Is a Harvard MBA a career guarantee?

Business is exploding all across the world due to its self-sustainable development. With this technical upsurge, various renowned institutes have started offering MBA programs, each competing with the superiority and exposure of the other. But if this is the case, then where do the crème de la crème of colleges that helped various CEOs, engineers, and scientists flourish lie? Colleges like Harvard have got easier to get into as the level of competition and exposure to General Knowledge through the internet spreads.

Then, in a world with equal competition among IIMs and Ivy League colleges, does a Harvard MBA degree really make it easier for you to get expansive job opportunities?

If you think the answer to the above question is yes, then you are wrong. That does not imply that all the exposure, both cultural and academic, that Harvard provides during MBA is in any way inferior to the assumed. But it is unfair to say that a reputed and deemed Ivy League college like Harvard is a guaranteed career opportunity. This is true for various reasons:

• Increase in demand

Due to the increasing demand for MBA graduates, the popularity of other universities and their preemptive approach has further portrayed them as an equivalent, if not superior, to Harvard. The graduate is getting better salaries, better incentives, and better titles, even without their Harvard certificate.

• An In-group mingling

A better understanding and an in-depth knowledge of the business is mostly on-campus interactions with fellow students. This not only helps them collaborate into building a business venture but helps them find investors. This progress is not restricted to Harvard campuses but in all MBA colleges.

• It’s not about the degree

Most of the current CEOs are rebels or college dropouts that engaged with their creative skills rather than running after a prestigious university. What guarantees a successful career is strategic thinking capabilities, creativity, and problem-solving tactics. If you have any of the skills above, when coupled with an appropriate network, one can get into high titled career positions such as – Executive Leadership, Financial and Managerial Accounting, Business Strategy, Human Capital Management, Marketing, and Operations. A degree is important, yes, but if you do not possess the initiative required for further development, then you might as well do not try either.

• Deployment

In baking customs and services, there are no further recruitments of people with MBAs in sales and trading. So Harvard degree or no Harvard degree, you will not be able to break through the absolute depravity of MBA services.

• Prior experience

Many firms and institutions are now only looking for aspirants who have had prior work experience. Work, they believe, makes you disciplined, organized, liberal, and open-minded. Other than that, it teaches the values of responsibility. So, be it a Harvard degree or not; if you do not have prior work experience you might not even be shortlisted.

• Networking is the key to success

It is true that the most brilliant of minds inhabit the campuses of Harvard, and networking through interactions increases at its best. Harvard is not about the degree, but what it offers in terms of exposure. It is in your hands to engage with the group of people you are comfortable with, or get out of your comfort zone and try something new. If you build the right kind of network, you have sources that make you liable to information otherwise not known.

Therefore, the college that you go to only speaks of your talent, but it is up to you to build something out of it, not your degree.