I graduated with an MBA in 2008 from a top 10-ish school, just before the Great Recession. I had no desire to be an entrepreneur. I pursued the consulting track and landed a full-time offer from my summer internship, but I got laid off in 2009 along with about half of the firm. After that, I did contract consulting jobs for a year and ended up working on a project in China. As that project ended, I still couldn't find a suitable permanent MBA-level job, so I started my own consulting firm in China, which later became a contract manufacturing company. About 14 years later, I am still running my own company. There have been plenty of years I haven't been able to pay myself a salary of $180 grand a year like these top MBAs expect to start now. But, I also had a few good years where my company put over $1M in the bank. Now, it's nice to mostly work on whatever I want to think about every day. Economic cycles happen, just must make your own future.
This seems like it boils down to "if you can't find someone willing to hire you, start a company and find someone willing to hire it"? Which solves the problem of not having a job, I suppose, but doesn't necessarily solve the problem of not having an income.
Contract manufacturing sounds like a very specific field. Were you working in contract manufacturing before, or did you basically make a career pivot into manufacturing because that's where the opportunities were? (If so, very savvy!)
I think it also comes off as anecdotal with no good causal relationship. I have no doubt the parent put in a lot of hard work, sacrificed much, and struggled. But I'm not convinced the strategy is repeatable. A saying I like is "the harder I work, the luckier I get." Because hard work gives you the ability to take advantage of opportunities. But at the end of the day there is a combination of hard work and luck. Maybe this is just how the world is, but we're humans so we have the power to shape it, and I think we should make hard work less reliant upon luck. But I think one of the first steps to doing that is recognizing how stochastic the system (both what we can control and what we can't) is. I'm glad this worked out for the parent and I sincerely do not want this comment to undermine their work. But I think we're often too quick to assume a repeatable process and not selection bias.
I think not so much "the harder I work, the luckier I get" as keep working even if you don't get paid much for a while. Which probably is repeatable and you'll likely make money eventually if you bring value to others.
While I do believe in "the harder I work, the luckier I get" mentality, what you said there about "keep working even if you don't get paid much for a while" is the critical factor. I had to stop comparing what I could pay myself versus my peers and even my own post-MBA salary, as I made significantly less for a few years.
My background pre-MBA was in manufacturing, not necessarily contract manufacturing, but factory operations heavy positions. If I did anything that was
"savvy" was just recognizing that it was a relatively great time to start a business located inside China. I was able to manage my working capital very well in the early days by receiving credit from facilities in China, and it was easier than it would have been in America. Then, we got into GoPro camera accessories like when it was GoPro v1-2 days. That took off and allowed us to grow into a contract manufacturing company.
In about 2004 Business Week had an article that said 'the value of an MBA is simply the salary of the job that your school gets for you on graduation'. No job, no value. Some schools have much better placement departments than others.
One of the best parts of running your own company one-person or small consulting company is to decide when and how you pay taxes. So, for example, you can work for a while, build up capital in the company and then not work for a while still paying yourself a salary.
Basically using the company as your savings account. If you don't mind paying yourself a lower salary you can take advantage of progressive tax as well.
It is about minimizing how much you work, it doesn't really help you to maximize how much you earn if you want to work full time with no pauses. It essentially levels out your tax burden across multiple years.
Is repeating this some sort of mental self defense mechanism that gets activated whenever you see someone successful that makes you wonder if you made the right choices?
A) The overall job market is tighter than it was a few years ago and MBAs are not immune.
B) Over the last decade I’ve observed the MBA becoming a lot less fashionable than it once was. I get the whole “it’s a great networking experience” thing but as a value-add degree there seems to be a lot less interest in people who specialize in “management” vs folks that focus first and foremost on being an expert at something. The “professional mid-level manager” definitely seems to be less of a thing than it used to be, with that now more of a meme for poorly performing companies (eg commentary about “the MBAs rocked up and messed up this org/company/product”). The days of armies of MBA hires consistently forming the next generation of leaders in high performing companies seems to have broadly passed. Not saying don’t do an MBA but it’s not the ticket to a senior role that it once was.
Particularly in tech there’s a lot less pathways in for an MBA than say a brilliant technologist that has some experience managing teams/products.
To me the "value" of an MBA is as I sit around the Principal PM, Director of Product region with 15-20 years under my belt and contemplate rounding myself out for a VP, CTO/CIO role (these are a little orthogonal, but I also have a substantial engineering and SRE background).
That's balancing things out, getting a better grasp of corporate leadership knowledge (in the sense of finances, accounting, corporate structure, legal).
There's a large difference between that and the "high school to college to MBA to Big 4 to management" pipeline, which is being looked at with a lot more skepticism at least, if not cynicism.
I did an MBA in my 30’s after being a CTO of a company for a few years (parent company closed us down after 9/11). For me an MBA rounded out some of the gaps in my experience and knowledge and re-enforced the concept of being able to hold to contradictory ideas in my head and evaluate them
In Europe most MBAs are people who’re mid career and already have business experience
I think it's also a good litmus test for the MBA program itself. Several won't even let you apply without experience, and to me that shows a focus more on business concepts and knowledge, versus, "this is a networking program".
> there seems to be a lot less interest in people who specialize in “management” vs folks that focus first and foremost on being an expert at something
I disagree. A career in management is very different from a specialist career, and both are essential. I made the switch from an IC (individual contributor) position to tech management about five years ago and received proper training at my company.
My anecdotal experience and consultations with my professional network (from startups to colleagues at FAANGs) indicate that most companies value both management and specialist career ladders (The 'Y career' [1]).
I suspect the poster you’re responding to would say you are agreeing with them, not disagreeing.
I took that post to be a criticism of people who seek to go into management without the expertise you will have gathered as an IC, or without the industry or domain knowledge you will have as you go transfer to the management track.
They weren’t criticising management, but rather the “MBAs who rock up” without the necessary expertise to do a good job (and quite often not even much experience of actually managing).
What is the essence of an MBA education? I know it involves accounting and finance, but how hard is it to simply pick that up in a night course?
What I'm really curious about is the actual people management that is taught in MBA schools, and surviving middle management Machiavellianism. Is this explicitly taught in MBA schools? Suppressing labor costs? Anti-union? Bypassing regulatory costs? Acquiring regulatory capture?
Anyway, a lot of that doesn't seem like stuff that schools would teach well.
It really depends. Suggesting that topics like accounting and finance can be picked "up in a night course" is a bit like saying programming... I know that involves some Javascript and CSS, and couldn't you just pick that up?
I have no formal programming education but started coding 35 years ago. I also have an MBA in finance. For my brain, learning something like functional monadic composition is something I was able to do on my own, but there is no way I'd ever have learned finance at that same level on my own.
It is worth noting that there is a pretty big difference between an MBA in finance, marketing, or operations/supply-chain. As different as developer, tester, and devops at least.
As the title itself suggests, it is to understand how to run a business. That might not be the outcome for most MBA students, that might not even be their intent behind pursuing an MBA etc. but it is the 'essence'.
> [...] middle management Machiavellianism. Is this explicitly taught in MBA schools?
Short answer: rarely. But is it explicitly mentioned in MBA literature? Yes, if you know what to look for -- as is exactly the case in its real life manifestation.
It will vary by school, but accounting and finance are typically just a small piece. Basically an MBA covers all major topics that impact the functioning of a business, marketing strategy, HR, leading people, economics, information systems, operations management, quality control, etc.
As the name implies, MBA teaches business administration, or managing business. It gives you 30,000 ft overview of the entire business value chain, and then you zoom in on each individual component separately, knowing where it fits in the whole picture.
To have a business means to have revenue, so you you have to sell stuff (sales). You also have to figure out how to sell stuff better to more people for more money (marketing). To sell something you have to have something, product or service, so you have to build it/design it (product/service development/R&D), and then make it in large quantities (manufacturing/operations). To manufacture it you have to get things from which you will make your products (inbound logistics). When you're ready to sell you need to physically deliver things you're selling (outbound logistics).
These are your primary business functions. There's also support functions. Many businesses employ people, and they need to be managed, you need to find and hire good people, you have to make sure they don't slack off, do what they're supposed to do and don't do what they're NOT supposed to do, and don't cause any issues for the business etc (that's human resources). You have to make sure the business follows all appropriate regulations (that's Legal). You have to know how much money you're spending and making, not an easy task as large businesses have hundreds/thousands projects and activities going on at the same time (that's your accounting). You can also find out how you can optimize your financial resources and get the most bang for you buck (finance). There's obviously a small group of people running the whole thing and deciding on the strategy and then coming up with plans to implement it (Executive function).
So in MBA you review all of these functions in detail so that you know the best practices, what to do and what not to do, bunch of examples (case studies) from various companies etc etc.
That's all there is to it. The idea is that once you understand the whole picture you can then move up the chain to management or even to Executive function so that you can run the whole thing.
There's also books like "Portable MBA" where all this knowledge is put in one book in a condensed manner, and you will probably learn just as much from it as you would from a class, in the same way you can get through all the coursework on CS major and (kinda) learn most of it.
EDIT: Ironically I forgot to mention another somewhat important support function called Information Technology. :)
That might be key. In the US, a lot of our problems come down to greed. You can be legally liable for choosing to do what’s right for employees instead of increasing shareholder value.
I think there is a major component to the MBA program that is missed in these comments, at least based on my experience getting one almost 30 years ago. That is, going through an MBA program is (potentially) an efficient way to do a career change, post-college. The majority of my classmates, including myself, were trying to move from one career to a completely different one. In my program, the majority of fellow students had graduated college as engineers, did it for a few years and didn't like the work or the pay, and decided, rationally, that they could use their math skills to make more money in finance. And the MBA program, in addition to providing both a broad set of overview business classes and a few more in their area of focus, ends with a recruiting program where the graduates are basically getting a do-over.
If you were an engineer four years out of college, working at HP, and wanted to become an investment banker, how else would you break into the field? You can't just email Goldman Sachs and ask for an interview and say you've read some finance books. The MBA program gives you the do-over pass, and most of my classmates did it for this reason. Separately, back then it was really cheap (mine cost a total of $10k, and my salary in my new field was $50k higher) so it was usually worth the money. At current tuition prices, the deal may not be as clear. Anyway, I think people asking "couldn't you just learn accounting in night classes?" are missing the point of the program: Learn something new PLUS get a career do-over without penalty.
It is not about having less interest in hiring managers, it is there is less need for managers than there is need for individual contributors. Due to simple math - one manager is needed to manage unit/organization of multiple individual contributors. So there's less open positions for managers and more competition, and more perks too.
A) The overall job market is tighter than it was a few years ago and MBAs are not immune.
But what about all the "help wanted" signs I hear about from the media. I think it's more like they don't necessarily need a work, but are more like looking for candidates who may be offered a job.
Would you rather work at a McDonald's mopping up puke for $14/hour, driving heavy equipment in a heat index of 120 degrees for $20/hour, or anything an MBA might be expected to do?
Where are you getting equipment operators for 20? I live in very cheap area and an unlicensed joker with a tiny Kubota backhoe charges 80 an hour. A licensed contractor, double.
I rented my own to excavate my house, rental charges with full delivery and maintenance only 40/hr which leaves a good 120 for labor overhead.
South Texas, so you also need to speak Spanish. If you paid equipment operators here $200K+/year, you'd have to hire security to control the crowd of people beating down your door to apply for a job.
> “I had no idea, a year later, I’d still be searching for full-time employment,” said 32-year-old AJ Edelman, who decided to pursue a Yale M.B.A. to ease his transition from a skeleton-racing career into a management role in technology. Hundreds of applications later, he estimates, he’s still looking.
From skeleton racing to management in technology? Did he really expect the Yale MBA would be enough, combined with "hundreds" of applications - rookie numbers?
His background is likely more than enough. In my personal experience, I've seen people land jobs they weren't at all competitive for by applying anyways, while other people (such as myself in the past) decide not to apply for openings with the idea of preparing to become fully qualified first.
In the longer-run, I've observed a few of the people who did apply did struggle greatly, and either had to find a new position, or lost interest in the new line of work they were trying. But others did a good enough job (after a rough start) to do well at their new position, which would then give them the work experience to easily be competitive for similar positions or even better opportunities for their career.
So, in general, I've seen that it's a good idea for the applicant to apply, even if they aren't fully qualified.
--
For Edelman specifically, he both competed in the olympics in his sport, and was a seven-time national champion in his country. He even has a detailed Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Edelman
That level of competitiveness in the sport takes a lot of persistence, discipline, and skill, so it's a fair basis for a resume—especially with an MBA from a recognizable university. His background as an Olympian and national athlete is a fair basis for his resume.
But he also has a rigorous background in engineering. According to Wikipedia, he has a degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, and is potentially well-connected through his father (who also has a Wikipedia page), who is an engineering professor at MIT and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
In his case, I wonder if he would find success by talking with people he has worked with before (such as fellow athletes or sponsors), or people he's known from his experience at university. He likely also has a potentially strong professional network through his family.
Perhaps he's only applying for a narrow range of opportunities in a specialized area. But then again, it does sound like he's applying cold for hundreds of positions. Another possibility is that some miscommunication occurred when he spoke to the journalist for his relatively minor part in the article.
At my job, we are seeing way more perfect fit candidates than we did a few years ago. A few years ago I could see us giving an offer to someone like this, but now that there are basically unicorns showing up I don't think I could justify it.
His case is interesting, and I imagine he shared more context in his interview, which the editor or reporter likely cut due to the article's word limit. The article briefly describes his objective as a want to land "a management role in technology," but it's likely that he's not looking for a junior project management role with his credentials.
Perhaps he's holding out for a senior or at least mid-level role as an executive or co-founder at a company in a specific part of the technology industry. But then again, as the article describes, he sent out hundreds of applications—while this is plausible for these types of roles, I always imagined these openings to be primarily shared via word-of-mouth. So out of personal curiosity, I wish the article included more details about his process in attempting a career change, and what kinds of jobs he is applying to.
Measuring progress by application numbers, and similarly implying that some arbitrary number is too low, is honestly silly. The higher your application count the more you're wasting your time spraying and praying. Focus on leads that are either realistic or just out of reach and work on those, applying to countless jobs that aren't even remotely relevant to your skillset is a waste of your own time.
I mean, I am assuming serious job seekers would only be applying to relevant roles.
I've applied to several hundred positions that are very much in line with my experience and skillset since summer without success - I would assume someone who has never worked in tech would need to be applying for at least as many positions as I have.
This is wild to me. I've applied to 4 jobs in my life and been hired for 3 of those. I can't imagine having to write hundreds of individual cover letters. Is this one of those US vs EU differences?
It is a self perpetuating cycle. If you are lucky to land a good first job that leads to a good second job which leads to a good third job, so on so forth.
Many of the people applying for 100s of jobs are either unqualified or completely green. Especially now more than ever the bottom 10-15% of the workforce has been trimmed in various layoffs so if you are completely green you are competing with people who have industry experience.
That's an interesting contrast, reading about your experience I'm not sure whether I'm doing it right or I'm doing it wrong. Usually when I'm looking for something new to do, I pick and apply to a few positions at most, and if I get a good offer, go with that. Every now and then I also fire some one-off shots if there's a position that sounds extremely interesting, even if it's realistically unlikely to land. Applying to hundreds of positions sounds arduous and hard to manage, how do you do it?
Well, for now I'm not managing it because I've stopped. After surviving a round of mass layoffs, I wanted to answer the question "How screwed would I be if I got laid off in this job market right now?" And the answer I came to is "very!"
The experience was very draining, and it was interfering with my work and my home life. The last thing I wanted to do was lose my job because of job search created performance issues - so now I'm holding off on this until I have no choice.
People who switch careers into tech are really not appreciating how hard it is to break into- most of us in tech already grew up in this, we’ve loved it since day one. If you’re switching just for monetary gain, we can smell it and we don’t appreciate it.
The article mentions MBAs graduating from top schools not being able to find a job in a tough job market, but obviously this problem is as old as time for MBA graduating any given year. One of the issues is that the MBA is a money maker for these universities, so why not graduate as many people as possible.
The other issue is what people expect from these MBA programs. They see it as a way to get career flexibility, but in reality an MBA really opens up two spaces: Consulting, and becoming an executive in the field you're already poised to become an executive in.
I recall the reverse problem when I was leaving school smack in the dot com era.
We had one friend who today would probably fall loosely under the moniker of Edge Lord. He was always stirring shit, and we also always suspected that his mouth was writing checks his skills couldn't cash. Most of us were working on little personal projects. Which is essentially what you do at that school - the teachers are almost world class, but the computer labs were undersubscribed, and maybe twenty hours out of the month was there a wait for hardware. You could almost always justify using a machine to work on 'frivolities'. So we all did. Games, Unix tools, whatever. But he never did.
Come graduation time, all of my friends were scattering to the west coast, Chicago, NYC, for their new jobs, meanwhile he elected to enroll for a masters degree instead. In the middle of a gold rush. Somehow never believed that higher education was his main priority.
> One of the issues is that the MBA is a money maker for these universities, so why not graduate as many people as possible.
I wonder why U.S. universities issuing MBA degrees take a "graduate as many as possible" approach, whereas medical schools use a "intentionally limit the supply of doctors" approach. Perhaps it's a game theory thing. Any one school can easily and independently increase the number of MBAs it graduates, and so they all do despite wanting there to be fewer graduates overall, but it's harder for any one medical school to independently decide to create more doctors on its own.
You can not be doctor without degree. But you can certainly do same MBAs job without MBA. And then the whole doctor pipeline is much more interconnected and larger process. Simply giving out medical degree and dumping them out of the door doesn't work. Hospitals and residencies need to be involved.
Law schools might be better comparison. The number of lawyers graduated is not limited...
I got my MBA covered by my employer, but honest to god - I didn't learn or see much new.
Prior to that I had a MSEE, as well as a Bachelor in Econ and Business Administration. All the classes were just mixes of core finance/accounting/management classes. Had electives, but again, nothing I wouldn't have learned on the job or in my own spare time.
I guess you can get some academic/knowledge value if you're completely green to things related to business. But undergrad econ/finance/management/etc. grads? Same old.
The real value lies in the networking. It's just a formality to land certain jobs, or if you want a career change.
I obtained my MBA in 2007, just before the onset of the Great Recession, leading to significant job market challenges. Despite these hurdles, I steered through the difficulties by delving into coding during the expansive era of the internet (think Facebook, Google, iPhone apps).
Jumping on the startup bandwagon, I surfed the wave, ultimately establishing myself as an MBA with a robust tech background. Today, I find myself outpacing most CTOs. While the initial journey was challenging, I managed to redirect the course successfully.
For what it's worth, I went to a good B school, but my deployment to IRAQ with the Marines far out weights my MBA.
In May 2005, my team (S3 shop) was responsible for training, operations, future operations, and logistical coordination of a provisional Military Police Battalion. We managed four separate missions, comprised of 800 Marines, spread across Al-Anbar province (RCT-8, if my memory serves me correctly).
There were no textbook to reference. Prior to the Iraq war, myself and my Marines where trained as Artillery men, but now we were trained as convoy ops, detention operations and local security. Furthermore, 99% unit personnel were operating at full capacity, because of the combat environment. (No HR issues, slackers, or vacations) Adapt and overcome.
The only other environment I've encountered that comes close to matching this level of challenge, teamwork, and excitement is within a startup.
I was activated for 1 year, easily I believe this hands on experience is worth many more years. My MBA was a great experience, I learned some new things but this real world combat experience surpasses anything that can be learned at B School.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that business is the most popular major in the country. A glut of middle managers is maybe not something the economy wants, especially when in most companies you can just work your way up to be one without an MBA.
Really the only value for the degree I see is if you already have a business. And some value if you want to start one (on top of the 200k debt you just took for the MBA).
It always seemed to me MBAs weren't there to add value to an organization, but to extract it. Perhaps now, in leaner times, this is not as sought-after a skillset as it used to be?
The issue is that actually, outside of technical paths, businesses do like to hire business grads as it allows them to do even less training and they usually don’t care if someone is well read or opinionated (possibly prefer the opposite).
MBA degrees are really to supplement a worker by bringing business experience to their technical expertise. Somebody without any real work experience in industry simply can't do an MBA and benefit from it as the courses all require you to draw from your industry experience. Ergo an MBA only person simply isn't hirable in my book.
I think it really boils down to there being too many of them.
We used to award about 70K MBAs each year. In the 2010s we awarded close to 200K every year. We've declined somewhat but we're still minting tons of degrees.
Even factoring in our economic growth in the US, there's just no way there's actually that much demand for people with this training.
I think it's important to note how they're highlighting top MBA programs though where admissions numbers haven't changed a ton and are "typically" still highly sought after.
> Jenna Starr stuck a blue Post-it Note to her monitor a few months after getting her M.B.A. from Yale University last May. “Get yourself the job,” it read.
One sentence in and we are already on the warning track. A few months after, not a few months before?
I graduated with a BS in computer science in 2003. It took me a few months to find a job: I was a very attractive candidate. I don't have a lot of sympathy when it takes specialized candidates a few months to find work.
I took the attitude that I would be working for my entire career, and that it didn't matter if I took some time to enjoy myself. I don't regret it.
More importantly: A degree isn't a guarantee of work. We often forget that there is some risk in getting a fancy degree in a particular field.
going to get an MBA without having your job pay for it or any legit plan is itself a red flag to me in terms of the quality of a candidate. Why would you hire somebody who spent 100-200k(and even more money in salary opportunity cost) for a credential?
It's a socially acceptable break from your work that doesn't guarantee losing money. If you find yourself getting specialized in an industry you are falling out of love with, your company doesn't offer sabbaticals, and you don't exactly know what you want to do next it's a great option.
That may be a Band-Aid covering a red flag, and this may be a special circumstance, but the people I know considering continued education are feeling this.
This is the primary reason most of the MBAs I know did it as well. There are very few socially acceptable ways to pivot your career, and an MBA is one of them.
For example I know several people that wanted to pivot into something more software focused. There are boot camps, but they’re looked down on. Most colleges will not allow you to enroll for a bachelor’s in CS if you already have a bachelors in something else (and also is looked down on), and likewise a master’s in CS is very unlikely. So instead they went for an MBA that has a specialization in data analytics, which for many has been a good foot in the door to more tech-focused roles.
> Most colleges will not allow you to enroll for a bachelor’s in CS if you already have a bachelors in something else (and also is looked down on), and likewise a master’s in CS is very unlikely.
I’m skeptical of this claim.
Programs like the Georgia Tech Online Masters in Computer Science were tailor made for this scenario - and I’ve known several who have followed it to great success.
Edit: looking into it - blocking second baccalaureates seems to be mostly a problem with California schools. Plenty of other state schools have no such restriction:
Georgia Tech’s online computer science major lists a preferred qualification of already holding a bachelors in CS, math, computer engineering, or electrical engineering, so I don’t think it’s “tailor made” for people that are looking for a mid-career pivot from non-tech to tech.
Judging by all the Harvard grads that get scooped up without issue and their horrendous problem with grade inflation, the answer to your question seems to be, yes.
A friend has an MBA from Harvard. Upon graduating they did their requisite stint at McKinsey for 18 mos, then went to work for a Fortune 100 corp, explicitly hired to be developed as eventual mid to upper management.
After 15 years, upper management shifted and their future prospects instantly dimmed.
So they picked up the phone, called the Harvard Alumni office, which in a matter of days set up interviews for them at other fortune 500 companies. They had another job offer in an entirely different field in about 2 weeks from the initial phone call. This is a recent anecdote, about 5-6 years ago when all the aforementioned problems were already evident.
"Harvard is a hedge fund masquerading as an institute of higher learning" - Scott Galloway (and hedge fund is a euphemism for Racketeering)
Not exactly surprising. Large companies have been slowing down or freezing hiring and laying people off for over a year now. Did anyone think MBAs would be immune?
it is obviously a systems problem if you cannot place people who are capable. It is a bad signal when constructive inputs are piling up and wasted right?
No? You want negative feedback signals in a free market economy not just positive ones.
An excessive number of people got MBA degrees therefore it ends up being a bad choice for many of them. That then feeds back and noticeably reduces the number of people getting an MBA in the future.
More excess credentials than people. Someone with an MBA can easily be employed in a job that doesn’t make use of that MBA.
Also, nothing says those people can’t find a management/consulting job in 1 or even 5 years. That delay would still discourage people from getting an MBA.
ok - there are several different lenses with which to look at this story.
try - personal story; wider market for new MBAs in 2024; importance of the MBA degree at all; then much larger topics about business size and structures, level playing fields, advantages and leverage of established entities in the finance environment, other things.
Can we agree that employment replaced by automation is in the news daily; capital asset bubbles as well; post-covid, brick and mortar retail, restaurants, and local small business of all kinds, continue to die off in most of the USA. replaced with a single Walmart or Home Depot for example. It is a given that most business, business is very competitive even in stable situations.
Here is a charismatic and recently trained person who completed an MBA. The degree is for increasing their own business skills, to both maximize personal gain perhaps, and to be saavy in practical ways to lead, sell and manage. (I agree that the MBA itself is oversold by its nature, and that plenty of graduates are looking for personal gain first) One could cynically say, and not be wrong, that this MBA found a way to get some publicity, often an asset.. and really, why does this one person need so much attention.
but .. is the whole society really so overflowing with able people who commit to formal training that they are "not able" to work with their training? lots of caveats to that but.. this is a trend on a large scale. Other societies may not work this way at all.. (thinking Asia and Islam offhand). In this environment, can this MBA really just "easily work in some other capacity".. I know a guy that got a real ulcer from working in a demeaning situation in an office, while looking for other jobs.
so - any empathy at all for an individual who is making clear advances but ends up badly .. or any concern for a system of economics that may be overcharged heading in a destructive direction .. or in the middle thinking about how real people start to fit into non-trivial, competitive business environments.
Always better to go to graduate professional school (law, business) when you have a job lined up. Going to Harvard or Yale with no plan means you might get a job after. But if you don’t, after a couple years the degree is a scarlet letter. I have a friend who went to a good law school but graduated middle of class. He does the same job he did before, but is still paying off the $200k debt he took :(
Not really lined up like a specific role in mind. But I've worked at large companies that partner with local universities for MBA programs. And after going through that program you are first in line for roles that put the degree to use. So you'd need to graduate and get a job at a company with a program like that as a prerequisite.
That's how the whole system is setup. The information you get across schools is practically the same (the all operate within the same laws, business practises etc) but the difference is that those more expensive schools are 'filters' for HR departments. So if you intern/network with companies you want to work at while you're working on your credential, you essentially are doing a multi-year application process.
If all that mattered is that you know how to do 'stuff', then paying for a brand-name school wouldn't matter, because the 'stuff' is the same. (except for non-accredited schools I suppose)
You work in an industry, make connections, and have some ability to use the professional degree successfully.
Just getting an MBA is not necessarily going to guarantee success as a deal maker or whatever. You should have a plan beforehand if only to reduce risk of time and money wasted.
I'll take that a step further: have a personal "business plan" for what you are going to accomplish and treat professional school like a job with that goal as your job description. I went to a non-top-tier law school, but I finished very high in my class and knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish (and was largely debt-free in doing so). I ended up where many of my Harvard Law friends did with substantially less financial stress.
Another tidbit, since this will probably turn into that kind of thread: I will advise anyone who listens that getting 3-5 years of work experience will, for most people, be substantially more valuable for prospective lawyers than going directly through to law school from undergraduate. The funny thing is that I finished so high in my class in part because, after working for several years, the bad parts of law school seemed pretty trivial.
Note this is a US perspective and other countries educate their professionals differently.
> have a personal "business plan" for what you are going to accomplish and treat professional school like a job
This is how people should treat any schooling. My plans weren't as thought out when I went to undergrad long ago, but even something as simple as 'pick a major that has a high likelihood of financial stability' helps.
> I will advise anyone who listens that getting 3-5 years of work experience
Don't many of the top b-schools also require some work experience prior to attending?
Yes, and while I am deeply skeptical of many MBA programs' value, the work requirement is one very good thing about b-schools (note I limited my comment to prospective lawyers).
I don't mind a major that, by itself, has limited financial utility. My own degree is laughably unprofitable. In my experience, you can accomplish the exercise of developing excellent research and writing habits, time management, etc. using just about any degree. In hiring, I also like to see someone who is more than their job, who has interests and motivations beyond the blinders of their profession. But, to your broader point, _thinking about what you want to accomplish_, even if it ends up changing completely, is better than just marking the box of "going to college".
I’ve done software for 15 years and am fortunate to soft-retire soon. I was considering my next career to be law. I’ve filed civil actions, patents and would want to do civil litigation for consumer rights.
Any advice on how to go about getting a degree that is reasonably priced, getting experience? Is there industry knowledge around which (ideally online) school is the most legit?
I have an n of 1, maybe approximating 2-4 with the anecdotes I've picked up from colleagues over the years, so I can't speak broadly to the law school market. I will say that I went to a state school of moderate rank (certainly not a glorious one) with the express goals of (1) spend as little as possible on (2) a fully reputable degree and (3) rank in the top 10 of my class. Despite the best efforts of the legislature of the state in question, I managed to get out of law school spending less on 3 years than top tier schools charge for 1 year.
The only other things I would say are that the first semester is the most important in determining how you feed into the job market (assuming a traditional summer associate track) and the third year ... shouldn't exist. I would also have a concrete idea of what you want to accomplish (mine: combine the principles of software development with business experience and a risk management mindset to help companies find the best chance of success with their projects -- I have done everything from massively automating legal processes using developer tools to IP to privacy to infosec to dispute resolution .. it's been great). Just saying "I want to do transactions" or "I want to focus on international law or nonprofits" (admirable but cliche and absolutely not financially viable) is not enough. This isn't meant to criticize what you said about civil litigation at all--it's one part of a 4-line reply and not a personal statement--but what can YOU bring to the interests you want to serve?
Oh, and the Bar Exam isn't as bad as everyone says it is. I wouldn't do it recreationally, but I've done project justification meetings with leadership that were more taxing.
He was unable to get employment as a lawyer, and once you miss the boat for a lawyer job you have "failed" and no one wants to hire you entry level once you haven't been able to find any work for a few years.
He's just at his old job, which is something deep in the bowels of health insurance that somehow extracts more money from insurance providers and feeds it to hospitals. It is fairly well-paid and he works from home, but this was not the outcome he wanted nor the $200k debt.
I hope these people never find jobs. I've never met a MBA who has added real value to a company. Its always some BS process to generate some metric so they can present on a chart.
