5 Top Entry-level Jobs For MBA Degree Holders

The Indian society is such that it is obsessed with an MBA. That is why students from the commerce, science and humanities throng to the gates of MBA colleges in equal numbers. For the average middle-class Indian, an MBA is a gateway to all things good. The cumulative effect of all of this is what makes exams like CAT and MAT the toughest in the country. As per reports, the number of students appearing for CAT every year is higher than that of any other examination.

Now having cleared such tough examinations, students confirm their seats in some of the top management colleges. This is followed by working hard for two years in a business school, after which a student would expect a very good job with a lucrative salary. Indeed, management is a field where there is an enormous potential for growth.

In fact, freshers in this field are amongst the most highly paid in the industry. The best thing about a management degree is there are a variety of things that you can pursue after that. This article talks about 5 such career opportunities that MBA graduates have and the scope of growth in each of them.

1. Project Manager

The job role of a project manager includes planning, strategising, team building and planning the team's growth forecasts. Usually, these are the people who are responsible for the execution of all that they have chalked. People with a degree in management are preferred for this post.

These people should have good planning skills and a basic understanding of finance. The desire to achieve goals should be enormous and these people should have the ability to push their team to the best of their ability. For this, strong interpersonal skills and good communication skills are an absolute must.

The starting salary here is about 4 to 5 lakhs. With experience, the value goes all the way up to 20 lakhs. Most of the jobs here are private in nature with IT firms contributing to most of them.

2. Marketing Manager

As is evident from the designation, the job role here demands that a person looks into all the marketing efforts for a particular product or company. All the designing planning and execution of the marketing strategies fall under this category. Now, the revenue of any firm or organisation depends on the products that it sells. How well a product sells will depend on how good the marketing strategy is.

Thus, marketing managers play a pivotal role in getting revenues for the company. Hence, these people are amongst the most highly paid in an organisation. The starting salary itself is about 6 lakhs and with experience, the same goes up to 20 lakhs and beyond.

However, this is a very challenging field and there is a constant pressure here to meet deadlines and targets. One needs to be perseverant here and have an eye for detail if they want to succeed in this field. To add to that, one needs to have good convincing power and must be able to make others believe in the goodness of what they are selling.

3. Business Development Managers

These people are responsible for coming up with strategies for the expansion of the business. These are the people who propose practical plans for the same after taking into consideration the present status of the company. It is the duty of the business development manager to ensure that the ideas that they propose are executable in nature and are not too far-fetched for practical application.

Innovative ideas and the ability to think out of the box are the prerequisites for a successful career in this field. Not only do established corporates require the services of these people, but they are equally on demand at start-ups as well. In fact, start-ups rely on the services of these people to spread their wings and establish into much bigger and better-established organisations.

MBA freshers here start off with a salary that is close to 5 lakhs and over time they make as much as 16 lakhs.

4. Human Resource Managers

These people are responsible to ensure that an organisation is always well staffed and that there is no dearth or excess of employees. The welfare of the employees of an organisation is also the concern of the human resource management. Thus, these people have a crucial role to play in the overall functioning of an organisation.
The starting salary here is about 5 lakhs per annum and the same rises to about 10 lakhs with experience with the average salary being somewhere close to 8 lakhs. The main skill set that is required for this job is that of good negotiation skills and excellent convincing powers.

You must also have excellent logical abilities. Both government sector and almost every private sector company need human resource managers and hence, there are ample job opportunities here. The scope of growth is also enormous.

5. SAP Consultant

A system, applications and products (or SAP as it is commonly called) is a booming sector in the world of data processing. The designing of products that cater to the needs of the clients is the responsibility of SAP consultants. Usually, MBA graduates are preferred for this role. An analytical mind with strong technical skills is an absolute necessity in order to make it big in this field.

The job role of SAP consultants may well extend to that of the service sector wherein they are responsible for personalising the services so as to meet the client's demands. This is one of the newer fields of management and hence, the pay here is not as good.

The starting salary here is about 2.5 lakhs and experienced candidates make as much as 10 lakhs. Over the years, SAP is expected to gain popularity and once that happens, experts in this field will also be paid handsomely.