GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
Giving employers what they want
An MBA used to be considered a one-way ticket to promotion and high-earning success. But today, the combination of an influx of institutions offering MBAs or something close to them and a rapidly changing work environment means the tried-and-tested formula is wearing thin. While the 2017 Graduate Management Admission Council corporate recruiters survey found that nearly 90% of corporate employers around the world said they would hire MBAs in 2017, a study by the Financial Times reports that recruiters often struggle to find graduates with the right skills for the modern workplace. One in three employers in the Financial Times survey said they struggled to identify suitable candidates and that functional skills in which MBAs are traditionally strong — such as finance and marketing — were becoming less useful to them than so-called soft skills. The employers surveyed said the ability to work with a wide variety of people (cited by 76%) and the ability to prioritise (cited by 72%), alo...
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