Soft skills in demand, say MBA recruiters

The latest QS recruitment survey, the TopMBA Jobs and Salary Trends Report from late 2010, shows that demand for ‘soft’ skills has drastically increased in importance for MBA recruiters worldwide.

The survey of just over 5,000 MBA recruiters in 36 countries, shows that MBA recruiters already have very high expectations of rigorous finance, marketing and e-business or IT skills from business school graduates. MBA recruiters are now looking for another set of abilities to complement their businesses in today’s competitive economic climate.

The report, which predicts an improvement in MBA recruitment for 2011 in several industries, shows that the big four soft skills demanded by MBAs recruiters are: Interpersonal skills, Communication skills, Strategic Thinking and Leadership. And around 50% of the recruiters that responded are based in Asia; this is notable as MBA students from this region have traditionally been strong in the hard skills associated with business school and weaker in soft skills.

MBA recruitment

This news is unsurprising, however, as TopMBA.com has noted the rise in soft skills for several years. MBA programs globally have taken this demand on board and many top business schools are attempting what can be a tricky balancing act, shoring up MBAs soft skills while, simultaneously, trying to firm up the traditional knowledge that MBAs will need. After all, a great communicator with little idea of financial models is going to severely limit their job opportunities when leaving business school. 

Additionally, many MBA candidates I have spoken to on the QS World MBA Tour, in Asia particularly, fail to appreciate the value of such learning, even seeing it as a waste of time. Especially when compared with more classroom hours with a noted finance professor, for example.

For those MBA candidates, the need to look at the Jobs and Salary Trends Report is greater than ever before. According to recruiters, too many business school graduates hit the job market lacking the demanded skills that go beyond the qualification.

Mitch O’Brien of Emissary Pharmaceuticals in Australia says, “MBAs represent an interesting pool of potential business leaders with broad business skills, however they often come with an arrogant expectation of career progression. I would like to see more emotional intelligence taught and realistic career counselling provided.”

Sean Hewitt, a careers advisor, highlights the following nine areas as a general guide: “Keep a winning attitude; be a team player; communicate effectively; exude confidence; hone your creative skills; accept and learn from criticism; motivate yourself & lead others; multitask and prioritize your to-do list; see the big picture.”

Easier said than done perhaps? Wendy Lyons, Managing Consultant at London’s Human Assets, and an expert in the field, says: “For employers, getting the right people means identifying people with the right skills and qualities to fulfil the role and contribute to the organization’s success and it’s really important to be aware that different roles have different requirements.

"You might need to be an amazing communicator for one role but not necessarily for another so it’s important to recognize what is needed by the role in question.”

Whatever role the MBA graduate is aiming for, improving all areas of their leadership personality, including their soft skills, will greatly benefit their career progress, if the opinions of recruiters are important. And, as the TopMBA Jobs and Salary Trends Report clearly says, MBA recruiters’ opinions are the most important of all.

Basic soft skill development techniques

Despite this, I am often asked about what exactly soft skills are and how to develop them. The simplest answer is to work to your strengths, but work on your weaknesses even harder. It’s clear that the MBA is a complex program, and takes up a lot of time, so doing this while poring over complex case studies may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but it’s evidently worth it.

The following is a list of suggestions on how to adapt successfully to a role and to learn a better approach to communication, man-management and leadership:

1)      Get specific feedback from colleagues and peers (and clients if you can) on the qualities that are important for the roles you want or may be applying for. Consider ways of capitalizing on your strengths as well as focusing on areas that need development. And prepare to take negative criticism on board as well as positive.

2)      Identify somebody who you think is particularly successful at demonstrating the skills you want to develop. Talk to them/sit in meeting with them and gain an insight into their approach.

3)      Think back to a recent time when you weren’t very successful at influencing or convincing an individual. Ask the individual how you came across and what you might have done differently to be more successful. Prepare for bad news, and accept it.

4)      Develop the habit of critically reviewing the impact you have had after any meeting. Consider ways to increase your impact and put this into practice. A top tip here? Record your thoughts and refer to them before the next meeting.

5)      Take opportunities to regularly network, within your organization and externally. Don’t just approach people when you need their help.
      Spend more time with people who you find difficult to deal with. Don’t just think about your feelings about them, but think about how they might view you. Try out different approaches with them to see if you can develop a more effective relationship with them.

6)               
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-          Ross Geraghty

The Africa leg of the QS MBA World Tour takes place 24 March to 31 March and touches down in Accra, Lagos, Johannesburg and Nairobi. For more information and free online registration visit our website: http://www.topmba.com/mba-tour/?partnerid=4370

Leadership challenges facing the MBAs of today

Business today is unruly, complex and unpredictable. With instant networking across companies, industries and borders, economies are dynamically inter-connected. Across a maze of global markets, business legislation, regulation and policy are in constant flux.

With the stunning growth of social media people anywhere have the unprecedented ability to influence other people around the world. And with the rapid, unstoppable pace of technological and market innovation, competition is increasingly intense.

As a result, strategies that worked in the past probably won’t work in the future.

Crises often emerge in an instant and are usually unexpected. There are no fast and easy answers, no simple rules to guide actions, and no pat solutions to the myriad of evolving issues that face organizations on a daily basis. In this vibrant and volatile environment, the need for effective leadership has never been greater.

Traditionally, most managers have focused their attention on their own company and traditionally, business education has focused on how to understand, make and execute decisions within an organization. But, in today’s business environment, the value a company creates and how it succeeds depends on much more than simply ensuring all the parts within an organization work together. It depends on working effectively within the ‘enterprise’ – or the rich complexity of interdependencies both within the organization and between the organization, as well as the environment in which it operates.

In other words, to build and sustain a high performance organization, a leader must not only point his or her people in the right direction. Rather, a leader must also have vision and the ability to connect with and continually nurture a network of relationships with other companies, organizations and people.

This enables leaders to see the big picture and understand how it is evolving. They become adept at anticipating the impact of economic trends, competitive challenges and global-scale market issues. And they know how to capitalize on the synergies that result from gaining this fulsome perspective.

Such leaders are cross-enterprise leaders with the competencies, character and commitment to build and sustain the profitability and growth of their firms.
 

Leadership in the MBA classroom
 

At the Richard Ivey School of Business, we strive to develop leaders who embrace the complexity of doing business today, who are decisive despite the uncertainty, and who can foster the commitment of their employees, partners and other stakeholders to the best course of action moving forward. Basically, our approach is to help prepare today’s MBA student to think, act and lead in the cross-enterprise way now required for business success.

The cross-enterprise approach is reflected in Ivey’s case study approach, where students are presented with real life challenges faced by actual companies. Like business today, these case studies are not limited to a specific business discipline, like finance or marketing. Instead, they depict situations where analysis and decision-making involve a variety of multi-disciplinary issues at any given time.

In effect, the classroom becomes a ‘business simulator’ where students can test their thinking and judgment in a low-risk, supportive environment, receiving instant feedback from professors with diversity of insight and knowledge. Equally important, students gain the opportunity to hear and benefit first-hand from top executives who share their experiences and the lessons they learned during these experiences in the classroom.

This hands-on approach enables students to learn the specifics of functional disciplines while also experiencing how each of these functions affects one another. This provides students with the opportunity to think holistically about the enterprise in tackling the delicate and often complicated work of a cross-enterprise leader.

Leadership initiatives

Beyond the classroom, an effective management education should also give MBA students the opportunity to act on the knowledge and capabilities they gain in the classroom. At Wharton, for example, students have the opportunity to spend several weeks of the summer in Asia, Africa or the Americas through the Wharton International Volunteer Program. Meanwhile, the Centre for International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth organizes spring break trips for Tuck students to selected host countries.

At Ivey, our MBA students can learn to act in a cross-enterprise way by participating in the LEADER Project, a student-driven overseas economic development program, where MBA students teach foundational business skills to students and entrepreneurs in the newly developing economies of Eastern Europe and Russia.

A second student-driven initiative is the Ivey China Teaching Project, which offers MBA students the opportunity to volunteer their time to teach a case-based course to business undergraduate students at Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade. These rich exchanges benefit both the overseas students and the volunteer instructors, who gain a better understanding of how leadership differs in other cultures while securing valuable international experience.

While it remains true that companies exist primarily to create shareholder value, the best business leaders today see their companies as part of an ‘enterprise’ – a rich, growing and continually evolving network of mutually-beneficial relationships. They value the role that their organizations can and should play in enriching that enterprise and as a result, they consistently gain positive results for their companies.
 

- Gerard Seijts

About the Author

Gerard Seijts is an associate professor, Richard Ivey School of Business and executive director of the Ian O Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership.