MBA without Work Experience

It’s great that you wish to start your management career soon after your graduation. Luckily for you, you have a couple of options at hand. You could either can go for a Masters in Management which is a great fit for recent grads or a specialized Masters which requires less work experience and is a good fit if you are sure you want to go into a particular field, such as Marketing, Finance, Supply chain and so on.

But if you are hard stuck on the MBA, then you can apply at certain schools which offer MBA without work experience.

Usually, MBA schools have the following eligibility criteria

• GMAT
• IELTS/TOEFL
• Substantial Work Experience

The First two (GMAT and Language Test) won’t be a big challenge but getting a work experience may hold you back for a couple of years.

Pre-Experience MBA can be a solution.

Who is it the best fit for?

It works as the best fit for individuals who have recently graduated and wish to continue their further studies abroad without taking a break in education or for individuals who have some months of the internship experience.

In contrast, for a normal MBA, the average age is 27 years at Harvard while at Michigan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg the average is 28 years. At Wharton, the average years of work experience are 5.5 years and 4.6 years at NYU.

Job prospects

An early experience makes it easy to enter the corporate world in entry-level and middle-level management jobs. Taking up an internship may prove to be a boon, as it will give you a better understanding of your career options and increase your chance of employment.

The Best Schools which offers the Pre-Experience MBA program requires you to show an understanding of work experience in some form or the other. This may be in the form of part-time work or volunteering work.

Hence, if your aim is to get into the top schools, you need to have some substantial corporate understanding and just having a normal profile won’t be enough.

Also, one more thing to note is, that though it is not obligatory to have work experience while applying for these schools, it is highly preferred. And only a very small % of the class has less than two years of work experience.

Advantages

Starting your MBA studies early helps you lead in some areas as stated below:-

• Early start – It helps you to learn new things at the early stage.
• Opportunity to develop skills – Develop language skill, analytical skill.
• Grow Business Experience – Academically, professionally, and culturally – you get exposure internationally and get the chance to obtain a quality education, and gain cultural exposure through gap semesters and internships abroad
• Save time – You can complete your studies without taking any gap or break in between of education.

Disadvantages

On the flip side there may be some disadvantages:-

• Having practical experience helps you to connect well with some of the content you will learn in b-school.
• Job prospects and salary offered, compared to experienced MBA colleagues, is lower
• Effects summer internship placement.
• Lacks an opportunity to network.
• Some schools are very highly competitive unless you have a stellar profile. It is not easy to make it to any of the Ivy league or top 20 for that matter.

Work Experience is also valued as the learning from your job differentiates you from others. Further, it adds value to your profile and gives you good pointers for your essays.

MBA without Work Experience in USA and UK

List of Colleges

The above list can be rechecked with the official website of the college to have more clarity on the experience part.

Again, note that though work experience is not mandatory for these schools, it is highly appreciated.