How the Executive MPA can help boost your career

The average Executive MPA student brings around 9 years of work experience (the minimum for admission is 3 years) to the seminar room, so we understand that your career guidance needs may differ from those of recent bachelor’s graduates. You may be a mid- to senior-level manager and leader yourself, looking for opportunities to fine-tune your professional profile and boost your career. Our Executive MPA programme provides just the environment for you to explore topics in management, global governance and digitalisation, learn from practitioners and exchange ideas with a tight-knit group of peers from various sectors and backgrounds across the world.

To accompany your studies, our Career Development team provides a variety of services to help you hone your skills both inside the classroom and in the workplace.

Six areas of professional development

When it comes to professional development for Executive MPA students, we’ve identified these six categories as key to becoming shapers of tomorrow:

1. Self Awareness: Be aware of your strengths, interests and values, as well as your fields of development.
2. Networking: Value the importance of networks for your career and use online and personal resources to make connections.
3. Leadership and Team: Know about your role in a team, your potential for leadership positions and how to develop your individual leadership style.
4. Impact: Discover and develop your individual approach to creating impact and leaving a “footprint”
5. Change: Embrace change, and manage it professionally for you and others.
6. Job Market: Know how to navigate the labor market and be able to present yourself professionally.

You can explore these six areas with our Career Development team in a variety of formats and spaces, including:

• Process coaching – highly individualised sessions that serve to address your most pressing career questions
• Job search strategy sessions – one-on-one sessions to prepare you for the job hunt: self-presentation, application materials, CV checks, mock interviews and more.
• Our annual mentoring programme that brings together students, alumni and the Hertie School’s practice partners
• Virtual networks such as on LinkedIn or our internal networking platform Hertie School Connect
• Success teams – Peer group coaching that will help you develop a vision for your career
• Workshops on sector-specific (e.g. working for the EU) and career-related topics (e.g. diversity and inclusion, networking through social media)
• Professional Perspectives – exclusive networking events with alumni and companies. Grow your alumni network during different alumni panels, coffee chats and informational interviews.
• Annual career fair – network with potential employers at our career fair in February.

Of course, your growth as a professional in the executive master’s programme also depends on what you make of it, and we encourage Executive MPA students to take the initiative as well. For example, some of our current students have initiated an exclusive event series, “Perspectives on Mid-Career Transitions.” In these events, you can meet inspiring speakers and professionals from different sectors and career fields and collaborate with students of the current cohorts and the career development team. In this past academic year, experienced guest speakers from all sectors joined our Executive MPA students for this series.

These are just some of the ways the Executive MPA can help give you that boost you need in your career. So apply by 1 August and join us this fall!