Are you a working professional interested in taking your career into the management or executive levels of leadership? A Master of Business Administration (MBA) program can develop your leadership capabilities, people and project management skills and overall business acumen to operate with confidence in whatever path you choose. Students in MBA programs gain management tools and techniques and then apply them to their career trajectory. Cutting-edge MBA programs also expose students to the latest changes in business environments and equip professionals to capitalize on exciting new opportunities.
Consider the Demand and Compensation for MBA Students
MBA graduates are in high demand, with 37% of recruiters projecting an increase in the market for business school graduates in the next five years and 55% projecting the need to remain stable, according to the GMAC 2021 Corporate Recruiters Survey. The median annual base starting salary for MBA talent at Canadian companies now stands at $110,000. Employers prize relational, strategic and leadership skills of MBA graduates, with interpersonal (80%), learning, motivation and leadership (75%) and managing decision-making (64%) abilities atop the list of valued skills.
A Specialized MBA Further Enhances Your Prospects
For those who plan to specialize in finance, employment and earning prospects are even stronger. GMAC projects a robust, 36% increase in demand over the next five years for finance and accounting business school graduates, and 74% of recruiters in the industry expected their companies to expand and grow in 2021. Perhaps even more promising is that 63% of recruiters say that MBA graduates tend to have a fast track to upper-level positions in their organizations.
Contemplating a Career Change Into Financial Management?
Switching industries is highly common among MBA graduates, and making a career pivot is often the primary reason for applying to an MBA program, according to U.S. News & World Report. MBA programs offer a platform for self-discovery and exposure to a wide variety of concepts. Students delve deeply into theory and apply what they learn in practice. Broad exposure to ideas and opportunities results in personal insights regarding talents and preferences, which leads to smarter career decision-making. This development can be difficult to achieve outside of business school.
Concentrated programs further expedite career changes by heavily focusing on areas of exceptional employer demand. As a result, students graduate with levels of expertise that match the qualifications for challenging and lucrative leadership roles, making them more marketable and more likely to succeed in these roles.
Sprott School of Business Offers Concentrations
This AACSB-accredited, financial management MBA online program covers coursework in financial reporting, control, performance evaluation and forecasting used to solve complex issues in the public and private sectors. Students graduate in just 12 to 24 months and gain expertise in enterprise risk management, investments and valuation, financial rules and regulations, foreign exchange markets and best practices for mergers and acquisitions.
If you are curious whether an online program offers the same opportunities as an in-person program, consider that in finance, 41% of corporate recruiters value graduates of online and in-person programs equally, and 22% are neutral on the proposition. The Carleton University online program offers exceptional value for the doors it can open, whereas many MBA programs’ tuition can easily be more costly.
Sprott School of Business offers two other MBA concentrations. The MBA with a Management and Change concentration helps students gain strategic expertise in leadership, managing teams, organization and change, as well as conflict management and negotiation. The MBA with a Business Analytics (BA) concentration helps students gain proficiency in data science, BA methods, data visualization, social analytics and managing projects. The depth of training in these concentrations offers graduates a competitive advantage when pursuing high-demand leadership or business analytics roles.
Carleton University requires a self-paced levelling course for students whose basic quantitative math skills are dated or limited, enabling the closure of knowledge gaps in that area to earn an MBA in financial management.
Are you ready to advance your career in financial management? Employers nationwide are counting on you to develop the capabilities it takes to succeed in this challenging and rewarding field.
Learn more about Carleton University’s online MBA with a concentration in Financial Management program.