While a degree in business, finance, economics, marketing, or management allows you to get entry level jobs and perhaps even work your way up to mid-level management, anyone hoping to take their careers to the highest echelon of the business climate needs an MBA in order to be successful. Not all MBAs are created equal, however, and the MBA concentrations most in demand are not necessarily the most popular ones chosen by students. While the specialization is not necessarily more important than the education (or the experience of the person applying for a job), it can make the difference in the near future.

Ride The Bull And Bear Markets

One of the most lucrative MBA programs to enter now is finance due to the increase in career opportunities that should unfold in the span of the next five to ten years. The field of finance should grow by as much as fifty percent by 2018 as more and more companies look to analyze their money management and dictate the proper channels for investment within a company or from without. While the bulk of the classes within this MBA concentration look at the legal and managerial aspects of financial investment, many more look into accounting for proper budget development, derivatives to better get a grasp on markets, and both micro and macro economics.

Care For Your Patients And Your Career

No area of American business will expand over the course of the immediate future to the degree of healthcare. With millions more Americans joining Medicare each year and the costs of health care rising precipitously, careers in upper level management of health care can be achieved through MBA coursework. Whether it is your goal to run an entire hospital, an insurance provider, or even start your own businesses of health services and rehabilitation, the healthcare MBA puts you front and center in managing health organizations. You may not need to learn about all the bones in the human body but you do get a better understanding of how to manage doctors, nurses, technicians, and staff in order to provide better care to patients and your organization’s bottom line. If you want to pursue a career in an overseas health organization you can take coursework on legal and corporate structures of foreign health organizations.

Give The Customer What They Want

One of the great truisms of business is that the customer is always right. A person who holds a marketing MBA not only knows this to be true, but knows how to present their products and services so that the right customer buys them. As businesses try to appeal to wider demographics through an increasing number of media (ranging from traditional television and radio to new and innovative social networking), the career growth for marketing has never been better. Management in a marketing firm or the marketing branch of a corporation can be an extremely rewarding and lucrative career, as you have the chance to dictate the exposure for a company to the world. The coursework associated with a marketing MBA includes the behavior of customers, trends in purchasing, and the new innovations of marketing on the Internet.

Manage The People Who Manage People

The best businesses thrive by getting the best people to fill their ranks. Human resources is the inexact science of just that: getting the necessary hires from the pool of applicants and then choosing the employees within the company who are best capable of promotion. If you have the judge of talent and character necessary for working as an HR manager, the human resources MBA provides the tools needed to keep your department productive and funneling talent into the pipeline. Since the average person changes employment every three years, demand is high for quality HR representatives and managers who are able to steer a corporation towards good workers and good returns.

Other MBA’s That Are In Demand

MBA With a Concentration In Management Information Systems

SOURCES: US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012, retrieved from bls.gov.