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| An EMBA Program: What to Look for? | Many people pursuing an executive MBA must learn to gracefully balance a life filled with these kinds of demanding responsibilities.  The weekends that were once spent taking a breather, or evenings, depending on your program, will suddenly be spent in a classroom, beside colleagues with equally hectic lives. Especially reason to find a program that speaks to who you are instead of stressing you out. Find out what to look for in your search:
Quality
It may be hard to assess the quality of an EMBA program simply by looking at a program's website. You should do some serious research. Try to ask around in your professional circles, as it is one of the best ways to judge the quality of an individual EMBA program. Search for contact with alumni of various EMBA programs and find out how satisfied they were with their alma maters. Keep in mind, ranking can be useful as well, but any ranking suffers from the biases of the folks doing the ranking.
Focus
Some diverse programs stress diverse elements within the MBA curriculum, even though at first glace, they may appear fairly similar. Some are recognized for being finance-heavy (beware math-phobias) while others have a reputation for churning out senior-level marketing geniuses. It pays again to be suspicious of "labels" and do your own research - but don't discount them either. Current students, recruiters, Employers, and EMBA alumni are useful resources here.
Convenience
An executive MBA program is structured to accommodate the busy lives of their participants. Given many other obligations for students, there is a tendency to look only at those EMBA programs that are in your own backyard. The organization of many EMBA programs is intended to allow participants to commute to campus from a remote location, so consider drawing a wider circle as you explore programs. Before you start evaluating programs, make a list of any schedule restrictions you might have. Don’t hesitate to include your spouse, partner, or significant other in these discussions. Take into account to discuss this with your employer as well.
Career Services
One area, except scheduling, in which EMBA programs characteristically differ significantly from their traditional, two-year, full-time MBA counterparts is in the career services provided to students. EMBA programs never suggest a full-breadth of job search services, primarily because of the large proportion of students who are sponsored by their employers. It’s shifting slowly.
At present some schools give non-sponsored students full or limited access to their MBA job listings and recruiting services. Even as it helps, but more needs to be done, especially as EMBA graduates are usually more senior than their MBA equivalents. In the future expect this to change even more. Meanwhile, if you’re considering earning your EMBA for the purposes of changing jobs, make sure the career services available to you are sufficient.
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