Why Top Business-schools prefer candidates with Work Experience?

According to a recent global survey, MBA applicants are tending to increase the years of their work experience prior to applying for an MBA program with the top business schools.

Worldwide, the amount of candidates with 5+ years of work experience has gone up. Also on an average, the age of MBA applicants at

top business schools

has risen by 0.7 years, when the global average stands at 27.3 years. Why are we studying these stats? Why are they important and what are they indicating? Let’s find out.

Whenever we talk about career, experience matters. Whether you’re applying for a job, or a career-oriented program such as an MBA. Students are assessed by the skill set that they have acquired while working on-field, which can be applied while studying various majors like finance, marketing, HR etc. Most

top business schools

and recruiters place a huge emphasis on a candidate’s professional experience.

Why?

Students can refer to their own experience while having class discussions in order to give substantial inputs. Also, they can combine their practical knowledge with the theoretical learnings to generate an all-rounded output.

Have we ever given it a thought that why an MBA degree is so valuable to a student’s career?

Due to the learning opportunities, they get from their peers’ own experiences. They help each other in becoming an all-rounded professional, who has bits of knowledge about many different fields. With a knowledgeable and experienced cohort, discussions elevate to the sharing and understanding of business from multiple backgrounds and industries. Hence, to ensure high-quality learning, top Business Schools are specifically cautious about who they are giving admissions to.

How does my work experience contribute to my application? 

Most of the top business schools tend to look at the whole picture. The organization where the students have worked, the type of work they performed, their tenure at the company, their leadership, and team management. The MBA admissions teams give more importance to quality over quantity. A large number of years of work experience in an industry might give you positive points. But, what the student has done in those years is what really matters.

Quality work experience tends to contribute greatly to an MBA class. It facilitates effective functioning of a group. In an MBA program, many projects are structured in such a way that they require a group of 4-6 students to work in a group. The school will ensure that these students possess working skills relating to different backgrounds. An operations expert, a consultant, a finance person and a marketer might form one group. This way, while working on a problem or a case, students from each background can utilize their respective background experiences to work on that part of the problem. Thus, making everyone to learn from each other.

So next time someone asks you, ‘why is work experience important for top business schools?’ You can simply wow them as now you know, what they don’t.

– Team Leverage