How a Full-Time MBA can help you pivot to a new industry

Changing careers is a priority for more than half of students aged 25-39 who are considering business school, according to the latest GMAC Prospective Students Survey. In many cases, an MBA offers a structured way to make this transition.

There are many reasons professionals consider changing roles or industries. Some may be looking to specialize, while others are seeking work that feels more meaningful or aligned with their values. Others may simply want to explore a new path and build a broader understanding of business to expand their opportunities.

“The MBA is designed to be transformative, rather than merely additive,” says Professor Dima Louis, who works in change management at GEM Alpine Business School in Grenoble, France. “It opens up options and opportunities, allowing students to gain breadth in areas where they don't necessarily have expertise.”

From classical music to corporate sustainability

An MBA has certainly presented options for classically trained musician Selina Wykeham, who used her time at GEM to pivot from music into a role in corporate sustainability.

Selina decided to pursue an MBA in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was a great use of time for me, and I saw it as an opportunity to develop new skills. I decided I wanted a change,” she said.

At the time, Selina didn’t know what that career change would look like. She had just moved from the US to France, and was looking for an MBA program that offered breadth and could help her consolidate all the skills she needed to make a career transition.

With a curriculum deeply embedded in sustainability, and strong connections with local businesses, GEM stood out as a strong fit.

One aspect that particularly appealed to Selina was how quickly GEM adapted to change, starting with the pandemic.

“They were making huge efforts at a very difficult time to adapt. That's something that I see now at the school as well—they’re constantly adapting and innovating and putting new things in place to be current and relevant,” she says, adding “That’s the kind of approach you need at business school”.

GEM’s MBA cohort is also very international, which is highly valuable if, like Selina, you want to work at a multinational corporation. She explained it was a great way to meet new people and learn from classmates with different professional and cultural perspectives.

“It's a good opportunity to share different experiences with your classmates, especially if you're going into a multicultural work environment,” she says.

Understanding your soft skills

Building on your soft skills is one of the most important aspects of completing an MBA, particularly if you’re looking for a career change.

When she started her MBA, Selina knew she had developed valuable soft skills from her career as a professional musician, but it was not immediately obvious how these would translate to a business environment.

From the outset, her MBA provided career guidance which helped Selina identify and apply skills she had developed through her music background, including promoting events, building professional relationships, discipline, and attention to detail.

“There’s a strong business element to [music]” she says. “The music industry is very fast moving, and you must stay adaptable. If you can do that, it makes that pivot a bit easier.”

These transferrable skills can be just as important as industry-specific knowledge, explains Professor Dima.

“You don't necessarily need to have expertise in a specific industry, but you need to build tools that will help you lead teams, transformations, and change in organizations,” she says.

Confidence and credibility

Alongside identifying her transferrable skills, Selina says the MBA gave her more credibility in business, and knowing she had a broad foundation in different aspects of business made her path to a new role smoother.

The MBA gave Selina a solid understanding how a large company works, how the different departments weave together and what the interdependencies are. This experience is valuable in her current role, where she regularly works across different departments.

“It gave me such a good overview of business, so I see the value of it the more I grow in my career. I don't work in finance, for example, but it's super useful to understand the basics and the strategy,” she says.

MBA students at GEM also have opportunities to gain experience in various industries while studying, both through the school’s network and through projects they get involved with. Students who already have a target industry of role in mind can choose a final thesis project aligned with that interest, which allows them to grow, but also demonstrate, relevant expertise in the area.

“This will show [employers] that this person is really interested in this industry, and through their MBA project, they're bringing something new to the topic. Rather than repeating things that exist in textbooks, they’re bringing fresh perspective and showing their added value,” says Professor Dima.

During her MBA, Selina valued the opportunity to meet large companies and local professionals. Grenoble, where the school is based, is a tech hub with a huge start-up scene, meaning students have exposure to a range of organizations in the region.

After graduating, Selina joined STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor company headquartered in Switzerland with a strong presence in Grenoble.

“It’s great, I absolutely love it. I started doing sustainability reporting when I joined, and now my role has kind of evolved into more of our external disclosure and communications.”

Studying at GEM gave her this strong background in sustainability, as it’s something the school takes seriously, embedding it into every module.

“They understand that it's kind of part of a lot of companies’ business strategy now, so it was something that they definitely made us aware of,” says Selina.

Preparing students to adapt

For many business schools, since the introduction of AI, the focus has switched from teaching knowledge to teaching practical transferrible skills.

“We live in a very complex context now, whether from geopolitical conflicts, or the development of AI. So it's important that [students] develop the skills to adapt and reinvent themselves,” says Professor Dima.

“This is where the MBA is interesting. It's not giving them answers to existing problems, but giving them tools and helping them to find solutions to these problems that will keep changing in the future, definitely.”

This skill set will be vital for any career path, whether you’re changing industries or roles. But for someone who has done both, Selina’s advice is to be open minded: “Go into the MBA with a totally open mind, meet as many people as you as you can, learn as much as you can—even if you don't think it's going to be useful in the future. You never know when it will come in useful.”