Which is better option? An Executive MBA after 5 years of work experience or pursuing a full time MBA

Full time MBAs are often considered to be gateway to high paying white collar job. While this remains to be in wish list for many, affordability and opportunity doesn’t always works in favor. That paves the way to Executive MBA, quite popular and regarded as to be next alternative to working professional,

Here are some facts about Executive MBA in India and Globally.

Globally:
The average age of Executive MBA students globally is around 37 years. Most popular career path for Executive MBA students is finance, followed by consulting, healthcare, and technology.
India:
The average age of students pursuing an Executive MBA in India is around 34 years. Considering an average Indian youth starts their career at the age of 25, most of the Executive MBAs comes with 8-10 years of Industry experience.

Most popular specializations for Executive MBA programs in India are Marketing, General Management and Finance. Marketing is by far preferred choice in Indian context. An Executive MBA (EMBA) program is designed for professionals who have already established their careers and have several years of work experience. They can either be full time engagement or may be needing certain hours from your week. A quality EMBA program is expected to be classroom oriented. In contrast, a traditional MBA program is geared towards individuals who have recently completed their undergraduate education or have limited work experience. Executive MBA is significantly different from Distance & Online MBA.
Now, here are the reasons you might be coming across to consider an MBA.

1. Upgrade to premium salary class:
   At ISB, for example, average incoming salary was ~INR 9,93,052, while average outgoing salary was INR 22,57,587. While at IIM B executive program, the average outgoing salary was INR 23.8L (given higher work experience requirement for IIM B, it is safe to assume that the incoming salaries on an average would be much higher than ~INR 10L. However, these Executive MBAs are full time, meaning that you lose the flexibility of dwelling both your job and study at the same time. But the upside is that you’re rewarded for the risk you’re taking. At least that’s what the data suggests. Pursuing a full time Executive MBA has upper hand over regular MBA, if this is what you’re looking for.
2. Making a career switch
   If you want to switch from Marketing to HR, that’s unlikely to happen through Executive MBA. An Executive MBA is very small in terms of strength, typically ranges 1/3 rd to 1/4 th of regular MBA/PGDM class size. Recruiter usually prefers bunch of fresh MBA graduates over experienced Executive MBA, that reduces their salary cost. Going for full time regular MBA/PGDM makes more sense in such cases. But it may not always be financially sensible.
3. Climb up the ladder in your current job/organization
   If you aspire to excel in current role or simply want to upskill, pursuing Executive MBA along with work can add managerial flavor to what you good at. Executive MBA adds to perspective that you think about how a business work, how the business decisions made around solving specific problems. The good part of it, you might already be aware of certain business processes around you, you just didn’t know why they exist. Around 54% of the executive MBA candidates get increased job responsibilities, resulting to career opportunities to grow vertically and diagonally. Many organizations do have collaborations with B-schools to curate Executive MBA programs around their needs. Usually, they come with sponsorship offer. If not, look around for institutes offering Executive MBA/PGDM.

In summary, the choice of pursuing Executive MBA over regular is fairly an objective driven decision with their own pros and cons associated with.