5 Extraordinary career choices for Marketing Major

mba graduatesThe most basic question which revolves in the minds of first year MBA students is what specialization they should go for, Finance, Marketing, Human Resource, IT, so many options to choose from.  This is one billion dollar question and every student would like to take a right decision on it. But to take right decision one must know and learn about the exhaustive career options available in all of these fields. Don’t worry. I got your back. To start with, here we will discuss various career opportunities available in field of Marketing.

Marketing is one awesome career choice for sure. If you are looking for a career where things can change in minutes and challenge is a part of daily routine, then welcome aboard! It is fun and requires lots of efforts. There are no rules and regulation or no set formula. No one can read a customer’s mind after all. Your only help will be day to day experience you will build over time by working hard. I have spilled the beans of various extraordinary careers you can build in here. Enjoy!

  1. Social Media Marketing –

    social-media-marketing-tipsHow about you get paid for using Facebook? Wonderful won’t it be? Social media marketing is about creating your company’s presence on social media. As we all know how strong social media has become and almost every person uses some or the other social media platforms these days, companies are trying to take the maximum advantage of it. Apart from well known social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin platforms like Google plus, Quora are also very popular. You have to be extremely creative and need to have bird’s eye to catch the latest trends on social media platforms. Social media marketing is not that easy as it sounds, it requires lots of concentration and time. Building presence and brand of a company on these channels is not at all easy, so if you think you can think out of the box and bring different and catchy ideas to plate then you can consider this career option.

  2. Content Marketing

    Content-marketing-strategyBlogging your love?  Then welcome to content marketing. Content marketing basically means developing unique content for the company which attracts customers resulting in retaining them as well as generating new leads. Have you noticed the latest trends of Scoopwhoop, Buzzfeed and Storypick? They are the examples of what Content Marketing is. For becoming content marketer you have to be very focussed and smart with your words. You will have to develop witty, funny, informative (depending upon the company requirement) and most importantly distinguished content, so the customers remain entertained. One good thing about this career option is you can always do this part time as a student as well. This will definitely be add on to your CV.  You can bring out some time from your daily routine and write articles. There are many job portals where you can find part time content Marketing/writing assignments. So if you have neck of creative writing, you may consider this wonderful option.

  1. Branding

    brandingHave you ever wondered how is it to build a name for a company which ultimately becomes an industry pioneer. BMW for example. How did it become BMW? In literal terms branding is a process of creating a unique name and image for a product or a company  in the consumers‘ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent Branding mainly aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. Just like other Marketing functions, Branding also requires extreme focus. In your every campaign you will have to be extremely focussed and straight in how you bring out the image and decisions of your company. You will have to create one image for your company and retain it over period of time. If you like to bring a name to the company from the scratch and/or retain a company’s existing image with innovative campaigns, you should definitely consider this career option and excel in it.

  1. Advertising

    AdvertiseHave you ever wished you could be the mind behind the wonderful Vodafone Zoozoo campaign or some other campaign to say? If yes, then you must love advertising. If I say Advertising is probably every marketing student’s dream job, I may not entirely be wrong. At some point we all are fascinated with one brilliantly executed campaign of Coca Cola, Maggi, Cadbury etc. I am sure I don’t need to explain here what advertising mean since it’s such a demanding and somewhat hyped career option in Marketing. One thing is extremely important for a student to be in advertising is to be extremely creative. You will be required to work for long hours and bring new concepts. If you think you have it, well then best of luck.

  1. Sales

Increase-saleMarketing can never be completed without Sales. Sales is one part which can never ever be ignored. Although every function in Marketing is to bring business directly or indirectly but Sales is one big direct way to bring hefty revenues to company. Sales personnel are required to be having extremely well presence of mind and brilliant communication skills. Often know to be an extremely hectic job, Sales is also one of the high paying jobs in many cases. In many companies the sales force is awarded with hefty commissions as well. If you think you can pull off business from the clients and customers then sales is your way to go.

Although Marketing seems very flashy to people for the kind of profiles it offers, but at the same time it is fun and requires efforts. For whatever the company is in the market, Marketing is about bringing that to the end user in the most effective and creative manner and make sure that they buy the product/service company is offering. There are some known traits which you need to have for all these above mentioned profiles but it is not necessary that if you don’t have them you cannot opt them. One can always develop skills; it’s a never ending process. Important thing is to know what you want to do and more importantly is to love what you want to do. Best of luck!


Contributed by Leena Sonparate ( Class of 2013, IBS MUMBAI ) Can contact on Linkedin http://in.linkedin.com/pub/leena-sonparate/4b/715/aa7

The Three Mistakes During And After An MBA

MBA CareerThe greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

 We as human beings are prone to make mistakes. More so, during the most important critical period of our student lives, and essentially while preparing for higher education.

An MBA is radically different from any of the undergraduate courses we in India would have pursued. And more importantly, it would also be vastly different from any of the post graduate courses.

A regular MBA course is exhaustive, requiring long hours, substantial amounts of self study and most importantly considerable up-gradation of knowledge and skill sets.

It is over this last point that most students trip up.

The first few months into an MBA course will make you feel jittery over time lines, projects and most importantly presentations.

An MBA course prepares you for the rough journey in the big bad corporate professional world which is a stickler for time lines and accuracy.

The MBA is a full dress rehearsal for all things to come, both good and bad.

Use every moment of it, in constantly learning and updating your knowledge bank.

The most common mistake which we as students make is to treat the MBA as just another regular Post graduate course- a course which one has to pursue for the sake of pursuing to add another degree to our resume’.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Using this degree in a resume’ to further one’s career will come later. The MBA offers you a whole two years to hone up on your time management skills, soft skills, communication.

Very few view this as an opportunity to learn and fill up the holes in ones personality. Most of us view he first six months see the course as dreary, full of presentations and impossible deadlines.

Our undergraduate courses hardly prepare us for the long haul and the bad patches which life will present us with.

The second fatal mistake we must not commit in an MBA program-is people. Yes people-till the time we enter an MBA program, our graduate courses are focused only on self study, requiring no interaction with other students-denying us of other viewpoints and experience.

MBA Program

The MBA is not an individual, solitary program-every project, every assignment, every marketing study requires to align ourselves in groups, sometimes possibly choosing our own team. Some of us make the mistake of not contributing anything in a team -the work will still be done nevertheless, but it robs the team of your inputs and robs you of honing your skills.

In your professional life, choosing to go it alone will rob you of growth amongst your peers- a habit you picked during your MBA can have disastrous consequences in your job.

We enter in to an MBA program with just one sole objective-to get a job. Failing to realize that getting a  job-is the end result of what all we do during these two years. The electives we choose, the assignments we complete, the presentations we give, even the spell checks we run on our reports are all preparing us for the interview and the job beyond the interview.

A job is simply an outcome, most of us make the mistake of undertaking every action with a view to gaining a job, or seeking a place at the interview table at the most.

To get to a job, and a company we must be prepared adequately-Sun Tzu says “Those sweat more during peace time will bleed less during war time”.

Every decision you take during the course of your working life, it will resonate with activities during your MBA years, the endless hours spent on presentations, the tips given by peers on how to scrape particularly brutal reviewers will come in handy in handling sticky situations.

Simply skimming through the two years of an MBA, trying to avoid work (though honestly that’s quite difficult to do!) and the n landing straight into an interview is recipe for disaster. The interviewer looks at your complete personality, what you have managed to learn post your graduation and what are the particular skill set you bring to the fore.

The worst mistake which we commit is thinking post landing a job at an interview, the struggle ends. I hate to be the one to break it you, but the real struggle only begins from here.

Starting from which particular company’s interview you decide to choose to appear for, your first job, its location and its job description will make or break our life.

Imagine being stuck in a role or job profile for the next possible three decades of your life.

Carefully choosing the particular industry/job profile is key to your career progressions. A wrong choice here will make you rue your decision for the rest of your life.

Choose a company and a job which will make complete use of your skill sets, your abilities and your strong points.

The other thing to realize very early on in your job is to realize quickly when things are not going according to plan.

If you are not able to get adequate growth and consistently and constantly upgrade yourself in your job, then its best to take an exit option instead of sticking around and trying to turn things around.  This is not quitting, but course correction and this is absolutely essential to survive and to learn.

Ultimately, life in all its stages is full of experiences and its mistakes and more importantly-learning.

We must make sure that we are constantly moving and learning, and acquiring new skills both during and post the MBA in our jobs as well.

The day we stop learning, is the day we truly die.

Frequently, during and post the MBA you will come across difficult situations and more importantly difficult people to deal and live with.

Learning to make peace with people who have a different opinion, yet asserting what you believe is right (both factually and otherwise) is a tact which will stand you in good stead throughout your life.


Contributed by sunil iyer ( Class of 2008, IBS GURGAON )

Moving up the corporate ladder!

moving up the corporate ladderFriends I’ve witnessed an unprecedented corporate success story which I cherish and I am honored to be mentored under a prodigy. His idea was, “when you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat”. His success story has inspired and ignited many; he created massive opportunities and has believed in the mantra of “retort to revenge is massive success”

He got extraordinary ten promotions in seven years; I can’t even speculate on how many times he was awarded the star performer or the jewel of the organization. I’ve worked, fought and learned under him. I’ve deeply analyzed his strategy to move up the corporate chain and thought would be a good example for all to study.

Folks, great minds think differently and make others to act differently. I’d like to put out five major aspects of his approach, through which he achieved massive success and still continues to do it.

  1. Great leader ignite others, inspire imagination and instill a love for learning – I joined straight out of college, fairly new to corporate structure, the market was not doing well and the challenges were immense. He called us and took us straight to our senior VP for a quick introduction. I notice when we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage. I observed this guy actually tried to push us through the line by judging our willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait; you have to take the bull by the horn. Later I came to know the VP was amongst the founding member of the organization and first good impression on him will help us climb the ladder quickly. He might have not fairly taken us to him but unlike others, he did; highly developed leaders don’t encounter resistance from mediocre minds. They think big and allow others to think big. As a result I was never afraid to walk to any one’s cabin to push my idea through. He ignited my mind to dream big.
  2. Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving and take initiatives. In his opinion the best way to prove your credibility in a closed loop environment is to take initiative, create an opportunity and pave your way to success. He joined as a management trainee and from day one itself he took initiatives which transformed and benefitted the organization. Amazingly what inspired me was the way he uses to hop around vertical to find an opportunity. He never felt shy in asking stupid questions as he uses to tell us, a question is never stupid but an answer is. From automating the transport roster to implementing the lean principle; from helping the HR team to transform the hiring process to assisting the business in acquiring clients; from preparing decks on behalf of leadership to understanding the grey areas of the clients; from delivering speeches to sleeping on the floor to prove his point; he has done it all. No matter how stupid my idea was, he compelled me to analyze and implement it. His principle was “Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity”.
  3. No is a complete sentence and often we forgot to say it. In my leap of taking initiatives I ended up with a lot of crappy work. I was finding it difficult to manage work and simultaneously the expectations from the management to come up with something exciting grew immensely. I got de-motivated, wondering how to get rid of unnecessary activities, the dice were loaded against me. Seeing me falling flat, he helped me, he taught the idea of saying “No”. He said Learn to say ‘no’ to the good so you can say ‘yes’ to the best. I started to pick my battle wisely, as not all battles are worth fighting. I worked on initiatives which created phenomenal result, and said NO to work which I was not supposed to do. From disaster written all over; I became a shining star.
  4. Habitual procrastinators will readily testify to all the lost opportunities; so never postpone. Until hell freezes over we normally don’t start to work. This is actually the case of most of us and to move up we should minimize procrastination. Perhaps, I never had more yelling from him, on me sitting idle and taking no action. The irony with us is we build the plane as it fly and on contrary his ideology was to always believe in getting the better of you. For him, No news is a bad news and good work bring more work. Due to this I was constantly on my toes, I never relaxed, my mind was trained to think, to create opportunities, and find strategic work. It was quite visible on his face, by seeing lazy people he uses to become edgy. He said think up the many things you gave trying because you procrastinated, be it cycling, exercise, studying etc. Takeaway is, “improving yourself should always top any priority” and “procrastination is thief of time”.
  5. Be a leader and communicate effectively. I quote the ultimate measure of man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. I remember an example- we won a contract in negative but management wanted us to execute and deliver the deliverables, just to sustain the relationship with the client. I was assigned a major portion of the contract to execute and from day one there were heavy escalations from the business as well from the client. In few days, I was in to a mess and in a black mood. I wasn’t precise in my communication to stakeholders and every step I took dragged me down. He took charge and told “if you have nothing to say, say nothing”. You have brilliant ideas but if you don’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere. Communicating effectively to the right person more importantly at the right time will take you places. By implementing few of his tips we actually ended the project on a positive note. The bottom line was increased and I got an award for a stellar performance.

Sometime life knocks you out, but the only thing a person can really do is to keep moving forward. I’ll like to end up with a quote from Gita “past is past you can’t do anything to change it what should concern you is your present because present will make your future”.


Contributed by Vaibhav Chandra ( Class of 2009, IBS HYDERABAD )