Business Education: The First Step in Marketing Yourself

Considering a career in business? Browse your options

Guest article by Robert Grayson

Why channel your energies into a business education? In today’s competitive employment climate, it all comes down to marketability. A business education is practical, durable, and portable. It’s what you bring to the table. It’s your opening credential.

Remember when high schools divided students into the college prep program (those going on to higher education) and the business program (those who weren’t going to college and were going to find a job right out of high school)? Well, having a high school diploma just doesn’t cut it anymore in the business world. Employers want you to hit the ground running; they don’t want to have to train you. For the young business executive, a business education is basic training.

No doubt about it, a degree in business gives you a leg up in today’s workplace. And that’s a good hedge against recession.

With everyone concerned about a recession these days, employers can be picky, and they’re going hire and keep management employees with business degrees. A BBA is good; an MBA is even better.

At one time, the most popular business degrees were MBAs. But now many undergrads eagerly pursue degrees in business as well, and gain the tools they need early on as they look toward a career in the business world. They can then further hone their skills in graduate school.

Those who combine a technical background like computer science and engineering with a business education give employers almost everything they want in one package–a manager who understands the product, who knows how to run a department efficiently, and who can manage people effectively. So a business education puts you in line for promotion and increases your lifetime earning potential. You can apply a business education to many different fields, giving you the freedom to use your expertise in a variety of industries. Even someone in the professions–like a lawyer, a doctor or an architect–can benefit from some formal business education.

A business education is broadening, too. It gives you an opportunity to learn the nuances of both new and time-tested business philosophies, to debate management styles, and to begin to develop some of your own. As you investigate the role of market research in product development and customer satisfaction, and understand how organizational structure works, you gain insight into all sorts of businesses and how to make them profitable. And you meet lots of people who are going into business, just like you, so you can network or perhaps even pool your resources to develop your own entrepreneurial startup.

What other discipline lets you delve into all sorts of fields, from strategic planning to marketing, human resources, distribution, manufacturing, sales, and financial planning, while also focusing on your own particular area of interest?

Approach a business education as you would a business: Analyze the programs that are out there, choose the one that suits you the best, and pick a school that’s going to help you build the career–and the future–that you want.