There are multiple approaches to the question regarding which occupations would benefit from obtaining an MBA. If you consider your job position as your rank in your organization, however, the answer becomes clear. In other words, in the first five years after your graduation—the period of time in which you are still considered “green” and lacking in practical work experience—you are expected to have a great deal of theoretical knowledge of specialized fields (finance, marketing, etc.; it is simply not practical to expect a new graduate’s knowledge to go beyond that). In this situation, the ideal approach is to obtain an M.Sc., an academically-focused Master’s program offered by educational institutions.

When you gain five to 10 years of working experience and rise to the level of junior manager, you become a leadership figure who manages specialized groups formed by numerous subordinates and transferred employees. In this situation, you need to set goals to lead groups, manage by measuring results, and acquire other talents and attributes that are essential for a manager. These skills cannot be gained through academic knowledge alone; you need a professional education founded in actual work experience—consisting of successes savored and failures weathered on the job. Joining an MBA program is a good approach at this point in your career.

Finally, when you rise to the post of middle manager, capable of gathering and reconciling viewpoints from numerous specialized fields, synthesizing them into one perspective, and providing the advice and proposals needed for decision-making in the overall organization, you will need to gain an understanding of the interests of the entire company (or division, in the case of very large firms). You will need a minimum of 10 years of on-the-job experience for this position. In order to handle making decisions for the entire company, you need to be able to hold complex discussions that go beyond simple profit to examine ethical issues such as governance and the spirit of the law. Here, the best approach is to enter an EMBA program.