Need Advice: Part Time MBA Objective ?

Question

I work as a Research Scientist, Product Development in a Pharmaceutical Company. My MBA aspiration is to eventually get into Business Development role in Pharmaceutical Industry. I believe my product development experience will be a great asset in that role.

Is Part time MBA (as compared to Full Time) a good option as I want to switch career in different direction, however working in the same industry.

Thank you for your help.

kman · Answer

I am shooting for a part time as well. Generally speaking, full time is more suitable for career changers and part time for those wanting to stay in the same company/industry. But, thats really over simplifying..there may be several other factors as well.

In my case, I cannot afford to quit my job and go full time. Part time will work much better for me, because I have other commitments and I don't plan to change careers. I am also an older applicant with several years of experience, and part-time is more suitable for me.

spgny · Answer

FT seems to be best option for switching careers since there is "usually" comapny recruitment.

ncp · Answer

How much experience do you have in the industry? If you have limted experience, then I would go with FT, but if you have substantial experience (managing teams, older agewise etc), then PT might do the trick for you especially if you stand to lose a lot by forgoing your salary. In essence, you may be one of those people who could succeed in either program type and in the end it may come down to personal preferences more than anything. If you do PT, make sure you go to a school where your target companies come to recruit and where you are allowed to recruit with the FT cohort.

scorcho · Answer

I agree with other posters that your decision likely pivots around how much work experience you have. Beyond that, I think you have to examine what's necessary to succeed in your desired career.

I assume by business development you mean some type of sales function. I'm not sure how this works in pharma, but in most other fields success in sales is typically really about being able to sell more and more business. The best salespeople I've worked with are frequently much less educated than their peers but they're driven, persistent, know their products and how to relate to their customers.

For that reason, I have to wonder if you'd be better served making the transition within your own organization and getting some early depth in this space before making a decision about how/where to get your MBA.

I'll also throw out that there that sales positions themselves aren't hard to get--since most business development positions have a significant emphasis on variable compensation, there's a perceived lower cost to a sales hire. My experience has been that the organizations I've worked for are much more willing to take a risk on a BD career switch than in other functions. Meaning, I wouldn't think an MBA is the key to switching gears to sales.

I'm not saying an MBA won't benefit you, just playing devil's advocate about whether it will help your mission to move into a new role.

Good luck either way. If you go full-time, you'll probably have a lot of other opportunities to make sure whatever career you target fully leverages your degree.

Need Advice: Part Time MBA Objective ?

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