
- Career growth
- Learning culture
- Faculty standard
- Business incubation/ Entrepreneurship cells, etc.
These are the right people to consult about the afterlife of MBA and opinions about their B-Schools because they would be mature and neutral enough to comment/ guide as they have already crossed the path you dream to travel.
With the above information we have the details about their post MBA status and their opinions about the B-school but the opinions are the result of the experience they had then, which may be not true now, so to understand the present scenario we go further.
iii) Find the B-school Facebook pages of the present batch and post your questions pertaining to,
- On-campus placements
- Learning culture
- Faculty standard
- Career opportunities & Average package or your field of your interest, etc
One other advantage of querying the present batch is that you can get information relating to accommodation, food, etc that are in existence and ultimately there are high chances of you having couple of friends in the institution which you may finalize to join
iv) Join the official B-School Facebook page to get updated with the guest lectures, workshops, seminars, conferences, events, etc. and if a B-school regularly organizes such events then it’s a very happening place and it means that it provides you a quality platform to express, learn, perform and nurture different skills necessary
Website:
Checking the websites of B-schools cannot be termed as the best way to know about the present as only few update it regularly but it is a good means to know the details of the recent past. Here the information like,
- Batch composition of students from different academic & professional backgrounds
- Faculty profiles (their Alma mater, academic, professional and research experiences) & information about their work type like Full Time/ Part Time/ Guest Lecture/ Visiting Professor
- Past and present researches undertaken, MOUs or Tie-ups with renowned research and educational institutions and its benefits for the students
- Library infrastructure comprising online and offline resources for study and other essential infrastructure
- Annual business conclaves, cultural events, seminars, etc. are invaluable and credible to consider
Offline- Communication Centers:
Most B- Schools have their Marketing/ Sales/ Admission Offices across different cities, so your nearest office address can be obtained from their websites, and you should visit them to know in detail about their offerings but never buy the generalized statements from them outright like, 100% placements, abroad opportunities, educational loan assistance, etc try asking them the details because there is no point in you getting placed in odd jobs just because the proper job roles were not offered for you in a B-school, so by offering some job to the students still a B-school can proclaim the statement ‘100% placement guaranteed’ hence beware.
Kindly note that any information obtained from the above sources can be verified with the help of the B-school’s present batch Facebook page.
So my dear friends try to undergo the credibility check by,
- Connecting to Linked In and Querying the Facebook Alumni page
- Joining and Querying the Facebook page of B-schools’ present batch
- Surf through the B-schools websites
- Collect the details from the communication centers of the B-schools nearby
- Any details obtained can be cross verified through the members of the B-schools’ present batch Facebook page
Once again the above recommended ways and means does not generalizes or advocates that this is the right way of undergoing the credibility check, all it suggests is that this is one of the ways of undertaking it and it is sure to increase the accuracy of your decision making process. Hence travel this extra mile now so that there is no need for you to travel long miles for your apt career post-MBA.
Contributed By : L.Gowtham, Class of 2013, IBS Hyderabad