Cristina De Ochoa, a Class of 2022 Master in Management (MiM) grad from IESE Business School, had a clear career path from the get-go. After studying a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Biomedicine, she decided she wanted to pivot towards an investment banking role focused on healthcare.
She’s now secured a role as an analyst working in the consumer, retail, and healthcare team at Citi Bank. Here’s how her master’s degree in management helped her stand out.
You’ll build a valuable professional network with a Master in Management
The network you build at business school is one that you can take with you throughout your career, so knowing how to leverage your contact base is key.
Cristina says she knew it was important to make networking a priority when she joined the Master in Management at IESE but she was surprised by how accessible and easy it was to form these business connections.
“Whenever I reached out to IESE alumni, no matter how senior their position was, they responded and made time for calls,” she says.
The IESE alumni network is 54,000 strong, with MiM students able to tap into connections from the MBA program as well as the master's cohort.
These connections helped Cristina secure a role at Citi as she spoke with an IESE alum at the company who helped her prepare for her interview.
Cristina also took advantage of the Finance Club at the business school, which organizes talks and advice sessions with industry professionals and students from the IESE MBA program.
“The more people you can talk to, the more you’ll know about the best companies to work for and what they expect from you—this information is gold,” she says.
MiM students can join a range of student clubs based around business strategy, startup and venture capital, or tech.
The IESE Career Development Center facilitates opportunities for students to meet with potential employers through recruitment events, inviting companies such as BCG, EY, Amazon, and McKinsey to campus to give presentations aimed at sharing the skills and values these top firms are looking for.
“I think the main challenges for employability are the soft skills, especially building relationships and creating the right network that will help you move forward in your career. That’s a skill that’s very challenging to develop so one we focus on a lot,” says Carlos Amela, associate director at IESE’s Career Development Center.
The Case Method can prepare you for the business world
When hiring for a role, companies want to know that you can apply your leadership and decision-making skills to a real-life business environment.
In interviews, you’ll often be asked situational questions that test how you would respond to a specific business problem.
Across courses on the Master in Management at IESE Business School, you’ll use the Case Method to analyze real-life scenarios from companies such as Google, Adidas, and Amazon.
Working in groups, students debate each problem and develop the skills to defend their decisions and reconcile different perspectives.
“The Case Method not only helped me to think on my feet when faced with difficult questions in interviews but sharing ideas with such a diverse class has opened my mind to different solutions—this is something I think back to during meetings at Citi,” Cristina says.
On average, the IESE MiM brings students together from over 30 different nationalities.
During a Master in Management, you’ll hone your skills towards a specific career track
During a Master in Management at IESE Business School, you’ll study core courses in Critical Business Thinking, Anthropology and Ethics, and Product Management in the Digital Age.
To boost your employability towards a specific industry, it’s important to hone your knowledge and skills even further.
On the program, students can choose elective tracks in Data and Analytics, Finance, or Strategy and Marketing.
“Choosing the finance track, I got a deep-dive into the world of banking and knowledge of financial concepts, which helped me perform well in interviews as I had an insight into what an investment banker does day-to-day,” Cristina says.
Your career development at IESE Business School starts from the day you are accepted into the program, explains Carlos from the Career Development Center.
“We want our approach to be as personal as possible, so we reach out to find out individual students’ values and goals, encouraging them to be self-reflective,” he says.
The Career Center then tailor their advice to students dependent on the chosen career track, building a strategy and mindset to help students sell themselves, and show the value they can bring to employers.
“My careers advisors played a huge role in shaping the idea of the career I should aim for,” Cristina says.
These opportunities mean that after a Master in Management at IESE Business School, 94% of students landed a role within three months of graduation. Grads have landed top consulting careers at BCG, as well as Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft.
When studying a Master in Management, it’s important to start working towards your career goals right from the beginning, taking advantage of everything the course has to offer. This way you’ll be prepared for whatever interviewers have to throw at you, helping you hit the ground running when you enter the business world.
