Landing your first job right out of college is not a cakewalk.
Today’s world of business is complex and rapidly evolving. To succeed in this competitive jobs markets, candidates need to possess desired skill sets the industry is looking to hire for and seize the opportunity when given.
As a business strategist, your role involves communicating with peers, subordinates, and supervisors. Organizing and prioritizing work, making informed decisions, solving problems, establishing interpersonal relationships, etc.
Before moving further, let us first define what is strategic management.
Strategic management is a continuous process that keeps businesses from failing. It helps evaluate the organization’s competitors and sets goals and strategies to compete with the existing competitors in the market. It then reevaluates these strategies regularly to determine how the strategy has been implemented, whether the strategy was a success, or does it need revisiting.
Why do you need a business strategy?
A business strategy acts as a road map for the organization. The strategy creates an overall vision, mission, and direction for the organization.
- Strategy deals with long-term benefits for the organization rather than short-term or routine operations. This involves dealing with the probability of new products or new methods or new markets to be developed soon.
- A strategy is created to study the behavior of customers and competitors in the marketplace. It is important because it is not possible to foresee the future, however, it is possible to study the ongoing market trends and be prepared for the future.
In simple terms, the strategy helps organizations bridge the gap between – the present scenario to where they want to be in the upcoming future.
Careers in strategic management
Below are a few career options you can choose as an aspiring business strategist –
- Business analyst
- Financial analyst
- Product strategist
- Marketing consultant
- Project analyst
- Research investigator
- Project Management coordinator
Business strategic jobs are considered as one of the most desirable job roles in large organizations since they get to see the larger picture – the vision and the pain points that determine the value in an organization, and how with your best efforts you can come up with a strategic solution.
Business strategic planners or strategists quickly analyze and evaluate the internal business plan of the organization. This involves market analysis, competitive intelligence analysis, financial forecasting, feasibility analysis, and M&A proposals, etc. being the strategist for the company, your job is to closely work with the senior management and experience how decisions are taken in the organization.
At the entry-level, you would either work as a strategic planning associate. Your core responsibility would involve working on assignments given by the senior management team. The work you’ll be focusing on includes collecting data, putting together presentations, talking to the members in the organization to understand business problems. As you advance in your career, you will further get the opportunity to develop business strategies and interact closely with the senior management leaders.
How to land your first job as a business strategist?
Every organization has a mission statement, thus, ensuring the candidates they employ are of high caliber. Those with an MBA in business strategy can opt for a strategic management certification program. Candidates with certifications are bound to be employed much faster than the graduates.
Job titles in the field of business strategy may vary, what doesn’t change is the fact that they’re all great positions with lucrative salaries. An average starting salary of USD 117,000 is given to professionals who have been employed at large corporations. A candidate with more than 10 years of work experience is likely to earn an average salary of USD 132,19 on average which could further increase to USD 171,301 based on the years of work experience.
A professional certification keeps you competitive in today’s global marketplace by helping you build a solid understanding of key business and management principles.
