Do you have a passion for business but aren’t quite sure what department would best suit you? Are excellent working benefits and great financial stability appealing to you? Then it sounds like you would be a perfect fit for MBA jobs. A master of business administration position could involve work from a wide variety of business disciplines. You might find yourself working in anything from management jobs to analyst and HR jobs or even in the finance sector of a company.
An MBA is one of the world’s best known and widely recognized degrees so it’s a very desirable qualification to have. Let’s elaborate a bit more on this degree and talk a bit about what you can expect when trying to find MBA jobs in South Africa.
What is an MBA (Master of Business Administration)?
An MBA is an internationally recognized level of education that teaches you the necessary skills to operate and streamline a business and its practices. This is not only specific to private business but also includes knowledge in undertaking managerial responsibilities in the private, public and government sectors.
The majority of MBA’s will give you a broad study spectrum of the business environment as a whole. These study subjects will most likely include accounting, business operations, marketing, and then a number of subjects you can choose to customize your degree to best suit your career needs. Many MBA courses require an internship at a recognized organization to complete the degree. This means that you will be almost guaranteed a job after the program’s completion and you will already have work experience to put on your CV.
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Currently, a Master of Business Administration degree is the most popular professional degree program in the world. Today there are over 2,500 MBA programs offered by various training institutions worldwide. It was initially introduced at universities in the United States just after the 20th century. Due to the ever changing business environment, MBA programs have evolved to keep up with the changing business landscape.
Positions and career opportunities for MBA graduates
Business Manager or management jobs
One of the most common positions that people with an MBA degree will find are business management jobs. Depending on how the company is structured, you might supervise an entire company’s or a specific sector or department within an organization. Your duties will vary greatly here and every single department will have different requirements and required knowledge.
Here you will want to concentrate on the finance, management and communications specializations with regards to finding the most suitable MBA jobs in South Africa.
HR jobs
HR or, human resources, is mainly responsible for managing a company’s workforce in terms of how they work and function together within the company. You will be involved in the hiring/firing process, performance assessment, training, motivation and solving any disputes.
If you would like to effectively take on HR jobs, you will need to concentrate on business management and HR type specializations and a background in sociology or psychology will really help you a lot here.
IT Manager Jobs
Here you will be responsible for all IT related activities within a company. This could include things such as managing the support staff to making sure the company’s servers are running smoothly.
The study courses you choose will need to focus on both the business and the tech worlds. You will still need to do courses that involve business process and then the IT related courses too.
Chief financial officer or financial manager jobs
A finance officer, or a financial manager, help to keep control of the operations of financial institutions like banks of finance companies. You might also be in charge of a large organization’s finances and the people that manage them like the clerks and accountants. Money is always a main concern for any organization so there will always be a place for financial manager jobs.
You will want to makes sure that you specialize in all the financial type subjects with your MBA and a prior accounting degree will be incredibly beneficial here.
Data Analyst jobs
The main duties that you will be tasked with as a Data Analyst, are managing and verifying a company’s data so that you can manage and predict future trends in a specific sector. You will also have to present these findings to the people in the company so they can also monitor the performance of their organization.
Here you will want a solid background in technology related studies and experience. The chosen MBA study courses should also follow this.
I want to get a MBA degree
You should first know that an MBA degree is not like registering for a normal degree. Here you cannot just get into a college that offers an MBA degree based on your school leaving marks.
First off you need an undergraduate degree or equivalent, this means that you need to already have a degree. Let’s says you want to go into MBA inclined financial manager jobs, as started above, the first step is to get a degree that coincides with this, like an accounting degree. Then you will need several years of work in that discipline and lastly, it will be massively beneficial for you to go to the right schools for these undergraduate degrees. Keep in mind that more people apply for an MBA than there are places for them to study, so you really have to be the best of the best to qualify. These business schools and universities that offer these MBA courses can afford to be very choosy about their students.
Business schools will start off by looking at your basic credentials and marks at school and at college. Business schools will then look at your GMAT score (Graduate Management Admission Test), work experience, community involvement, extra mural activities and then lastly they will look at the essays you have submitted, recommendations and then conduct an interview. It’s very similar to getting a good job so make sure you prepare for it in this fashion.
The GMAT score is a computer based exam that combines multiple choice and written elements. This test measures your ability to think logically and tests your knowledge of the business environment. There are verbal and mathematically based problems involving everything from algebra to sentence correction.
Please also be aware that there are purely online based MBA courses that one can apply for, but these still require the same stringent requirements, as stated above, to be accepted.
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That is a very broad introduction to the MBA course. There are many resources online that will give you a more in-depth look at the MBA degree.
If you already have your MBA, then you will be on the lookout for MBA jobs in South Africa. www.Jobmail.co.za is an ideal and effortless platform for discovering great positions like HR jobs and CFO jobs, so register your CV today. If there’s a vacancy for it, then you can find it on Job Mail. Do you have vacancies that are related to MBA jobs? Place a FREE advert on Job Mail and find the perfect candidate to fill this position.