Career options after MBA for EE/EC/Comp Engineers ??

Question

Hi,

I am an Electrical Engineer. I am interested to know your views on and possibly come up with a list of various different careers after MBA that people with similar background can get into...any thoughts..

icemanjs4 · Answer

I will second that. Right now the best options I see are Product Management (basically a job that requires you to make strategic decisions, while talking to engineering teams, as well as marketing, finance, and other operations teams).

Beyond that, it depends on what you like to do. Are you just getting an MBA to get an MBA? Or is there something specific that interests you?

fedexunledded · Answer

If you're looking to get into consulting or finance, I don't think your work experience before MBA matters a lot. For getting into consulting, you do well in school, practice case interviews and hope it works out. I am not familiar with the process of landing a job in Finance but I have heard that prior experience helps and its about networking to a large extent.

For other roles in industry, I hear recruiters do look at the work experience. For those with engineering backgrounds such as the ones you mentioned above (Computer Science and Electrical/Electronics), moving to various roles in tech firms is a possibility: Marketing (Product Management), General Management, Corporate Strategy to name a few. However, for international students, the work authorization does pose another constraint. A few firms other than the consulting and finance regulars do not sponsor work visas.

Also, it helps to narrow down your choices if you have something specific in mind.

AlexMBAApply · Answer

For technology companies hiring MBAs for most post-MBA positions (product management, business development, etc), your engineering background will be a big asset (Google used to *require* officially that their MBA hires had engineering/compsci backgrounds - they have since loosened that but still prefer it). This will be an asset even if the tech sector you're going into has little to do with your technical expertise -- the reason is because you're going into a sector where engineers are the heart and soul of the company culture. They want to know that you understand their world and their sensibility, even if your areas of technical expertise are completely different, because you're going to have to be working with them and incorporating their input in your decision-making process as a manager. Also, traditionally in engineering-centric sectors there is an embedded distrust for MBA types so they want to know that even though you have an MBA, underneath it all you are one of them

As fedexunledded said, for consulting and investment banking, your pre-MBA background won't matter, as they will take people from all kinds of backgrounds. For consulting, it really comes down to how well you do on the case interviews. For investment banking, it's about *fit* - convincing them that you understand what you're getting yourself into (the hours, the culture, etc.). For everything else, your lack of related industry experience will be a hurdle - but not necessarily an impossible one. For example, if you really wanted to get into brand management, pharma, nonprofit or entertainment you probably could, but you'll have more of an uphill climb. But the biggest hurdle will likely be US immigration/work visa issues if you're an international.

fedexunledded · Answer

Posted these URLs on another forum but figured they might be relevant to this topic too:

https://old.news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20110617 ... 0615474324

https://blogjobs.biz/jobs/2011/06/mba-jo ... new-world/

Caveat: Content may be identical on these posts

Career options after MBA for EE/EC/Comp Engineers ??

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