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MBAs who can't find jobs

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Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#91
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…

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 structur…

Yeh, that’s my view too…

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

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#92
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would learn that in office hours or your internships In the classroom, the emphasis typically is on business ethics and responsible leadership.

Evidence would suggest those arn't things MBAs take away from their degree...

Oh that was a big part of my MBA (not in US though)

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like you are what cause an uptick in the economy. Thanks a lot for sharing.

Inherited wealth works wonders.

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?

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#94

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 m…

What have you learned in Iraq?

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#95

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…

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inherited wealth works wonders.

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?

Theyre probably statistically correct though.

Everyone loves a small business success story because they think they could do that but like 95% of small businesses fail in the first 5 years.

And normal wagies probably aren't able to take these kinds of high risk activities.

So that person is either extremely talented or extremely lucky or has inherited wealth.

Statistics is on the side of inherited wealth.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence would suggest those arn't things MBAs take away from their degree...

Oh that was a big part of my MBA (not in US though)

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#98
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 indu…

Curious if you’ve applied in this market. I think that self perpetuating cycle has broken for a lot of experienced people (like me)

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#99

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.

But unless we're saying that literally all graduates from top MBAs get jobs before those from other schools, the overall MBA count is still relevant.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#100
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…

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.
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