by Elena Yampolsky

Created on: November 14, 2008   Last Updated: November 20, 2008

The business degree can help you launch a career in various industries and areas.

The obvious career path for a business graduate is in accounting or finance. The finance majors are employed by banks, investment and insurance companies, or in finance departments of big corporations. However, the graduates should be aware, that Bachelor degree is only the first step of a successful career in finance. The next step, required by most employers, is either MBA (Master of Business Administration) degree or CFA (Certified Financial Analyst) designation.

The accounting majors have the widest range of potential employers, since they could work in accounting department of any company in any industry. Business graduates can even choose to work in fashion, publishing or movie business as long as they remember that people in media industry work for the glamour, not for the money. For example, accounting analyst's salary in publishing house can be by 20-30% lower than this of his colleague in the manufacturing company.

To grow and to be promoted, the business degree alone is not sufficient. The common requirement for most accounting positions is having CPA (Certified Public Accountant) designation, or at least working towards it.

Technically oriented business graduates can choose an exciting career path that combines IT and finance or accounting. Nowadays, more and more companies require specialists able to design and implement business applications and systems. It could be small spreadsheet based application or huge Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP). Business graduates with technical background can work for the corporations, for big or small consulting companies, or as an independent consultant.

Other opportunities for business graduates are in Marketing, Human Resources or Organizational Design. These areas are commonly related to as "soft", since these positions, with some exceptions, involve less number crunching tasks, but are more people-oriented and require good communication skills. The marketing professionals have to write marketing research reports or public release copies; organizational design advisors are involved in projects on organizational change and restructuring, writing long report on organization analysis and recommendations. The marketing analysts, however, are performing serious statistical analysis , so they need a high level of analytical skills.

One of the most interesting and challenging careers for business graduate is in business consulting, be it a small independent "boutique" or one of the most prestigious companies, like Deloitte Consulting or Boston Consulting group. Since these companies provide consulting services in all areas, business graduates with any major could choose this path, provided they don't mind long working hours and significant amount of travel. It should be noted, however, that lately these companies prefer to hire candidates with professional degree (for example in engineering, psychology or even English majors), who later completed their MBA degree. The logic behind this hiring policy is that the combination of different degrees allows the future consultants to be more creative and integrative thinkers.

Learn more about this author, Elena Yampolsky.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.