How a Master in Management helped me land a role at an Amazon startup

Whether you’re looking to land a promotion or switch industries, going to business school can provide the network, skillset, and practical learning opportunities to make a difference in your career.

For 42% of applicants, changing industries or job functions is their main motivation for going to business school, according to our latest Prospective Students Survey.

A Master in Management (MiM) can help to facilitate this career change through creating practical learning opportunities to apply your skills, work as part of a team, and gain valuable experience.

Markella Liakou (pictured), a MiM graduate from HEC Paris, previously worked as a chemical engineer before working in consulting. Becoming more interested in how companies grow and how decisions are made, Markella made the decision to study a MiM to enhance her business knowledge and expand her skillset with a view to increasing her career opportunities.

Markella now works as a senior enterprise account manager at Amazon Freight, an Amazon startup where she manages clients across Europe, works on growth strategy, and helps companies scale.

We spoke to Markella to find out more about her career pivot, and how the skills and network she built through her Master in Management helped her land her role at Amazon.

Which skills does a Master in Management build?

A Master in Management is a generalist degree, covering the fundamentals of business including strategy, finance, marketing, economics, and human resources.

A MiM can help build the necessary soft skills needed to switch industries or functions, such as confidence, resilience, and adaptability.

“Negotiation was one of the biggest skills the program helped me to develop, alongside having to review contracts, because I’d never needed that as an engineer,” explains Markella. “In the beginning, I didn’t know how I’d need this in my career, but I have ended up analyzing so many contracts since I left HEC.”

Soft skills are particularly useful to develop, as they are often transferable between industries and can be applied to a range of job functions.

“Learning how to present myself and my personal branding was also very important, both inside the classroom but also outside, and I did this at different events arranged by the school,” says Markella.

At HEC Paris, the MiM program is taught over two years. In the first, the curriculum focuses on core business fundamentals, while students have the opportunity to specialize in the second year.

For Markella, this was a chance to broaden her knowledge and skillset through the X-HEC Entrepreneurs specialization, jointly run by HEC Paris and École Polytechnique.

She says she particularly enjoyed the opportunity to develop her analytical thinking and develop new skills, such as machine learning.

How can practical learning opportunities prepare you for your career?

Practical learning opportunities such as case studies and team projects play an important role in preparing business school students for the workplace.

A key aspect of the entrepreneurship specialization at HEC Paris is the opportunity to apply the skills taught in the program’s first year, through participating in different projects—from working with established companies to helping other businesses scale.

“Another project we worked on was on how to actually wrap up a company which is going to close down or fail, which is a part of the lifecycle of a company,” says Markella.

Equipped with their new skills, the latter part of the entrepreneurship focus sees students launch their own startups.

Within a safe learning environment, they can experiment, test their ideas, and become comfortable with failing and trying again—building the confidence, adaptability, and resilience necessary for a successful business career.

What are the benefits of building a strong professional network?

Beyond the skills you learn, one of the most valuable parts of going to business school is the opportunity to expand your professional network, through connecting with peers, professors, and industry professionals.

“HEC Paris has a lot of successful alumni who are leading their own companies,” explains Markella. “Connecting with these alumni to mentor us, challenge us, and criticize us as well has been so useful.”

Beyond offering advice and answering questions, these connections can be especially beneficial in securing internships and job offers.

“The alumni network has been one of the most valuable parts of my HEC Paris experience. My director at Amazon is also an HEC Paris MBA alumnus, and I was previously working with one of his classmates. That connection through the HEC network ultimately led me to Amazon,” explains Markella.

“The alumni network created opportunities to connect with the right people at the right time,” she adds.

As Markella’s journey shows, studying a Master in Management can help you understand business fundamentals, apply your knowledge in practice, and connect with industry professionals.

For those looking to make a career pivot, a MiM can provide the broad skills and professional network needed to land a job in a new industry or function.