Analyzing career succession of a typical management student

Abstract

There are many factors that affect the career choices, salary, and CGPA of a typical MBA student. This study was conducted to explore which factors play a critical role in influencing these outcomes. Understanding the antecedents would help the student and college to guide student's careers optimally. This study aims at identifying the key factors which could explain and predicts parameters such as CGPA, Salary, Future job sector of a typical MBA student based on his/her past data. For the analysis, this study focused on the data set of students from a top-tier business school across multiple cohorts. The data available contained information of 4500+ students on around 1400+ parameters such as Personality Tests, Past Academic Data, etc. Using this data, we built models to explain and predict the outcomes for academic and career success. The regression analysis indicated that the final CGPA of a student is positively correlated with their past academic performance, including 12th boards and under graduation CGPA. Further, increased extracurricular activities led to a lower CGPA. From a post-MBA salary perspective, students with higher work experience were offered a higher salary. Also, studying strategy and leadership courses had a higher salary on average. Moreover, the tiering of the company influenced the salary considerably. From a sectoral fit perspective, students with good CGPA and past academic records are more likely to make it to consulting firms. Moreover, the model suggested that the odds of making it to the consulting firms would decrease with an increase in work experience. Female candidates had better odds of making it to the consulting industry. An important finding on the sectoral fit was that both consulting and marketing firms prefer candidates with prior work experience in the respective fields.