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Career and personal development

MBA Career Management Programme

The MBA Career Management Programme has been developed to enhance the employability and global mobility of our graduates. On the Aston MBA programme, we encourage you to think of yourself as a unique and self-managed portfolio of talents, skills, and ambitions. Your next career step is an important one, and we ensure that you leave the MBA well equipped to make good career decisions.

At Aston Business School we recognise that expectations of management education have evolved beyond providing managers with knowledge across the traditional business administration disciplines.
Tripp Martin, MBA Careers Adviser talks about the support students can expect.
While our students do develop the wide range of skills and competencies valued by employers internationally, they are also provided with an opportunity to think and reflect on their own professional development. We ensure that the skills you develop on the Aston MBA are relevant not just to your next career move, but to the rest of your career. When you leave us, you will not only have an MBA that is a mark of excellence but also an improved awareness of your own strengths, abilities, and interests, ensuring that your next careers decision is the right one for you.

All MBA participants at Aston Business School can access the MBA Career Management Programme, a series of planned workshops, seminars, speakers and online resources all backed up throughout the year with one to one support from a dedicated, professionally qualified MBA Careers Adviser.

Career Development Workshops

A range of topics are covered in a planned program me of weekly workshops to ensure our MBA participants are well supported and prepared for making career plans and job hunting. These include:

  • Self-analysis and decision making
  • Proactive job search techniques
  • Making winning applications
  • CV preparation for Aston Business School’s online CV book and for job applications
  • Preparing for assessment centres
  • Practice psychometric testing
  • Interview preparation
  • Practice interviews with a wide range of visiting managers from industry
  • Visiting consultants are invited in to deliver sessions, for example on networking skills, negotiation skills, interview techniques and to run workshops focusing on different occupational areas. 

Careers advice

Individual appointments can be made with the MBA Careers Adviser and MBA participants can discuss any aspect of their career planning, job hunting strategy and career development.

Visiting speakers

A wide range of speakers visit the MBA Programme each term, sharing their expertise in a variety of industry sectors and functional areas. These include:

  • Business and management consultants 
  • Banking and finance professionals
  • Marketing professionals
  • HR Directors

Online Resources

We have an extensive range of online resources available to all our MBA participants. These include access to specialist MBA vacancy websites e.g. MBA Exchange, TopMBA and Workmaze, careers information websites such as VAULT and Going Global, career planning tools such as Career Leader and links to executive recruitment consultancies through EGold. 

MBA Consultancy Project

This is a very important assessed part of your MBA where you can put your MBA learning into practice and gain valuable experience. You will have the opportunity to apply for one of our employer sponsored consultancy projects or you can opt for a topic of your own choice. Our previous MBA participants have undertaken projects for companies such as IBM, BT, Jaguar Land Rover, Deutsche Bank, the NHS and Mace Group as well as small enterprises and new businesses.

Careers after the Aston MBA

Our MBA participants at Aston Business School come from a very wide range of occupational areas and industry sectors and the jobs that they take up, following their MBA’s, is equally diverse. Whilst investment banking and management consultancy have long been regarded as typical MBA careers, the list of companies who now hire MBA graduates is extensive. Some large national and multinational companies have specific MBA recruitment programmes e.g. GE, Philips, Johnson and Johnson, BT; many other companies will recruit MBA graduates into “experienced or lateral hire” vacancies.

Here are some of the jobs that our recent MBA Graduates have gone into:

  • International Marketing Manager with a manufacturing company
  • Product manager with a healthcare manufacturer
  • Senior Consultant in strategic finance with a consultancy
  • Financial Accountant with a bank
  • Head of Strategy and Planning with an electronics manufacturer
  • Business Process Consultant with an IT company
  • Chief Financial Officer with a steel manufacturer
  • Enterprise Risk Manager with a provider of financial services
  • Marketing Consultant with an advertising agency
  • Senior IT Associate with a pharmaceutical manufacturer
  • Head of International Marketing with a cosmetics company
  • Area Sales Manager with a leisure company
  • Project Manager with the NHS

Here are some of the companies who have recruited MBAs from Aston Business School:

  • Ernst & Young
  • Pricewaterhouse Coopers
  • Accenture
  • KPMG
  • Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi
  • Ferrari
  • Rolls Royce
  • Johnson and Johnson
  • Diamond Bank
  • Credit Suisse
  • Michelin
  • NG Vayasa Bank
  • Npower
  • Avon Cosmetics
  • Samsung Electronics
  • Nike
  • LG Electronics
  • Phyto Health Corporation
  • Emirates Financial Services
  • Wipro Technologies
  • General Electric International
  • Hyundai Motor Corporation
  • BP
  • Royal Bank of Scotland
  • Mars
  • Kanebo
  • Bangkok Bank
  • Towers Perrin
  • IMS Consulting
  • Veolia
  • Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank
  • Teradata
  • CRU Stategies
  • Eli Lilley
  • First City Monument Bank