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MBAs who can't find jobs

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Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#21

Post by JCM9 »

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#22

Post by hinkley »

l2silver wrote: post #10

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,…

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#23

Post by matwood »

flkiwi wrote: post #16
monero-xmr wrote: post #4

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 :(

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 fin…

> 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?

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#24

Post by paulpauper »

JCM9 wrote: post #21

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…

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#25

Post by nsxwolf »

> “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?

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#26

Post by oldpersonintx »

darth_avocado wrote: post #9

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 th…

[dead]

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#27

Post by abadpoli »

scottyah wrote: post #14
ren_engineer wrote: post #6

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 educ…

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#28

Post by groestl »

bobjordan wrote: post #20

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 fin…

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#29

Post by asynchronous »

nsxwolf wrote: post #25

> “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 "…

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.
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