Sometimes, even if your post-MBA life and career have been carefully planned, your path can still take a surprising turn. The road to success can sometimes get very unexpected and non-trivial. It does not have to be a bad thing, either – if you still find success on your way.
MBA Graduates Take a 180 In Their Careers
As GMAC’s recent survey has proved, at least 50% of business school alumni take up new career fields and opportunities after graduation, informs Poets & Quants. Of course, degree holders are known for switching their spheres of interest. But the interesting thing is that, according to GMAC, most of these alumni started working in areas they didn’t know anything about before enrolling into the university. That’s why, nontraditional student’s experience may be just what the school needs.
Finding Unforeseen Opportunities
We don’t actually know if the number of people with such drastic career changes is going up or down, as nobody thought of finding that percentage before. We only can state for sure that it’s more than a year ago. Another surprising discovery is that almost all of these alumni say they have a remarkably high level of satisfaction with their careers.
The reasons for such a surprising turnout lie in the whole lot of new opportunities offered at business schools and universities. Sometimes, a student applies to b-school with banking and finance in mind, but then they take up a management or marketing course and suddenly it dawns on them that this is exactly what they wanted to do their whole lives. That’s how students get introduced to new career choices.

The survey included three different generations of MBA graduates – EMBA, part-time MBA, full-time MBA and even other degree holders. Most of them – 92 per cent, to be exact – have a job for now, and the vast majority, more than 80%, are employed by companies. Only slightly more than 10% have launched their own startups.
MBA graduates mostly prefer to work in marketing, sales, management and other similar jobs. The preferred sectors are technical, manufacturing, energy and non-profit organizations. Those who took a drastic turn in their careers show multiple examples of unexpected fields turning out good for them. For instance, an EMBA was fired when bad times came for his oil and gas company, but soon after found himself in the role of a consultant; one more student changed her field radically when she heard about her future company during a university event and knew immediately that this was her culture.
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