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MBAs who can't find jobs

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Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#101

Post by chad_strategic »

nicbou wrote: post #94
chad_strategic wrote: post #77

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?

This is political agnostic response.

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#102

Post by rcbay471 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #31
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…

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 capt…

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#103

Post by bobjordan »

kevingadd wrote: post #40
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…

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 manufa…

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#104

Post by octobus2021 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #31
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…

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 capt…

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. :)

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#105

Post by bobjordan »

tim333 wrote: post #88
godelski wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Mayb…

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#106

Post by FireBeyond »

youngtaff wrote: post #91
FireBeyond wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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".

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#107

Post by flkiwi »

leoqa wrote: post #87
flkiwi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#108

Post by kortilla »

hasty_pudding wrote: post #96
kortilla wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Statistics is on the side of inherited wealth.

Until you look at them. The vast majority of small businesses aren’t created by wealth and the majority of millionaires are self made.

Re: MBAs who can't find jobs

#109

Post by itsoktocry »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #31
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…

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 capt…

Not being able to look up what's involved in obtaining an MBA, but assuming you could learn it in a "night course" is classic HackerNews.
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