Upgrade Your Credentials and Improve Your Prospects

With the economy in a tail spin many workers are returning to school to upgrade their credentials. Are you thinking about updating your skill set with another degree? Or are you working to improve your prospects by the indirect method: seeking a promotion from your current position, a certification, or improving your networking and self-marketing? Either way there are a few things you should know about what's going on out there, especially if you work in finance or business management.

The Kellog School of Management at Northwestern University reports that MBA applications for their Fall 2008 program are up 20% over last year, even though the number of students accepted remained the same as last year. PACE University in New York reported a similar up-tick in applications. Lynne Sarikas, director of the MBA Career Center at Northeastern commented on the trend saying, "I don't know any better than the next person what the job market will be in the next two years, but more education expands your qualifications."

The skinny is: getting into a top MBA program gets more competitive every year. So, you need to be ready to do some serious work to make yourself shine.

One way you can do this is to sign up with an MBA prep coach like Veritas. You should know up front that the programs can be expensive costing anywhere from 2700 to 9000 dollars. For that money they will help you re-write your resume, get ready for the GMAT and prepare you for application essay writing, as well as brush up on your interviewing skills. If your after a spot in a top notch MBA program (like an Ivy League MBA) they have specialized know how that can help you get there.

Then again, perhaps you're not ready to take the plunge and return to school for an advanced degree. What else can you do to improve your prospects and employability? For one thing, keeping your resume updated and letters of recommendation current are vital to good career management. Here are a few tips that you can use of even if you think you will not be seeking new employment in the near future...you never know what tomorrow holds (just ask the bond staff at Lehman's if they saw it coming!)

1. Steadily update your resume. Keep things current and be sure to include your most recent accomplishments, articles published, certifications and educational advances. Be sure and get Letters of Recommendation from your current bosses and/or instructors.
2. Sharpen up your elevator pitch. Don't have one? You better get to work! An elevator pitch is the concisely written, perfectly executed plan that lays out your short and long term vision to improve or invent your personal pet project. It's designed to grab attention of movers and shakers (like for when you have the opportunity to ride in an elevator with Sir Richard Branson).
3. Know what's hot and happening in your field, what is down the road and not just in the rear view mirror, you need to have a deeper and broader knowledge of your field than what you read about in college 10 years ago. Know (or, at least have some insight) into what's over the next horizon...and be able to communicate your own vision or insight with some measure of authority and conviction.