来源于：Shanghai Daily 2007-3-23
记 者：Rachel Yan
It is an era when Master of Business Administration graduates are looking for something more than just a single job.
After investing years of savings, time and energy into business management study, most MBA grads are not necessarily expecting a higher salary package but more so a brand new career start.
This explains why so many stories of technicians, reporters and even doctors ending up moving into the financial or consulting business world after throwing their MBA hat into the air.
According to the latest survey on Fudan University's International MBA students, about 52 percent of grads made a work industry shift after completing their studies.
The trend has been on a steady increase over the past five years.
"A work industry transfer is what many MBA students are expecting," said Gene Huang, director of the Career Development Center at Fudan's School of Management. "An individual's industry background and personality, however, can sometimes prevent a person from fulfilling his original expectations."
In the early days when MBA remained a mysterious title to the general public, most business school students proved to be career veterans who had a clear picture of their development path. They knew explicitly what they lacked and that an MBA was a platform and impetus for a new work opportunity.
With the global trend of MBA applicants getting younger, business school officials said they were facing a growing group of students who had little idea about what they should take up after graduation.
"That's why professional career development counseling and the assessment gained is increasingly important in a modern business school," Huang said.
At leading city-based business schools, the China Europe International Business School, Fudan's School of Management and Jiao Tong University's Antai School of Management have this semester adopted CareerLeader - an Internet assessment tool of business career development.
Developed by Harvard Business School, CareerLeader use different tests to assess students' personal pattern of business-relevant interests, values and abilities.
With results integrated, it will recommend specific career paths that are likely to be the best match for those tested.
The interactive online program even provides MBA students with in-depth views into 27 business career paths and help students to understand key elements of corporate culture.
However, the assessment tool is by no means a fortune-telling machine; nor does a MBA degree necessarily symbolizes higher postings and high payment.
"To some extent, MBA graduates' brilliant salary packages are misleading (to students) sometimes," said Clara Tan, CEIBS's Career Development Center director.
CEIBS's MBA career report 2006 said that full-time MBA grads earned a pre-tax annual income of 304,926 yuan (US$39,442) on average. Most had a manager position or higher.
It was also the payment increase that pushed up Chinese MBA programs' positions in global MBA and EMBA rankings.
For instance, CEIBS secured a record 11th placing in this year's Financial Times MBA ranking on the strength of a world high salary percentage increase of 159 percent.
But the dazzling figure doesn't conceal the gap between expectation and reality.
An earlier human resources report suggested that most MBA graduates were anticipating an annual income of 150,000 yuan or above.
But the companies' offers ranged from 100,000 to 120,000 yuan on average.
"High-average salaries might mean nothing to individual MBA students. What's more important is that people, many of who quit their job to fight for a new future, should have a clear positioning and understand deeply what they need," Tan said.
