With a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA), you will be prepared to face an extremely competitive market with a deep understanding of concepts on business administration, investment management, among others.
But in addition to the expert knowledge on how to run a business, you will also have the opportunity to develop a set of soft skills. Those can be very important later in the corporate world.
Let’s take a look at six soft skills that MBA students can gain to become well-rounded professionals.
What Are Soft Skills?
Soft skills are those skills that each person develops privately and that are usually acquired thanks to their experiences at work or even in life. No training is needed to develop them – soft skills are forged in the heat of the battle, so to speak.
Most students tend to place more value on the hard skills that you’re supposed to receive when doing an MBA. But everyone has access to these if they study hard and pay attention in class.
Soft skills, on the other hand, are your personal learning, and you will decide how to use them in your professional future. Some popular soft skills are ease of communication, teamwork, positivity, the ability to learn from criticism, and work under pressure.
Soft Skills You’ll Sharpen as an MBA Student
In addition to traditional content, the MBA aims to prepare students for the business environment. You can take advantage of the practical and theoretical approaches of the classes to sharpen some soft skills, such as:
1. Leadership Skills
The MBA will teach you how to become a good leader, allowing you to master the characteristics you need to manage a team.
2. Strong Communication Skills
Excellent communication skills are a prerequisite for standing out in the marketplace. The MBA can help you to have clearer communication and teach some techniques to keep the interlocutor’s attention.
3. Negotiation Skills
Management and leadership require knowing how to negotiate. One of the goals of the MBA is to help students in the science of negotiation to influence different scenarios, and to capitalize on their strengths.
4. Interpersonal Skills
A good leader needs to know how to listen and delegate responsibilities. These are two soft skills you can sharpen during your MBA, working directly with your fellow students to understand the importance of exchanging ideas and joining efforts to complete projects.
5. Problem-solving Skills
The MBA aims to train professionals prepared to deal with unexpected problems. Valuable lessons can be learned on how to take the initiative in the face of challenges, how to ask better-prepared people for advice, and how to formulate creative solutions for challenging times.
6. Strong Work Ethic
Having ambition is good, but not enough right now. Corporations prefer professionals with a strong work ethic. During the MBA, you will understand and discuss labor policies and ethical principles of labor relations, and these soft skills can make you a better professional.
Why Do Soft Skills Count?
Good grades and an excellent resume are still highly valued by recruiters and employers. But there’s an increasingly greater value placed on soft skills, especially the ones you learned and mastered through an MBA.
A business school can help professionals gain a well-rounded understanding of the business environment. But it’s the soft skills that will make them strategic leaders.
Here’s why soft skills matter in the corporate world:
- Hard skills and soft skills complement each other and employers value interpersonal skills in addition to knowledge.
- Everyone can memorize the theory and get good grades, but soft skills are harder to learn.
- Clients value soft skills much more than theoretical knowledge.
- An extremely competitive market requires skills such as knowing how to listen, present ideas, face problems, and communicate better.
In addition, technology is taking the place of professionals in tasks that require hard skills. So it’s the soft skills you got during your MBA that will really make a difference later on.
While known for being rigorous and demanding, pursuing an MBA is going to be worth it in the end. You can increase your chances of being selected for a business school by taking a GMAT test. But what is the GMAT test? GMAT stands for Graduate Management Admission Test, an exam that is optional but can help you shine if you get a great grade.
Soft Skills Can be More Valuable than a Diploma
An MBA degree is valuable and can make a difference in the market. As it is a course that demands a lot from students, many companies consider it extremely valuable to their professionals.
But everyone can study hard and earn a degree. The soft skills you learn and improve during your MBA will really make a difference to recruiters and employers. Keep this in mind and go beyond learning the business theory and strategies that the MBA offers.
