Find Health Care Opportunities for B-School Students

The Affordable Care Act may lead to more health care jobs for MBAs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has some bad news for those on the job hunt. The May unemployment rate was 7.6 percent – a slight growth compared to April.

The job market for many may be growing more competitive, but at least one industry will be welcoming a surge of MBA graduates: health care.

Of employers in health care worldwide, 89 percent plan to hire MBA graduates this year, according to the 2013 Corporate Recruiters Survey. In 2012, only 77 percent of health care employers were expected to do this.

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For potential MBA candidates looking to establish a career in health care, the job options are many, says June Kinney, associate director of the health care management program at the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.

"They could be consultants. They could be investors. They could be operations managers. Or they can be entrepreneurs," she says.

The part-time MBA health care management program at the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University Chicago caters to students who already work in the field but want to advance.

"They may be looking at a director position within the hospital that may be over a clinical area, or maybe even an administrative area. But they also may be in a pharmaceutical firm or medical device firm," says Pamela McCoy, an assistant dean at Quinlan.

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Many of these jobs have been around for years, experts say. But laws by the federal government have certainly created new opportunities.

"It's really driven by all of the Affordable Care Act provisions and impact on the field," Kinney says, referencing the health care reform movement known as Obamacare.

"There's a lot of people going into, obviously, consulting because all of the major providers and players in the field are looking for advice about how to change their operations, how to change their strategies."

Technology has also expanded the number of jobs.

Entrepreneurs are building new apps to connect health care providers to patients and business investors are needed to support this growth, Kinney says. Innovations in health care technology have also paved the way for more health care data to be collected. MBA graduates skilled in analyzing data can better understand patterns of behavior among specific health care populations, Kinney says.

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More physicians are also going into large, group practices, which create openings for MBAs, says James Henderson, academic director of the MBA health care program at the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University.

"A physician who was a solo practitioner before couldn't afford to hire an office manager, a trained administrator," he says. "But if you've got a physicians' group that has 75 physicians, they probably have a couple of MBA or graduate trained people that are actually running their operation."

Business students interested in health care usually take standard MBA classes such as accounting, finance and marketing. Through specialized programs, they also take courses specific to the field, such as health care economics, health care financing and health policy. They can use internships to get hands-on experience, or attend a school that provides residency options.

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Match Your Personality With B-School Teaching Style

Consider your personality and the way you learn best when evaluating MBA programs.

Many MBA applicants make the same wrong assumption: No matter which top business school you attend, its teaching style will be more or less the same.

While there are similarities across the top-tier programs, each school has a different teaching style. There's the case method approach; lecture-based instruction; and the experiential learning and team-based focus approach. Some schools concentrate almost entirely on one style, while others employ a mixture.

Finding a fit in teaching style is important, and I advise clients to seek out a program where they can thrive and feel comfortable. However, I find that this piece of the puzzle is often pushed aside, with more weight placed on factors like rankings, career center offerings, location and culture.

In fact, teaching style is often one of the last things applicants focus on. Although there are many different aspects of a program to consider as you select your target schools, I believe this one should have more weight, as it not only directly affects your enjoyment of your two-year investment, but the quality of knowledge that you walk away with.

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• Case method: The case method approach was established by Harvard Business School more than a century ago and is still widely used at top MBA programs worldwide. With this method, students analyze and debate authentic management scenarios to create recommendations that the firm in question should employ in the future.

Harvard relies on case studies for approximately 80 percent of its instruction, and students at University of Virginia's Darden School of Business are exposed to more than 500 cases in a variety of industries and functions during their two-year program.

Considered by many to be the gold standard in management education, the case method relies on lively class discussions with myriad points of view. A good case analysis requires a lot of preparation from students, who must feel at ease sharing their ideas in front of large groups.

Gregarious personalities will thrive in this environment, while shy individuals may cringe at the thought of showing up to class. This is not the learning environment for those uncomfortable speaking in front of strangers or those who fear they might say something embarrassing.

"Ask yourself if you find this method of learning intriguing and exciting," Dee Leopold, the director of admissions at Harvard Business School, advised applicants last fall.

• Lecture: All top MBA programs include courses taught using a lecture format, though some schools stand out for their significant use of this traditional pedagogic technique. According to the MBA-focused website Poets & Quants, Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business tops the list with approximately 50 percent lecture-based instruction, while the lecture format at University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business comes in as a close second at 48 percent.

The Anderson School of Management at UCLA, Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management and Said Business School at the University of Oxford use lectures about 40 percent of the time.

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Fans of the lecture method believe this is the best way to concretely teach students the business concepts and theories they will need once they're back in the work force. This environment may also be more comfortable for introverted students, as well as those who enjoy absorbing the wisdom of a seasoned professor.

In some instances, the lecture approach is simply the most expeditious way to get the information across. Columbia Business School devotes about 40 percent of class time to lecture and 40 percent to case studies.

Vice Dean Amir Ziv tells MBA Channel, "If you teach something really simple, cases are much too time-consuming. In the same time frame you can either cover two cases or six other things when lecturing."

• Experiential approach: In recent years, more and more schools have expanded the experiential components in their curricula, adding in more team challenges, simulations, field work and extracurricular activities. Poets & Quants reports that Vanderbilt's Owen tops the list at 30 percent of courses using experiential instruction. At Owen, students have access to industry-focused immersion experiences, conferences, career treks, case competitions, entrepreneurial opportunities and more.

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Another leader in this area of action-based learning is the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor's Ross School of Business, which has a seven-week, full-time consulting project known as the Multi-disciplinary Action Project. Ross connects first-year MBA students with corporate, entrepreneurial and nonprofit projects both in the U.S. and abroad that require thoughtful recommendations on organizational challenges.

Even Harvard got into the act in fall 2011, launching the yearlong Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development course for first-year students, which offers small-group learning experiences that are experiential, immersive and field-based.

This hands-on approach to learning benefits those with an entrepreneurial spirit, as well as generalists who enjoy working in groups and want to learn how to get things done. Unlike the lecture and case methods, which focus on theory, experiential learning encourages students to learn by doing.

There is significant variation in how material is presented in an MBA program. Take a close look at your personal preferences and learning style to find the business school that's best for you.

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Don’t Ignore a Low GPA in B-School Applications

Show admissions officers that you’ve grown and matured in an essay to counteract a low undergraduate GPA.

MBA candidates have anxiety over many facets of their applications, from less-than-stellar GMAT scores to weak quantitative profiles to blemishes on their academic records. One common weakness facing MBA hopefuls is a low undergraduate GPA.

Keep in mind that a 3.5 or better undergraduate GPA isn't considered low for the purposes of most MBA applications, so look at the mean GPA for admitted students at your target programs to determine whether you have an issue to overcome in that area.

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Our client Spencer came to us for assistance with his applications to three top-five MBA programs. He had a successful track record as part of a business development team at a health care company, as well as great leadership examples on a nonprofit board. Spencer had achieved a strong, balanced GMAT score of 740. The main issue with Spencer's application was his 2.9 GPA from Boston University.

When we discussed his GPA in detail, Spencer said he was passionate about economics and did well with that subject and a few other classes that interested him. But he wasn't able to muster enthusiasm for his communications or literature classes – a reality that his grades reflected.

There were no extenuating circumstances that affected Spencer's GPA. He simply lacked the maturity to work hard in the classes he disliked.

The difficulty with a low GPA is that it's solidly in the past. When MBA programs look at academic records like the GMAT and GPA, there's a question of aptitude – if the applicant can do the work? – as well as application – if the applicant will work hard. It was clear that Spencer had the aptitude. Unfortunately, it wasn't clear that he would dedicate himself to his MBA course work.

[Match your personality with b-school teaching styles.]

Spencer directly addressed his low GPA in his optional essays. He made no excuses and admitted that he had lacked the wisdom to see the big picture during his undergraduate years.

He demonstrated that he had since developed the maturity to work hard in all classes, not just those he found intellectually interesting. He explained that he was a high achiever at work, had achieved A's in a set of pre-MBA classes and was prepared to dedicate himself to his MBA studies. Ultimately, Spencer's candor paid off and he was admitted to Columbia Business School.

Another client, Joe, had a fairly solid 3.4 GPA from his days as an undergraduate at University of California — Berkeley. Because his grades were decent overall, he wanted to gloss over the fact that he got a D in an introductory economics class. Joe assumed that the admissions committee would give him the benefit of the doubt and understand that this grade was a fluke.

While I understood his reasoning and sympathized with his desire not to dwell on a single failure, I fervently disagreed with this approach. If you don't provide those details, the admissions committee will make assumptions that may not be in your favor.

In Joe's case, the admissions committee may think he did not like or value economics as a subject, or that he could not grasp basic economic theory. Worse, they may wonder why he didn't feel the need to explain such a serious blemish on his record, which could lead them to doubt his judgment or presentation skills.

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As it turned out, Joe had a very good reason for the low grade, and the story behind the grade became an asset to his application. Rather than try to explain, Joe drafted an essay that focused on how he helped his family through a significant health and financial crisis. This included driving back and forth between Berkeley and San Diego on a weekly basis. The frequent travel, combined with a fairly inflexible professor, led to the D.

Joe's story revealed his personal priorities – his work ethic, dedication to family and determination. In many ways, it was the strongest essay he wrote. Joe talked about how he grew through this experience, and his honest self-reflection was rewarded with admission to the Wharton School.

These real-life examples show how addressing a low GPA in your MBA application is a critical step, whether it was caused by dramatic circumstances or mere laziness. Admissions committees really do consider applications holistically, so if all other aspects of your candidacy are strong, one flaw likely won't doom you completely.

Be honest, show introspection and growth and let the chips fall where they may.

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