What Next After an MBA?

Siddhant Mohapatra completed his MBA from ICFAI Business School (IBS), Bangalore, and began his career in Sales, more specifically Sales Analytics. With the job going well, the thought in his mind was – what next?

“Since I was in the market, I knew where the industry was heading and what are the skills that are being sought after. Getting into analytics was a natural next step for me. I was always good with statistics and numbers and felt it was my best way forward. But I didn’t know how to get into analytics as it was not as mainstream yet, and there wasn’t enough buzz around it, at least from what I knew. Initially, I was more inclined to do classroom training, but then I came across Jigsaw Academy (now UNext), and the best thing was I did not have to necessarily quit my job to pursue training from here. I could learn new skills and work at my job simultaneously,” says Siddhant.

Once he got into the rigor of the course, he really enjoyed what he was learning. In fact, he was able to finish the course in just four months. “What I liked about them was that they taught us right from basics and didn’t directly dump us with analytics concepts, which wouldn’t have been great for a newbie to analytics like me. Not only that, they assisted me in my job search, and only a month after I finished my course, I was able to secure a job at Emplay Analytics, a seed stage start-up at the time. An incredible part I discovered once I joined there was that four of the first five hires, which included me, were their alumni!” adds Siddhant.

After three successful years at that job and learning to work on more tools such as R, Excel, and SQL, he felt he was ready to take on a meatier role at a bigger company and bagged a job as Business Analyst at eBay India. “When I wanted to change jobs, I came back to them, and they helped me then too, some three years after I completed the course from them! I cracked the interview in the first attempt itself, and now here I am,” Siddhant further adds.

Just like Siddhant, many professionals are moving towards building their careers in analytics. When asked his advice to anyone thinking of picking up analytics skills, he says, “Analytics is about numbers, statistics, and more recently coding or programming skills. One should have a strong inclination towards these, even if they do not come from these backgrounds. The ability to build a story with data is extremely important, without which you will not be able to explain your analysis to the client.  Statistics is very important – brush up on it and learn it right as it forms the basis for your data career.”

“A Data Scientist should be good at programming from a statistics point of view and good at statistics from a programming point of view”, quips Siddhant.

Analytics is only getting started, and the future is data. “Analytics is an important skill for everyone right now. Data Science is only one part of analytics, and there is so much more to learn. Being good at crunching numbers is not enough, but you should be able to show clients your results in a manner they will understand. Analytics will become even bigger in the next five years, and if there is a recession or a slowdown, the IT sector will get hampered, and the data guys will easily cruise through it. By 2020, the Indian analytics sector will be short of thousands of employees, so I say strike while the iron is hot!” advises Siddhant.

The last piece of insight he notes, “Data will be huge, and the industry is set to grow at an unbelievable pace. I see absolutely no reason people shouldn’t pick up analytics and fast track their career, seeing how it is also one of the best paying sectors!”

Best Jobs after MBA

If you are still struggling with what to do after MBA? Here we have listed some of the best jobs after MBA.

Chief Data Officer

The Chief Data Officer manages the organization’s data collection, management, storage, and usage. As members of the executive team, CDOs drive organizational strategy, manage departmental activities, and assist and optimize business outcomes.

MBA graduates are the best suited for this career scope after MBA because of the technical and business expertise acquired in an MBA degree.

Business Intelligence Manager

Business intelligence managers scrutinize raw data to devise business intelligence reports, which Business Analytics Managers use to state data, create actionable insights, and offer future business strategies to executives and business leaders.

This is one of the best jobs after MBA for MBA graduates. Because of the technical nature of the job role, Graduates who love to play with numbers and have a passion for data science, raw data analysis, and mathematics can choose this job role.

Business Analytics Manager

Business Analytics Managers work with the extracted raw data. Business Analytics Managers prepare data reports and employ statistical methodologies, data visualization, and other techniques to retrieve and convey actionable insights.

This is one of the most suited MBA career options for graduates interested in making business strategies to grow business and earn profits.

Marketing Analyst

Marketing Analysts monitor, evaluate, and process marketing data such as advertising expenses, customer behavior, budget allocation, trends, and market potential. They analyze data to determine the efficacy of marketing initiatives and tactics.

MBA grads interested in marketing and a preference for market research can prefer this role.

If like Siddhant, you too are looking to upskill and upgrade with analytics, this is the time. Head to UNext  and start learning now!