Oxford Saïd MBA Employment Rises Alongside Tech Industry Interest and New School Research
There’s no doubt that the tech industry and the MBA are becoming cozier. From fintech to well-known tech firms, MBAs are chasing after jobs at tech companies and vice versa. And this shift has definitely been felt and reflected at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School.
Over the last several weeks, the school has been talking up the importance of tech. It starts with the release of the latest Oxford MBA employment report, revealing that the employment rate had risen to 91 percent. It continues with the revelation that more MBAs are heading into the tech industry than ever before. From there, Saïd released a new research report, “Understanding Chief Digital Officers” to find out about this new position and how people can succeed in this new tech role.
As we said, it’s been a few busy weeks. So, we’ll take you on a brief deep-dive of the latest Oxford Saïd MBA tech news
Oxford MBAs Exhibit Mobility, Capability, and Interest in Tech
Although the UK is still facing a challenging economic environment, Oxford Saïd MBAs are overcoming. This year, the employment rate rose to 91 percent, and the average salary increased to £71,550, both of which are reliable indicators that Oxford MBAs are well set for their future careers. As Stuart Jagot, the Director of Career Development says, “Results demonstrate the international mobility and capability of the Oxford MBA.”
Jagot calls it a “tech revolution” with a significant number of MBA graduates launching successful tech careers. And much of that success is due to the school’s relationship with the industry.
For example, MBA student Daniel Peach worked in consulting before he took a year out to study at Oxford Saïd. From there, he built upon his tech credentials and analytical roles until he eventually landed an internship with Google. “Oxford Saïd’s relationship with Google was extremely helpful,” says Daniel. “The careers team also gave me some great preparation for the interview—particularly on behavioral aspects.” And he’s not the only success story.
MBA student Marla Woodward made the successful transition from product manager to a tech sector internship at Cisco. And William Ou made the transition to the fast-evolving world of fintech, thanks to his MBA at Oxford Saïd.
“When I arrived in Oxford there was so much going on with blockchain technology which, honestly, I had never heard of. In one of the many company presentations at the School, I met the people from Blockchain.info, the world’s most popular bitcoin wallet, where I eventually did my Summer Internship and got into the cryptocurrency/blockchain world.”
The new Digital Marketing Pathway for tech-minded students has been an enormous help. The pathway provides access to General Assembly online curriculum, which helps students develop the tech skills they need for their future careers. There’s also the Oxford Saïd Careers Academy, which helps MBA students with career development planning, guidance, practical exercises, and 1-1 coaching in their career of choice. Together, these programs have helped Oxford Saïd students become successful in tech careers. (Learn more.)
Oxford Saïd Goes Inside the Role of Chief Digital Officer
For the aforementioned “Understanding Chief Digital Officers” paper, the business school interviewed 41 Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) in 13 countries to understand who they are, what they do, and how they can be successful. Researchers found that the role was full of “challenging contradictions” with a severe lack of clarity around the role and a wide range of tensions.
Lead author Gillian Brooks says:
“The CDO role has typically been created by large, established companies who can feel under threat from digital disruption in their markets as well as being excited by the opportunities that new technologies can offer. But there is no consensus on the ideal background or qualifications for a CDO, where the role should sit in the organizational structure, or even what a CDO does.”
The authors explain that CDOs are forced to do their job and define it at the same time with other C-suite executives having no understanding of what a CDO does. This makes the CDO role highly dependent on the goodwill and support of the CEO because if they’re not on board with their position, then nothing gets done. At the same time, while a CDO’s role is transformative, it’s also transient, since many times they can end up making themselves redundant.
Author Michael Smets, Associate Professor in Management and Organization, says:
“We discovered that, whatever their background, the most successful CDOs were those who are comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. They embrace complexity and paradox by finding ways to make seemingly incongruent, contradictory elements of their roles fit together.”
The combination of Oxford Saïd’s MBA curriculum, which supports tech, and the School’s tech-centric research and career development have made the tech industry attractive for Saïd MBAs. And it doesn’t look like that interest will wane anytime soon.
You can learn more on the school’s website and check out the full report here.
Oxford Saïd MBA Students Suggests a Few 2018 Resolutions
The start of every year is a great time to reflect on what went well the previous year—and how you can improve in the next. Indeed, the time-honored tradition of setting resolutions for the new year can be especially valuable for MBA students and applicants. Whether you’ve just completed your first or third semester of an MBA program or are still working on perfecting your MBA applications, there are always a few resolutions that can help make the most of how ever much of your MBA experience is still ahead of you.
We’ve compiled a list of business school New Year’s resolutions from current MBA students at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School. While some are specific to Saïd’s program, they all represent great business school advice you’d do well to read regardless of whether you haven’t yet started or are closing in on graduation.
Business School New Year’s Resolution One: Balance Your Time
Whether you’re busily working on your applications, are about to start your first semester in an MBA program, or whether your final semester stretches out in front of you, learning how to balance your time is key to success in any MBA program. Marla Woodward (MBA ’18) explains how important it is to take care of all aspects of your life.
“To balance your time, pick an activity for your mind, an activity for your body, and an activity for your spirit,” Woodward wrote in a blog. “For example, this term I’m leading a project for the Oxford Strategy Group for my mind, I’m participating in fencing for my body, and I’m maintaining weekly family dog walks for my spirit.”
Containing the amount of time spent on schoolwork is also important. During your MBA, you’ll be presented with countless readings and assignments. Each class will load your schedule with things to do, and the best way to achieve success is to plan out how you’ll budget your time to get everything done for class while not overwhelming your life.
“Map out all readings, exams, and group projects in your calendar, so you know what’s coming when,” Woodward recommends. “This will help you anticipate how to budget your time when you have multiple group projects all due on the same day, and it will also come in handy when, heaven forbid, you can only find time for a portion of the readings and you need to decide which are the most valuable.”
Business School New Year’s Resolution Two: Take Advantage of Your Network of Classmates
This resolution is especially important for applicants who are preparing to start an MBA in 2018. Instead of thinking of it as entering a world of strangers, Bremen Leak (MBA ’18) advocates taking the attitude of poet W.B . Yeats who said, “There are no strangers, only friends you have not met yet.”
When Leak first started his studies at Oxford Saïd, it seemed like everything that could go wrong did. He was waitlisted. Then, once he was finally accepted, his housing fell through, and he was left without a place to live. But after starting school, he was offered a place to live by a classmate he had just met. And this was just the first of many times that he says a classmate helped him out.
“Since my first day inside the business school, I’ve watched my classmates—some 330 MBAs from 60 countries—band together to help one another succeed,” Leak wrote in a blog. “They’ve divvied up reading assignments and formed study groups and tutoring sessions. They’ve shared jokes, drinks, encouragement, and advice… Who were these people but strangers just a few months earlier?”
If it wasn’t for the fact that Leak had learned to treat his classmates like close friends, no matter how long [or short] their acquaintance, he could have missed out on many opportunities.
Business School New Year’s Resolution Three: Use Every Resource Available to You
From the moment you first start considering an MBA, there will be countless resources available to help you make the best decision. Here at Clear Admit, we offer dozens of articles each week containing the latest MBA news, advice from admissions teams, and interviews with current students. Of course, there are also the rankings from outfits like U.S. News & World Report, the Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, and others to help you find the best program for you.
Perhaps most important of all are the resources provided by individual MBA programs themselves. There are the websites, of course, and the information sessions and the school fairs. But many applicants tell us that the most invaluable resources provided by the schools are the students themselves and everything you encounter on campus is a visit is in any way possible.
That’s what Nikhil Dugal (MBA ’18) discovered when he first started considering an MBA. In fact, the availability of resources was one of the main reasons he chose Oxford Saïd—in particular, the resource of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.
“Coming from a background in economics and math, I wanted to study business in a place that was focused on supporting social entrepreneurs and actively involved in the changing narrative on the nature of business. Due to this reason, I had a very specific list of MBA programs,” Dugal explained on a Skoll Centre blog. “Saïd Business School was at the top of this list, especially due to the countless resources they offer to social entrepreneurs and the presence of the Skoll Centre.”
Those resources helped Dugal receive the Skoll Scholarship, which provided him with the opportunity to pursue his goals without worrying about his finances. Since starting his MBA, there have been many other opportunities.
“Over the next year I plan to use all the resources we are offered here, including programs such as Map the System, Skoll Academy, and Skoll Venture Awards to refine the mission of my organization and explore levers for change to help us scale our impact,” Dugal wrote. “I’ve had the opportunity to attend a few sessions at the Skoll Academy already and am extremely impressed with the program the Centre has been able to put together as an alternative to the Consulting Development Program and the Finance Lab offered to the rest of the MBA class.”
With just a week into the New Year, there’s plenty of time to make good on your business school resolutions. What are you waiting for?
