Source: The Sunday Times
by Gabrielle Monaghan
9 February 2014
An MBA can be a game-changer
“He told me how important it was to exchange business cards when you meet someone,” 30-year-old Rousseau said. “When you sit down at a meeting, the worst thing you can do is put the business card away; in Japan, you have to keep the business card on the table to show you are looking at it.”
She also learned that at the meeting, the person sitting furthest from the door is the most important person. Back in the day, this was to protect them from a Samurai attack.
“Irish people and North Americans are very expressive in meetings and their voices go up and down,” said Rousseau. “In Asia, there’s little variation in tone. Speaking this way was counterintuitive to me, but I got to practice it in a safe environment.”
If she hadn’t met Japanese students in her class, Rousseau said she would have been completely terrified. “You can’t go into a country to sell your business and not be aware of local cultures,” she said. “A lot of western businesses fail when they go to Asia because they are not prepared enough.”
The benefits of new networks was one of the perks Rousseau least expected when she embarked on the 18-month MBA programme in 2011 in a bid to switch careers. Rousseau had been a corporate lawyer in Montreal, working on corporate transactions as legal counsel to the Yellow Pages Group.
She moved to Dublin to pursue an MBA, specialising in marketing and strategy, in the hope of a foray into business. After graduation, she was hired as a business development manager by Santos Dumont, a consultancy for the aircraft leasing industry.
“If you think about an MBA, you think you will learn about accounting and finance,” Rousseau said. “But, ultimately, the best experience is the people you meet, learning from their past experience and keeping in touch with your network.”
As the Irish economy strives to recover from six years of economic woes, the MBA, which has long been the gold standard in business education, is growing in popularity among those ambitious to clinch a career-defining pay rise, promotion, forge out a new career or gain expertise to start their own business.
In a tight job market, MBA graduates stand out, according to Mary Hogan, programme director for the Henley MBA at the Irish Management Institute.
This is especially the case for graduates who combine work with Henley’s part-time programme, where MBA candidates need enough self-motivation for the programme’s mix of self-study, online learning and workshops, Hogan believes.
“MBA people do well in their careers and find themselves in good positions,” she said. “I think employers look especially favourably on those who can get through an MBA while balancing work and family.”
