Every year, the Master in International Business (MIB) program at Business School Lausanne welcomes students from a wide variety of professional and academic backgrounds. Students have come from engineering, finance, hospitality, medicine and a range of other non-business sectors.
Daniele Ticli is the Head of Careers and Industry Relations at BSL. He previously worked at the hospitality school Glion, and now helps students at BSL to increase their employability and find the right career path. In an interview, Daniele explains that non-business related degrees like hospitality can actually complement an MIB program perfectly. Read on to find out more.
Customer Service Skills Can Help You in the Business World
Students with experience and training in sectors like hospitality already have a solid understanding of business, especially when it comes to understanding and engaging with customers as well as promoting products and services. Daniele explains that hospitality graduates in Switzerland will already have developed a valuable professional experience with a couple of internships. “These students, most of the time, have one year of work experience in hotels, or in events, or in hospitality-related sectors.” he says.
“They realize that work is about interacting with others, it’s about negotiating, it’s about giving a top experience to their stakeholders,” he continues. “And that’s why I think it’s very interesting to do a Master in International Business after a hospitality degree, because the students have excellent skills in customer service and relationship building, skills that are among the most-wanted across industries nowadays. They know what it means to be a customer, and they know how to connect with the needs and the wants of the customers. This is something that is obviously key for the hospitality industry.”
Students with hospitality training and experience will have excellent customer service skills
According to Daniele, the combination of excellent customer service and business training represent a strong combination and can help students to become very successful. “When someone with a Bachelor in Hospitality Management goes for a Master degree in International Business, they combine the business acumen developed during the Master with a customer-centered approach,” he says. “That is very good, and you can see that already during the application process for internships and jobs.”
An MIB Degree Can Open Up New Opportunities
One of the advantages of an MIB degree is that it opens up a wide range of new opportunities. Daniele explains that many students with specialized degrees like hospitality normally look at expanding the number of career options beyond hospitality after their bachelor, as they may want to pursue a career in sectors like Finance, HR, IT or entrepreneurship, to mention a few. The Master program can enable them to make this career change.
“The Master program really gives you a great flavor of international business with a project-based learning approach,” he says. “It’s across disciplines, it’s across soft skills and hard skills, so the MIB gives you the chance to study marketing, finance, leadership, ethics, project management and so on, while also giving the opportunity to choose an integrated internship that can be done in any industry, anywhere.”
Advance Faster in Your Future Career with an MIB Degree
A Master degree can definitely help students to enhance their careers and strengthen their profile when applying to new jobs, creating a solid foundation for their future.” Daniele says that students will be more qualified and more experienced, considered they will have the last semester of their program to apply what they learn in an internship or entry-level job, where they will be supported by a BSL supervisor.
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