If you are responsible for hiring people, someone with a master’s degree in business administration might look like an attractive hire. While, “Never Hire An MBA” might be a bit extreme, I see a lot of people who overvalue an MBA. In particular, small and medium sized businesses will often try to “hire an MBA”. Consider that statement. Wouldn’t it seem strange to say, “I want to hire a Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering”? A Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering isn’t a person–it is a degree. You can’t hire a degree. What you really want is a software engineer or maybe a computer scientist–a person. But when it comes to the MBA degree people talk as if you can just hire the degree. You can’t. You can only hire a person.
Ok so lets say you have to choose between hiring two people. One is a great smart person with a good personality, but without an MBA. The other is a good person with an MBA. You want someone with business skills, so do you hire the MBA or the other person? Remember, you can’t hire a degree. But you want the business skills, so who do you hire?
Lets do a thought experiment. What if you could take the person without the MBA and give them a business education and then hire them? Obviously you don’t want to wait two years for them to get a business degree. So lets say you find a way to implant all the information directly into their brain in some type of procedure that will take about a month. Would you hire the MBA or the person that will take one month to bring up to speed.
I think most people would agree that if it only took one month to give someone a business education, you should definitely hire the best person you can find and not worry about whether or not they have an MBA.
But this is all hypothetical right? There isn’t any MBA education brain implant surgery. Or is there? It turns out that some consulting firms (people who typically hire MBA graduates) have tried hiring people without business training and given them a crash cours in business. Guess what? They do just as well (and sometimes better) than their MBA educated peers.
Consulting firms who hired people without business degrees–some of them lawyers, doctors, and philosophers–obviously had to provide some training so these individuals could go out and give advice to companies using business language and business knowledge. Many of the companies started or expanded relatively short, 3-week programs in which “new hires” learned the basics of business. Apart from the fact that apparently it took only 3 or 4 weeks for people to cover what business schools take 2 years to teach, is the more interesting question: How did the hires without graduate business degrees perform? Internal studies conducted by the firms found that the non-MBAs did no worse and, in some cases, better than their business school counterparts. The London office of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reported that the “non-MBAs were receiving better evaluations, on average, than their peers who had gone to business school,” while a study at McKinsey of people on the job 1, 3, and 7 years found that at all three points, the people without MBAs were as successful as those with the degree. Similarly, an internal study by Monitor Consulting “had determined that the people… hired from high-end business schools were no better at integrative thinking than the undergraduates… hired from top-notch liberal-arts programs” (source)
Keep in mind that these consulting firms are generally recruiting from the top business schools in the nation.
Can an MBA be detrimental?
We’ve already talked about how you shouldn’t try to “hire an MBA” because you can’t hire a degree. Instead you need to hire the right person. The cost of hiring a less talented person is going to be much greater than the cost of teaching someone business skills, so whether or not someone has an MBA shouldn’t be a major consideration in the hiring process.
This is the part that is probably going to be seen as heresy–particularly by people who have or are pursuing an MBA:
It has been my experience that the MBA degree can sometimes be more detrimental than helpful.
In the following sections I will detail the ways I’ve seen this happen, but first a few caveats.
There are obviously exceptions to everything I’m going to say here, so read everything in the spirit of “increasing your odds of getting a good employee” and “some things you should think about”. In particular, this advice is primarily directed at smaller companies that don’t normally hire a bunch of MBAs, but are starting to see some job applicants with the degree and are considering hiring them. If your business has a strategic system to make use of people with this particular educational tool set, this likely won’t apply to you.
Why do they want to work for you?
The cost of starting a business was once very high. You had to rent office space, hire an accounting and payroll department, buy a telephone system, etc. This isn’t the case today. Someone who is good at running a business can start one on a shoestring budget and look just as big as anyone else. Computers are cheap, a lot of software is free, and you can outsource many parts of your business as you go and simply pay as you go. It wasn’t that long ago that getting a web server and email server up and running would cost you $50,000 just to get up and running. Now you can get a web server and email accounts for $6.95 per month or even free if you use something like Google apps.
If someone has a master’s degree in running a business, why are they coming to you for a job? Years ago, it made sense. It was very expensive to start your own business. That isn’t the case any more. So if someone with an MBA is coming to you there are several possibilities:
- They can’t run a business. - If they can’t make it on their own, do you want them working for you? Is it possible you can find someone better without an MBA? If you need a particular part of their skill set, maybe it is a good fit. Just be aware that if you need someone with a really good skill at running a business, you need to understand why you should trust their skills more than they do.
- Want real world experience. - This is a valid reason, but just make sure you aren’t paying someone for their MBA experience if they are coming to you because they don’t really have anything beyond their diploma. Someone with an MBA who says they want real world experience could be an excellent find and become a very passionate employee. However, as we’ll discuss later, one of the drawbacks of many MBAs is that they often over-estimate their skill set.
- No ideas of their own. – Not necessarily a bad thing if you just want someone to execute your business plan, but make sure you aren’t paying a premium for them to have good ideas. If they can’t come up with a good business idea on their own, they may not be able to come up with good ideas for you.
- Too specialized. - Someone who specialized in one specific area may not have a wide enough skill set to run their own business. If their expertise fits well with your business then it can be a great fit for both of you. However, usually the idea of an MBA is that it is a general education in all aspects of business.
Lack of Experience
Someone with a fresh MBA looking for a job, may not come with much real experience. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you understand that having an MBA doesn’t automatically make someone good at their job. A large number of people are going back to school to get an MBA after having worked for a number of years. On one hand, you may find someone who has a great deal of real world experience that they can apply to your business problems. On the other, you may be dealing with someone who is making a significant career change. When you look at someone’s experience make sure you aren’t throwing them into a situation that goes well beyond what they are capable of doing. It is easy to tweak a resumé to showcase skills in the past to align with the jobs they want in the future. If their resumé says they have “management experience” don’t automatically assume they possess the skills to handle having 40 people reporting to them. Make sure you understand exactly what they managed, the extent of their authority and the results the achieved.
Lack of experience seems to show up the most when you put someone in charge of managing and leading others. If their only experience with leadership is being under the leadership of others, they are likely to emulate all of the bad habits without picking up on any of the good ones. If you need a manager, don’t give someone this position based solely on their MBA. Make sure they have real experience with good results in management either before or after getting their master’s degree.
Overconfident
This is more of an issue with people who have had very little real work experience. While most MBA programs offer good content, simply being exposed to a lot of great ideas doesn’t say much about your ability to implement those ideas in real life. Just because someone took a class in negotiations doesn’t mean they are any good at it. Worse, they may think they are good at it and blindly cause a number of problems. Confidence is good, but not when it blinds you to your inability. A person with a bunch of confidence in their ability to fly a plane, but no actual skills is infinitely more dangerous than someone with a lack of confidence and a minimal amount of skills. Someone without confidence will double-check their results. Someone with a lot of blind unfounded confidence won’t know there is a problem until right before they crash.
I once met with a newly minted MBA who was taking a new position. I asked about what she considered her greatest strengths. She gave me a list of 5 or 6 things that she felt she was really good at. A few months later in a 360 degree evaluation (where everyone evaluates everyone else) her weakest attributes exactly matched the list she had given me a few months earlier.
If you think you are bad at something, it probably doesn’t hinder you much. When you get to a situation that requires that skill, you are extra careful, ask for help, delegate, etc. People who think they are bad at driving on ice, rarely have ice related accidents. However, when you think you are good at something its easy to overlook obvious signs that you are doing something wrong.
In looking for ways to reduce accidents, some experimenters removed all the road signs from a city and watched what happened. The number of accidents went down. It turned out that the signs made people overconfident. They paid attention to the signs instead of to other obvious clues–like the truck that doesn’t look like it is going to stop. When there weren’t any signs or lights, people had to make eye contact with the other drivers to decide whose turn it was to drive. The signs made people less careful.
I went to a college where everyone was required to pass a swimming proficiency test to graduate. It wasn’t that hard if you had ever done any type of swimming. You had to swim across the pool and tread water for five minutes. However, there was one guy named John who had no skills in swimming, but he tried to make up for it with sheer confidence. John was a nightmare for the life guards because he kept jumping in the deep end and sinking to the bottom–confidence and all.
For an MBA, the pretty piece of paper they have hanging on their wall can make them less careful. It can encourage them to jump into things that they have no preparation for. It doesn’t take too much life experience to correct this, but you may or may not want to be their employer during this learning experience. Further, the value of the MBA is quite a bit lower if their real skill set is developed on the job at your expense.
Economy and Education
A down economy is great for the educational sector. When people lose their jobs they often go back to school to improve their skills. People with just a bachelor’s degree who can’t find a job after a few months may start looking at MBA programs. Going back to school can help pause their existing educational loan payments and let them get another one at a very low rate. Both of these things will help them keep their head above water while they wait for the economy to recover. Getting a degree also helps make the gap on their resumé look less damaging and it can help give them a better shot at positions that require highly educated employees. So all in all, this isn’t a bad idea. You get laid off and can’t find a job–go back to school.
But, if you are hiring, you may want to consider a bit more how the economy works. When companies need to cut back, they generally want to get rid of the employees that have the least amount of productivity according to this formula. In many situations the highly productive employees are often many times more productive than the average–but usually they aren’t paid many times more. This means that of five employees the top two or three are probably going to still have a job. (This assumes a rational employer, which isn’t always the case, but the idea works when dealing with dealing with large statistical samples.)
So the person who gets laid off and goes back to school for an MBA is somehow a less profitable investment than the other employees. Either they weren’t as productive as the others or their pay was high enough that they were more expensive than less skilled help. However, the wildly productive employees are still working and are thus less likely to go out and get their MBA. People who have reasonably good jobs during economic uncertainty are less likely to drop $20k to $50k (or more) on a master’s degree.
So a fresh MBA right after an economic downturn may have the MBA because they weren’t an ideal employee in the first place. Obviously there are exceptions to this and there are all kinds of things that can happen on an individual level, but these are things worth considering when looking at the MBA job seekers as a whole.
You may get a better employee by hiring the guy who had a job during the downturn because his employer couldn’t afford to let him go. He may be worn out from doing the work of several people so a different job may look very attractive.
Of course with this logic, it may never be a good idea to hire someone who doesn’t currently have a job. You don’t want to hire someone else’s problem employee. Yes there are exceptions, but if you are trying to increase your odds… Just be aware of the timing of someone’s MBA. It might be a bit more complicated than an overwhelming desire for self-improvement.
Conclusion
The biggest takeaway from this article should be to hire people, not the degree. If you have a potential employee who you wouldn’t consider without their MBA degree, be very careful that you aren’t trying to hire the degree instead of the person. So should you avoid hiring someone with an MBA? Probably not. Some individuals who get the degree may have some of the negative side effects discussed above. However, as long as you are focused on finding the right person, you should be able to screen out any potential problems.
What if you are looking to get an MBA? I don’t want to make it sound like an MBA education isn’t valuable. There are a lot of worthwhile things you can learn getting an MBA. It can do a lot to strengthen your existing skill set–particularly if you are already practicing an on-the-job MBA approach. But, if you have no skills in running a business today, getting an MBA isn’t going to change that.
If you are looking to hire someone, don’t overlook them simply because they have an MBA, but at the same time don’t over-value their degree and let it blind you to their actual real-life skills.
This article was useful when looking for:- MBA degree (437)
- should i get an mba (256)
- jobs you can get with an mba (75)
- what can you do with an mba (70)
- mba skills (68)
- what to do after mba (67)
- never hire an mba (62)
- too many mbas (50)
I worked for more than forty years in the general public with minimal highschool education. I encountered medical issues that cost my ability to see, but not think. When trying to return to work during that time, so many slammed the door in my face because of no college education.
I surrendered and entered college, pursing a degree in business since this was where I had functioned for so many years. During the pursuit I earned an MBA in Business Administration and Operations Management, and finished an additional 45 credit hours towards a Masters in Education Managment.
While attending, unlike men and women in the sighted world, I had no choice but to read by mechanical means, listen indept and apply past 40 years of hands on experience to earn a 4.0 GPA ranking eight in my class at one of the nations oldest and largest Universities.
Its not about the degree title, it is about engaging and applying principals and understanding, and for many who managed companies far too often the fly by the seat of their pants, and spend thousands of dollars on outsourcing, consulting or making poor investment chocies.
Not everyone needs an MBA title to work, unfortunately most companies favor higher education vs basic highschool graduates. Society drives conditions and economic drivers command top performers. Regardless of Degree held, every business has their defined method of doing business to their expectations, and one of the greatest deficits is to micromanage as this author appears to suggest as his defined action implies.
Hiring an MBA is no different than setting standards for what you seek in top level managers from entry to exit. If you think an outsourced $5.00 hour employee will give you the same quality of service as a $19.00 per hour employee (hourly) then stop and think. If you prefer highend vehicles such as Mercedez, BMW, AUDI, etc, then perhaps you should compare the preformance and ride to volkswagon, ford, chevrolet, and other smaller limited performance autos.
The same applies here you get what you pay for. If you seek long term happy employees set your perimiters, including salary and benefits and get the most for your dollar. In the end you will also develop relationsips with employees who are longterm, faithful and committed to making the business prosper and grow, remember they have invested over a hundred thousand dollars for a top quality well rounded education.
The original author is quite insulting to professions that MBA graduates may apply. For the record there is not many fields that an MBA degee cannot apply.
Congratulations on earning your degree–particularly when facing the challenges of reading text without having your eyesight.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on some of stats and studies referenced in this post.
I was annoyed by this post till I looked on linkedin and saw the poster does not have an MBA or business education, he has music degrees and IT. Owner of some self made Management and consulting company telling people to discriminate against the unemployed and business students/graduates, what a [ reference to the article's author's mom removed]
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I went ahead and edited part of what you said because it seemed inappropriate. My opinons are based on my experience running a successful business. If you have had success with a different set of opinion, please share them so we can all learn from them.
Anyone can get a BSBA or MBA if they have the drive and resources to do it. All this article needs to say is hire the person not the degree. If you have common sense in this world you can figure anything out and be a productive employee/manager/owner of any company. Degree’s are just a way to recognize endurance and responsibility not to measure ability. I graduate in May 12 and I will be 25 with no work experience other than my part time managing positions and my graduate assistant position and I am not over confident but I know I have the reasoning to help out any organization regardless off industry.
Best of luck as you enter the job market. You seem to have the drive and point of view that will make you very valuable.
Wow, really? There are not many instances in my life where I am speechless, but I have to say that after reading this article I am speechless.
Hmmm… ok. So… my understanding of this blog is that it is saying that companies shouldn’t hire mba college graduates that have been dedicated to their studies, and spent at least six years in college, have proven that they have a strong understanding of accounting, business strategies, economics, marketing, human resources, etc., and because they happen to be eager to use their knowledge and apply their skills in the real world to make a company better and that if they happen to have attained their mba during this recession, which is out of their control, that they are “probably their past employer’s problem employees.” Really?????
That is very close minded and ignorant. Are you familiar with discrimination laws, well although there is not currently a discrimination law that would protect individuals from potential employers from discriminating against individuals who are unemployed, I am proud to say that I am one of thousands who have signed a petition against little minded people who discriminate against the unemployed. This is the first to read someone’s blog that strongly asserts to “never hire mba graduates.” That is absolutely ridiculous. If our country came down to discriminating against college graduates my mba college educated self is relocating to Norway, where education is highly valued.
Susan – Thank you for taking the time to comment. I can appreciate that you are upset about the post, but I’m not clear with which part you disagree? I’m very interested in what pieces of my reasoning you feel are in error or based on faulty logic.
Hmm… yeah I am sure most MBA graduates and current MBA students could be a little bothered by your blog.
Anyways, thank you for responding to my comment. I am hoping that you completely read it, because I made sure I touched on why this article was completely ridiculous. Nevertheless, I guess I could provide a more elaborate response to your comment, however, the title of this blog, “Nevada Hire an MBA…”pretty much sums up how ridiculous it is based on one person’s subjective opinion of MBA graduates.
Hypothetically, if there are such employers that would actually look down on a MBA graduate, that would be one employer I would not want to work for, and they would be doing me a huge favor.
Obviously they would not value commitment, dedication, respect for acedemics, and personal and professional development. I would rather gladly accept the job offer from an outstanding company that highly values all of those things and is not intimidated of hiring those with MBA’s.
I think I proved my point, and I am curious of hearing what credible sources you have based your “research” on.”
Susan – Thanks for your comments. Yes the headline is meant to get attention and get people to read the article that explains the situations where employers can get into trouble by placing too much value on an MBA and overlooking other more important issues like experience. I’m writing a blog, not a research paper and my titles reflect that. If your main disagreement is that the title without reading the article is in correct, I understand.
If your experience in hiring MBAs has been different and you disagree with the points in the article. I’d love to hear about it. If you are interested in some data about whether or not an MBA is worth pursuing, you might be interested in this post. It links to some interesting studies and has some insightful thoughts from readers in the comments..
Anyone can go to school get a degree while barely retaining a significant amount of knowledge in that subject. For example, you go to a school for 4 years for Mathematics and obtain your teaching degree. That doesn’t mean that your a good math teacher in fact you could be the reason some kid got held back in school due to your teaching skillls. It just means you were exposed to knowledge of teaching and math. In my opinion there our a lot young people going to college because they’re afraid to work , sweat for a day, bust their ass a little bit. The worst is those spoiled fucking kids whose parents get them a car, pay for college, pay there insurance. It’s a nice gesture but the kids just going to be an arrogant prick who thinks there better than there fellow man, just because he does some real work instead of pencil pushing.
I kinda agree with Susan…
I feel the author has taken one extreme side of the argument and has been trying to over-proove it [even with proofs not related to business in any way]…
I kinda find this post not relating to the fact that a lot of MBA graduates run Fortune 500 companies or are great entrepreneurs…
I believe that the odds are high that you would find someone with an MBA who is a perfect fit for your company as an employee…
I agree with Susan about this article, I was a manager in logistics became a real estate agent and was doing fine for 4 years while in the Army Reserves. I got deployed and closed shop prior to deployment because of the market and ended up getting destroyed to the point of filiing bankruptcy. I am over 10 years in the reserves with 2 deployments overseas, 5 years management, 4 years sales as a self employed real estate agent, even got a brokers license. When I returned home I am having a real hard time finding work in this market, being in the reserves, post bankruptcy and now on unemployment. My qualifications I feel no longer matter or if I got an MBA, although I have not given up I did begin my MBA last month and I am still looking for work. I have never been fired or laid off! I always moved up untill this point of my life. I am unemployed at age 30, a veteran of war, 2 tours, 5 years management largest group managed is 12 civilian side in a union work place, 10 years reserves 7 as a NCO, bachelors degree in business with a GPA of 3.16. currently an MBA student. I am on unemployment now because my deployment ended and I cannot find work not even on a internship bases unpaid. Even applied at McDonalds and got turned down. Serously! I run 10 miles every 3 days and bench 250, a VFW with a bachelors degree and GPA over a 3.0 and I cannot find a job? Thanks for telling people not to hire people like me!
Patrick – I wish you the best of luck in your job search. It sounds like you have a great deal of experience. It sounds like you feel an MBA will make it easier for you to get the type of job you are looking for, so I hope it works out well for you.
The real estate field is something that is probably going to go through some significant changes over the next few decades as I’m sure you are aware. I have seen some people having success providing more of a “self service” real estate service for a much smaller portion of the traditional fee. The agent basically helps people list their homes for sale by owner (but getting listed in MLS under the agent) for a much smaller upfront fee. This might be something worth investigating as it could potentially give you access to a segment of people who want to sell, but can’t afford the commission and agent would charge. At least that is one thing I’d look into if I had your experience and training.
I know some agents around my hometown that are doing pretty well going with the traditional approach, by re-listing homes when they come of contract with another agent. Their big difference is that they really put a lot of effort into the online listing in getting a large number of good photographs online–something the older agents aren’t doing int his area. It can still be a tough market, but they are doing pretty good just by excelling in that particular area. I’m not sure if that is useful to you, but it might be worth exploring.
Patrick, if I could hire people I would want to hire you based on your history and your story! However, I wish you were more careful in your writing. Perhaps the MBA will make clear written communication a higher priority for you. I have an MBA and it helped me get my current job. An MBA is not a hindrance to success… but, an assumption that an MBA will create success can be.
Very well said.
So, Mark, you had quite a lot of negative feedback from various people saying this article contains a lot of fallacies, is not strongly supported by reality or research, and that the title and tone have offended people.
I give you credit for responding to those posts.
But I have to ask – at what point do you take the sheer weight of those comments on board and actually change something?
Or do you believe it’s all about the attention, even if it’s negative attention? (I don’t want to sound mean, but my three year old daughter used to believe this, back when she was two, and I’ve spent a lot of time and effort helping her grow out of it.)
Jonathan – I have seen very few arguments against the premise of the article which is that many small business owners were hiring people with MBA degrees without adequately looking at their real world experience. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who does any hiring come back and say, “In my experience the tendency to value an MBA over experience is made up for by the things someone learns in an MBA program.”
When I wrote this article, I planned on writing a follow up that used all the same logic to show why getting an MBA degree is probably a good idea. However, when I started digging into the statistics, there is a lot that suggests getting an MBA can be very bad investment. The article I eventually wrote was Is an MBA a Waste of Money?
You asked when I was going to change something and pretty much accused me of acting like your three year old. I read back through the article just now to see if my experience is somehow different today than it was when I wrote it. It isn’t. I still feel that smaller businesses that have never hired from the pool of MBA grads still need to be very careful of all the things listed in the article. As I stated, this doesn’t mean that under no circumstances should they ever hire and MBA, but they need to be careful to hire the person not the degree.
There have been several people who made the criticism that they wanted to read an article on the topic that was based on other’s research instead of my experience. I can see how this would be a valuable addition to the article and maybe I’ll change that someday or write a new article in that vein. However, I don’t think those are the changes you were asking for.
If you just want me to change the title, I feel it is within the same spirit as “IT Doesn’t Matter.” Anyway even if I did want to change it to something else, it would make all the comments seem weird and out of place.
Thanks for your comments and I appreciate reading your point of view.
Hi Mark, thanks for the response.
Nope, that’s not what I did. I asked you a question. The fact that you feel the need to defend against a perceived attack is kinda my point.
Specifically I’m asking you to step outside the adversarial ‘attack-defend’ dynamic for a sec to take a birds-eye view of your original post, the comments people have made in response, and your own responses to those responses.
I learn a lot from my daughter. For example, she’s responsive to her environment, she learns from positive and negative feedback, and she adapts her behaviour accordingly. So she has moved past the phase of being naughty to seek negative attention, because it wasn’t getting good results.
Those are all good traits, and indeed children are better at this than adults, as they have fewer preconceived ideas to get in the way of their learning.
So, I’ll try some different questions: do you think you are genuinely open to and taking on board feedback that differs from your own views? If so, what would it take to change your views? Do you often edit your blog posts as a result of feedback you receive? Or are you just defending a fixed position?
“Cons: Overconfident”
Ha, you just described every young person starting a new job.
“Susan – Thanks for your comments. Yes the headline is meant to get attention ”
Never a truer word spoken.
I can’t agree with the statement from the headline. While majority of the factors included in the article resonate quite welll and in all probability can be true, there are multiple reasons against the claim.
Networking is one of the most important factors that MBA people acquire and that’s something that needs to be leveraged. If you are hiring someone to handle your internal affairs, it might be a smart idea to find someone with experience, but if you are looking for someone with good background, someone with MBA might offer you exaclty what you need.
This is just a thought though, mind provoking as this article itself.
They can’t run a business:
This is an unsubstantiated claim. Just because an MBA grad doesn’t want to start his/her own business, why does that mean that they can’t help someone else with their business? So, according to you, all MBA grads worth anything should be successful entrepreneurs already? Why do so many prestigious firms and corporations around the world hire MBAs over and over, year after year? Maybe, they’re doing something right? Just a thought. Look at trends.
Want real world experience:
I will just ignore that you missed the fact that most MBA programs REQUIRE previous work experience, so there it is. In addition, for those MBA grads who didn’t have previous work experience, they do earn a great deal of REAL experience throughout their program. If you do some actual research on these programs, you will find that all MBA programs oblige their candidates to engage in REAL cases of REAL companies, meet and explore REAL companies and managers and REAL business problems, and lastly take part in some sort of REAL business project or internship in a REAL business. By the way, the level of resources they get through these programs and sponsor-companies is magnificent, often times well beyond that of any small business. Great knowledge and exposure to have.
No ideas of their own:
Honestly, I have NO clue how you are supporting this claim, so not much to say here, except: MBA programs, through their ACCESS to a network of professionals from so many different backgrounds and experiences, variety of business studies and cases, leadership and innovative focus, and again, access to so many resources for research and exploring, it’s very hard to believe that an MBA grad wouldn’t produce as good or better ideas than others, in average.
Too Specialized:
You are just 100% wrong here. MBA programs provide, on the contrary, a wide view, both theoritical and applied, of business, including: law, accounting, finance, organization, strategy, marketing, ethics, etc etc… I don’t know what MBA programs you have been looking at. Yes, it’s true that some programs do allow you to concentrate in a particular area, but that doesn’t take away from their required business core areas.
In general, do I think you need an MBA to be a successful business professional or run a small business? Not necessarily. It all depends, some of the factors being learning style, what your professional background is, your desired role within an organization, and others. But believe me, there are also MANY benefits from hiring MBAs, some of which I’ve already mentioned. But think about this, if there weren’t, why do so many companies hire them? Why are MBAs 50% less likely to fail in starting a business than are non-MBAs (research it)? You mention the analogies of learning to swim and riding a bike, etc. But Getting an MBA is not only about learning HOW to do something. A lot of getting an MBA is about getting EXPOSED, getting the ACCESS, the NETWORK, the RESOURCES, the INSIGHT, learning from the BEST of the BEST, getting VARIETY, being CHALLENGED in multiple areas, a testing ground, if you will… a lab…where you find your passions and interests in business, and develop your abilities to become a much more competent, well-rounded business professional upon graduation.
Thanks for your response.
So you are saying if 4 out of 5 non-MBA businesses fail, only 2 out of 5 businesses started by MBAs fail? Sounds interesting. Do you mind pointing me to the study you are referencing?
Some of the research that I’ve found interesting about MBA degrees comes from The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye which included the following quotes:
I’ve written more about this at Is an MBA a Waste of Money. But I’m very interested in looking at the research you are referencing.
I dont want to reinvent a wheel, People going for higher education are smart to reduce the number of years to learn from the experienced people instead spending lot many years and learning through mistakes.
I dont know what qualification you got to certify your statement but i am sure you dont have enough knowledge or skill or talent to work for someone.
NEVER hire an MBA. The title alone deals in absolute thinking. Whoever wrote this doesn’t understand the diversity of an MBA education. Sorry, but you lost your argument(s) in the title of the article alone.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and sharing your take on the article (or at least the title). The title is provocative, but in a similar vein to some of the titles of a few of the more interesting papers in the business world like “IT Doesn’t Matter”. By the way, greetings from a fellow Kansan.
I started my own company and found that an MBA further manifested my entrepreneurial skills. An MBA degree makes you more credible to other entrepreneurs when looking for opportunities to branch into other businesses.
To start a company in today’s fiercely competitive economic landscape is a lot harder then downloading free hardware, out sourcing and hanging onto a shoe string budget. It requires experience, capital, drive and a lot of luck.
I feel the MBA program gives you another competitive edge over the competition.
Thanks for your perspective as an entrepreneur. By the way, what would you estimate the ROI was on your degree?
Are you writing this because you couldn’t get into grad school? Just curious. I earned my MBA because with just a BS degree (NOT a liberal arts degree mind you), I was living in a hovel in the ghetto amongst marginal people who belonged on Jerry Springer or the local zoo (drank all day, didn’t work, dealt drugs, etc) and eating off brand ramen noodles daily because that was all I could afford with five years experience in my field! I wanted desperately to get OUT OF POVERTY so I thought that the combination of my experience and an advanced degree in addition to going above and beyond at work and my job description were enough. I guess I was wrong especially with people like you writing these articles! Thanks a lot jerk!
I’m sorry you are having problems finding a job. My premise is that many employers (particularly of smaller companies) place an unnaturally high premium on MBA degrees. If that is correct then your degree should make it much easier for you to find some form of employment.
To answer your question, I considered pursuing an MBA but with two graduate degrees already, I’d probably be better off pursuing a PhD in case I want to teach later on in life. Also some of the studies I’ve seen suggest that MBA programs might not offer very good ROI.
If you have five years of good work experience and are skilled in your field, I think your MBA will only help your opportunities. I wish you best of luck in finding employment.
anyone can get into grad school. All that is needed is to pay tuition. =) only in america
“I don’t want to make it sound like an MBA education isn’t valuable. There are a lot of worthwhile things you can learn getting an MBA. It can do a lot to strengthen your existing skill set–particularly if you are already practicing an on-the-job MBA approach.”
What qualifications do you have to make any of the statements above? You do not have an MBA so how can you speak to what it does for you?
You have written this opinion piece to help small businesses increase their “odds of getting a good employee.” You warn against hiring someone who does not have real word experience. You emphasize the importance of real world experience yet you do not have any real world experience in the subject you are speaking about.
One benefit of a completing an MBA program is that you learn how to research properly. In addition, you learn to write OBJECTIVE research reports so that others can make informed decisions on what you have written. If you are going to continue to write articles that give advice to others, you could seriously benefit from this particular aspect of completing an MBA.
Ryan – Thanks for your comments. My qualifications are that I have two graduate degrees (not MBAs) and have run a successful business consulting for other businesses for over five years now. During that time I have worked with a number of people who have their MBAs and a number of people who have not. This experience has made it evident that small businesses (particularly with owners who don’t possess and MBA) often hire candidates with MBA degrees by giving more weight to the value of the degree than it deserves. As a result, they end up overlooking better qualified individuals. If you feel that most small businesses value the MBA appropriately or not enough, then I’d be very interested in hearing about your experiences that have led you to those conclusions.
Obviously my experience is a very limited slice of everything that happens in the world. If you feel my experience is in areas that are far removed from the areas where you work, then my opinions based on that experience are going to be irrelevant to you.
If you were looking for actual research related to whether or not there is a tendency for small businesses to overvalue the MBA degree then I understand why you were disappointed. My blog post where I sat down and said, “here is a problem I keep seeing” is not scientific research and I apologize if that was somehow confusing for you. If you are looking for some research about the actual value of an MBA degree, you might take a look at The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets The Eye. That article doesn’t address hiring behaviors, but it does look whether or not an MBA degree seems to help with career success.
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
First off, according to the Wall Street Journal with the recession going on MBA schools are receiving less applicants. [See below] Secondly, if you hire somebody and that person sucks. Then you suck at hiring. Fire your HR person. Anyone can pass an interview these days. People can Google the questions that interviewers ask and give memorize replies. HR is an art, value your HR people. Thirdly, do you know how hard it is to run your own business? It sucks, its a lot of work. You got to deal with laws, accounting, taxes. There’s a point to where maximizing income is no longer the priority.
Lastly, not everyone can get an MBA. Graduate school is nothing like undergrad, it’s intense. I lost about a quarter of my classmates during the first weed-out course and another quarter during the second weed-out course. Then half-way through 30% had to retake the other tough class. Also to add, I’ve always excelled in mathematics in HS I took AP Calculus BC. Business math is crazy, I’ll leave it at that.
An MBA is versatile, most of my MBA buddies are analysts. Got a couple running their own businesses. None of them are unemployed. Many job listings specifically say, “MBA required.” Now I’m defending all MBAs. Just because you’re educated doesn’t mean your not an idiot. I’ve met idiot people with doctorates. And remember all Universities are not created equal. The WSJ also reported that colleges with the highest number of default student loan ratios were: University of Phoenix, Kaplan, & ITT tech. ITT tech. actually shocked me on that one. The people that I’ve met from there were pretty smart when it came to coding.
Anyways that’s my spiel.
WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903532804576566611053380594.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_Careers_EXECUTIVEMBARANKINGS5_6
I wrote this article last year when the applications to business schools was spiking. You can clearly see the trend in the graph of HBS applicants in the article. However it is still worth noting that this year is still well above the average from the past 10 years (according to the HBS graph in the article). The fact that it is coming back down is probably a good sign for the economy because typically applications go up as the economy goes down.
I think the loan default rate for schools probably corresponds to how agressive they are at recruiting. I have heard stories about all three of the schools you mentioned where people were encouraged to enroll when it was pretty clear there was no real chance of success.
I have another post (here) where I looked at a paper that suggested that MBA programs were not good investments based on a study where they tried to measure how much business school seemed to help create successful business people. It is the type of thing I think everyone should read before pursuing an MBA–not to keep them from going through a program, but to help them be more focused on exactly how they expect the degree to pay off for them.
Thanks for your thoughtful input. I truly appreciate hearing your point of view.
I enjoyed your thoughts too and It made me think about some of my former classmates. To strengthen your argument I will say that there were some people during my MBA there that had no business being in there. I guess the colleges have been lenient on the whole, 5 years business experience requirement when applying for an MBA.
Now this next part is purely anecdotal and I am not a sexist but if you were to ask me who the weakest students were, being honest I’d respond. “Housewives.” I thought about this because the of person you mentioned was a female. I remember on day in class we had to give presentations on the WSJ and student opened with, “Now, I’m not into business like the rest of you guys and my presentation is on the journal section of the WSJ. I think the husband gets the WSJ and the wife gets the Journal.” Serious? You’re going with that. I had another housewife who decided to go get her MBA after her marriage ended and she hadn’t worked in 20 years. I got more examples but I’ll stop there.
My point is I think you’re right. Schools are recruiting the wrong material. I will go on record saying that in my opinion 25% of people in there had no business being in there. However, that’s what the weed-out courses are for. Your supposed to take those your first two semesters. However, students haven’t been doing this. In the easiest class of the MBA, I saw a lot of new faces. Students are supposed to take this class about halfway through. So I asked the students, why did you pick this class, first? Their response, “This is what my adviser said to take.” Really? The school lures them in, puts them in an easiest class giving them false hope. So when they do get to the weed out courses, they fail it but since they’ve already picked their major now they have to repay and take the course again. The bar is higher, you have to get a minimum of a B- to pass the course.
Mark, you’re right on warning students. Let me add by saying, “The MBA is not a non-stop ticket to a bright future.” If you’re thinking that you’re going to graduate and land that high paying dream job, think again. It might work for the few but generally you have to work your way up. Businesses prefer to hire internally. The MBA will probably give you an edge over your fellow workers. My success has been attributed to the stock market and I have the MBA to thank for that. The point: the MBA is not a snap decision… think deeply about it.
Going back to school and doing an associates in Computer science is more valuable and less expensive =)
Someone pointed out the author doesn’t have a business education or an MBA, but runs a consulting business? Not sure if that is correct, but if so, it makes this article suspect in my opinion.
See that is the EXACT reason to get an MBA! Anyone can call themselves a business consultant or expert and it cheapens the game. Get an MBA to separate yourself from the self-styled imposters… Not saying the author is one, but there are many out in the field.
I run my own business as a Marketing contractor. This is on the back of degrees in Marketing and 7 years at the National Marketing Manager level. Whilst doing well financially, I am about to start my MBA so I can give advice on a broader range of business topics – including finance strategies, operations management etc – as well as Marketing strategies and tactics.
I disagree with this article pretty strongly. I am small business guy. I hire people and I would hire an MBA.
Typical selfish stupid opinion of businesses throughout the UK today. Choosing not to employ people because the people they are interviewing are more qualified than they are. If you had any sense not only would you be hiring an MBA but you would be working towards one yourself. It’s people like you that make me want to take my skills and education overseas and leave this country to become the absolute disgrace people like you have began to make it.
I would just say one sentence for you.
Don’t base your decision on subjective inferences.Everybody with any degree is different so are the MBA people.
I would have thought that a Harvard grad like yourself that apparently owns a management consulting company would have the common sense to be more careful about the content of their blogs. Considering it is generally accepted in the US that advanced degrees bring value to an individual… I mean really, “Never hire an MBA” is not a positive attention grabbing title. I also looked at your impressive experience on your LinkedIn page & noticed your extensive experience in information technology, but when I visited your companies website @ http://www.Xeric.net I noticed that it looks like a 3rd grader put it together. You would think that someone with a Harvard software engineering degree would have spent much more time and effort on their companies website, especially since according to your experience you have been president of this xeric company for 5 years now. I personally think you are full of it & it was a waste of time reading your blog. Maybe I’ll start my own response blog called, “Never hire a Harvard grad who thinks he knows it all, because he can suck too!” or “Make sure you check your new Harvard grad employee’s creditionals because he may be lying!”
If it is true that employers (particularly the subset I’m talking about) overvalue an MBA degree, then the MBA brings a tremendous amount of value to an individual because it means they are more likely to get offered a job. If you are a recent MBA graduate, I hope that has been your experience.
Yes it is generally accepted and there are a lot of people making decisions based on that premise. However, there is research that suggests that isn’t the case–at least for business degrees. Obviously, we are talking about large trends here–not specific situations.
I’m sorry you were disappointed with my company website. I tend to prioritize paying projects and the development of the site definitely reflects this. My plan to put more effort into the site when I am not busy with clients has kept me from spending much time on it. But you make a good point that my site could be improved.
If you have a response to the contents of this post, I would be very interested in reading it. I would be very interested in reading a perspective showing that small businesses tend to undervalue MBAs and don’t hire them as much as they should. I might even link to it to point it out to my readers because I’m sure many would find it interesting.
I hate to say it, but Mr. Jeffrey Pfeffer the author of that research left out a lot of variables that can contribute to the shotty performance of an MBA graduate. Isn’t it funny… No matter how prestigious someones career has been they will still use their knowledge and expertise to spin research to favor their goal of improving MBA curriculum without out actually considering trying to get to the actual root cause of the problem.
Let me give you a little hint Mr. Pfeffer. If you want business schools to win the war against other nonacademic mediums to promote leadership then you should think about an important topic that I learned about while attending my MBA, called collaboration. Most larger companies are already paying for students to attend graduate school so start coming up with curriculum that partners with the MBA students current company and tailor the program to teach that individual more information to become a leader in their particular specialized career path.
Problem solved and I didn’t even have to go to an elite business school to do it :-)
Did you read the article? Most of it is summarizing other studies. While I understand you may disagree with the methodology of a particular study, are you saying that every study cited was flawed and thus doesn’t support the article’s conclusion?
You are correct – your experience is a very limited slice of everything that happens in the world. Would you mind explaining why you feel entitled to judge a program that you have never experienced? If it is because you have met a few MBA‘s who did not impress you, you can’t be serious. If you have encountered a couple of people who have had a bad experience with a doctor, would you write an article called “Never go to a doctor”? You have two graduate degrees. How would you respond to an article entitled “Never hire a person with two graduate degrees”? Would it offend you that the person writing the article assumed to know your value in the workforce without having met you? You make a very sweeping statement about MBA graduates with your title, but quickly cower into a corner in your first paragraph: “While, “Never Hire An MBA” might be a bit extreme, I see a lot of people who overvalue an MBA”. I think you are very insecure about being in business and not having any business background. Having worked with many people, both with and without MBAs, I have learned that one of the most important characteristics of a person working in business is to not try to sound like an expert about something you don’t know about. At any rate, any small business owner who wastes time listening to you talk about something with which you have no experience, will make a great business partner for you. Good luck getting your consulting firm off the ground. If you crash and burn, consider trying to get into an MBA. I’m sure a third graduate degree will make you even more marketable – and it won’t at all make it seem like you couldn’t get into a PhD after the first one.
Ryan – Thanks for taking the time to comment.
What would I do if someone wrote a post saying “never hire someone with two graduate degrees“? Would it offend me? No. I’d probably find it an interesting read. I might agree with parts of it. I might disagree with others. If I wanted to comment and explain what I disagreed with, I’d probably point out what part of the article I disagreed with. It might even result in an interesting back and forth conversation.
My main point was that small businesses will give more weight to an MBA degree than it is worth to them. If you feel that small businesses undervalue an MBA degree, I’d be very interested in hearing your logic and experiences.
Regarding judging MBA programs, studies by large consulting firms that looked at their own internal hiring practices found that it only took a few weeks to give non-MBA hires the education they needed to be just as successful as the MBA hires. Of course this doesn’t mean MBA programs aren’t valuable–just that they aren’t any more valuable than studying something else. If you small business it would make a lot more sense to invest in someone with domain knowledge of your business and let them pickup the necessary business skills. (An article about this.)
Once again, thank you for taking the time to comment.
You seemed to have a really bad experience with MBAs . Dude get well soon !!
I plan to get my MBA! I feel very insulted by such a person who looks down on the hard working ethics of indviduals and graduate students. While it is funny you have a degree in music but decided to get into the management field! Well I can tell you that music is not for everyone and having a “FUN DEGREE” want get you much in this lifetime. So, basically your an idiot who want fortune 500 companies to discriminate against MBA graduates. Only because you made the poor decision to attend school and earn a degree in music when you had very little talent doesn’t mean everyone situation is the same. You are going to be one of those people who look back and 5 years and say wow I wish I had hired an MBA grad! Your business is more likely to fail within 2 years or so! I got my theory from reading such an article! In addition, no MBA grad will hire you with such low standards and lack of career inspiration.
Katey – If you choose to get an MBA, I wish you the best of luck in your career path. However, I would highly suggest that you look at some of the data (see the article I’ve linked to numerous times in the comments) that suggests that if you are talented, getting an MBA is unlikely to make you any more successful than you’d be without it. Perhaps you will still choose to get the MBA, but it still might be helpful background for your education career.
As far as your prediction that my business will fail within two years or so, I’ve been working for a business that I own full time since early 2006. So that puts me at just shy of six years now. I’m not sure why you think my business will somehow crash after being around for 6 years but before reaching the 8 year mark. Obviously I’d probably disagree, but if there is some sort of logic or common statistics you are applying that suggest that businesses often fail in that period of time, it would be interesting.
Regarding whether or not a music (what you call a “fun” degree) will get you much in this lifetime, I found my study of music composition and music theory to be extremely rewarding. The truly amazing thing about music theory is that when you really look at the core activities, it comes down to organizing complexity and finding ways to abstract away the details in order to see overall patterns and trend. Music composition is the process of assembling small things into every larger components in ways that follow certain logical rules while still being aesthetically pleasing. It involves a great deal of being able to look at something from various vantage points and see details while still maintaining a view of the overall structure. These skills are very much the same things that are required in running a business and creating software. Obviously everyones educational experience is different, but that is how music has benefited me in my non musical pursuits.
Obviously my opinion has offended you, but I do wish you all the best in meeting your career goals. If an MBA is part of that path, then I hope it is a wonderfully rewarding experience that benefits you greatly.
Katey, you r damn right. This guy is a joke. I also intend to pursue my MBA soon.
Just forget about him. Lets go for MBA!!!!!
Veon – I wish you all the best in your educational pursuits.
I stopped reading the comments around October 20, 2011. I do not have a MBA degree; however, I would like to note that many of the comments coming from upset MBA holders have numerous typos and other errors that do not help their arguments. Also, this article points out a problem that I feel exists for higher education in general–I feel that colleges and universities have become diploma mills in the quest to make money. It still is a good idea to work for that degree, which many people do, but on the other hand I can think of quite a few people that really didn’t work for what they got. It’s a problem for all of higher ed at this time, and I couldn’t begin to give an answer to the problem.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I think education is going to look significantly different in the next few decades, but I’m hopeful.
i think you have a serious issue with MBA grads how can you write a title “never hire an MBA” this is quiet offensive. what on earth did they do to you? if am not mistaken you must be an MBA failure if not i think you should consider doing an MBA if you have the guts, and prove what you are saying for yourself, after all experience is the best teacher.
And please dont be stabon apologize to the MBA grads they went though a lot of hard work to get the qualification which doesnt come easy and cheap like your two degrees.
Reading this article, make me laugh down to ground. The best parts are the comments section.
Hey Mark,
I give you one big reason why need to hire an MBA.
N.E.T.W.O.R.K
An MBA has better networks for your business needs.
You mention this article is based on your experience.
Based on my experience, reading your article make me strongly believe that, you are such an introvert. You judge the whole world based on your little tiny puny experience. XD.
Nevertheless, you really did a great job by getting so much attention. Negative Attentions.
LMAO!
Bye
Oh ya, almost forget to tell you something. If you do have time, pls research more about ‘what is MBA’. A simple wikipedia search, will do.
LMAO!
I hope the MBA you pursue gives you the network you are looking for. Best of luck.