The 2012 study – the most comprehensive ever conducted – quizzed leading CEOs, senior executives, and hiring managers at 90 top companies around world.  Their feedback was unanimous: MBA graduates are rarely job-ready when they leave the classroom. 

What they don’t teach you at business school
Business education received poor grades in two key areas: interpersonal soft skills learning and practical, real-world experience.

Hard analytical skills are appreciated and problem-solving proficiency is vital for any successful MBA graduate. Yet, their impact in the workplace is limited without key interpersonal skills such as the ability to communicate clearly, motivate a team and resolve conflict.

Employers also want to hire graduates who can thrive in today’s fast-moving and inherently complex business world. The lack of emphasis on practical learning methods means graduates are not yet comfortable acting in uncertain environments and making sound decisions under pressure.

It’s little wonder that a study by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) showed that on average, it takes new leaders nine months to get up to speed in a new job and 50 percent of first-time managers underperform in parallel with employee expectations.

The MBA that means business
Acting upon these findings, Hult International Business School has re-designed its curriculum to ensure it is equipping students with both the hard and interpersonal soft skills required of future business leaders.

Hult’s unique approach integrates soft-skill development and hands-on experience throughout all aspects of its MBA curriculum. With a belief that interpersonal soft skills are competencies that can be learned and improved through practice and constructive feedback, a professional skills development model has been developed. Through a series of regular and progressively more challenging competitive simulations and feedback processes, students focus on developing five competencies identified as key by employers; adaptive thinking, communication, relationships, teamwork and execution.

The new curriculum also reflects the value Hult sees in real-world practice as an essential component of any MBA curriculum. The Hult Impact Challenge is a team exercise, which has been integrated into the curriculum in order to hone practical as well as entrepreneurial skills, and allow students to customise their MBA experience by focusing on an area of personal or professional interest.

A truly international MBA experience
In today’s globalised business climate, an MBA graduate’s future career can take them anywhere in the world. With campuses in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai and a rotation center in New York, Hult enables students to capture a truly international experience on their professional journey.  Through their unique Global Rotation Program, students have the opportunity to select their home campus and then spend up to three months studying at two further campuses.

Hult also offers MBA students the chance to network with their classroom peers at an unprecedented graduation event in Davos, Switzerland. With up to 1,000 participants from all of the Hult campuses, the most international gathering of MBA students in the world offers the perfect opportunity to build a network of future international leaders. 

Hult International Business School
Over the past 50 years, Hult has grown to become the world’s largest graduate business school with 2,000 students of over 140 different nationalities studying for MBA, Executive MBA, Master and Bachelor degrees at locations across the world.

Learn more about the Hult MBA experience

For more information contact Pär Ekström:
Email: p[email protected] 
Phone: +41 786353134
LinkedIn XING

This article was produced by The Local and sponsored by Hult International Business School