Confessions of an MBA Student
Last year Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, earned $183,500. With bonuses included, this is almost exactly what a graduating MBA now expects to be paid to create PowerPoint slides for a bank or consulting firm. But don’t expect them to look happy about it.
We (I graduated four days ago from Insead) have taken our core negotiation course, plus optional salary-negotiation masterclasses and we know that all first offers, no matter how generous, should be viewed as only inching their way into the ballpark of respectability. No wonder recruiters think we are arrogant.
According to the 2007 survey of recruiters run by the Graduate Management Admissions Council, the key gripes of MBA recruiters are about our unrealistic expectations, both in terms of salary and level of job. MBA hires are routinely perceived to be strong on analysis but weaker on interpersonal skills.
If ever a process were designed to inflate the self image of those going through it, business school is it. Before applying we peruse the tables of recent graduates’ salaries and sign-on bonuses and read about the “truly world-class business talent” that employers come to business school to hire. And the tables do not lie. Potential employers do indeed greet us en masse at nightly cocktail events.
We are showered with attention, from corporate USB keys to invitations for get-to-know-you coffee chats. Soon we are happily filing our job applications, explaining to McKinsey, Google and three dozen others how their company might just be the right next step for us.
Perhaps this is simply evidence of the euphoria of the last few inches of the upswing. Certainly, recruitment in banking will be less exuberant next year. But it also says something about the process of MBA education.
The huge expansion of business education in the past two decades is a function of the schools’ success in spinning ever faster the virtuous circle of recruitment. As schools place more and more graduates into higher-paid jobs, the more the salary expectations glitter and the more capable candidates flow in. Some recruiters cannot afford to play this game, so many schools end up funnelling the bulk of their classes into the banks and consulting firms that can.
The truth about people entering business school is that, at least when we arrive, we feel nothing like the global business leaders of tomorrow. Some of us are under-confident over-achievers. Others are smart people somehow stalled in their careers.
Some are looking to make a decisive switch from banking to consulting, or the other way round. All are committed to paying the fees and suffering the workload. And motivating us is easy – just set up a competitive grading system and stand clear as we stampede to claim our place at the top of the class.
We are also attracted by prestige. MBA student clubs, while often short on action, are never without treasurers, co-presidents and long lists of executive officers. No one of course wants to make phone calls or lick stamps – can’t you see we are heading for the boardroom not the mailroom?
But perhaps the education itself is somehow responsible for this sense of entitlement.
The cornerstone of MBA pedagogy, pioneered in 1912 at Harvard Business School, is the case study. For the uninitiated, a case is a short business fable, usually accompanied by reams of data, detailing a business dilemma of some kind. Students analyse the situation through the eyes of the protagonist and decide on a strategy.
Initially, the cases are baffling. They address unfamiliar roles in strange industries and it is not immediately clear how my experience in financial publishing qualifies me to optimise the smelting of iron ore in a plant in Trinidad. Soon, however, with eight weeks of operations classes under our belts, you can’t shut us up.
Truthfully, if you are interested at all in business you cannot help but find cases fascinating and the process by which we find ourselves confidently opining on them is positively scary.
But sometimes cases reveal more. For one of my final electives we read together the tale of a new MBA graduate who runs into trouble when hired to establish a local mobile phone franchise. We were full of advice for his bosses, including the inevitable demand for more training and mentoring, but strangely short on tips for dealing with the nitty gritty of rolling out a phone mast network or placating local politicians.
Our hero works hard but makes bad decisions, misses deadlines and is sacked. The shock in class was palpable. He can’t fail, can he? His strategy seemed sound. He had an MBA from a good school (not as good as ours, but never mind). Surely he can’t just fail? No one ever mentioned that in the recruiting bumf.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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this article is ridiculous. MBA students are the scourge of this nation and will be leading the charge to its ruinous end. A graduating MBA expects to be making $183,500?!? Get your collective heads out of your collective asses. The average graduating physician [with ass loads of schooling and experience that trump your feeble education] won’t even receive that — and that’s for saving lives. Realize how worthless you are, then maybe you’ll be grateful that somebody will even give you a job to do your worthless tasks. Oh, and congratulations on furthering our broken system you wastes of oxygen.
Joke’s on you. Your expensive graduate education is most likely to get you a salary that is far, far lower than the big payout that motivated most of you to enter business school – something more like what a difficult major would have netted you, unfortunately. Don’t let that get you down, though. It’s still probably more than you deserve considering so many enter an MBA program without any useful skills or education (e.g. a business undergraduate degree), but only an unhealthy disposition towards money, maybe a personality disorder, and a willful disregard for societal responsibilities like reasoning well and not being an arrogant prick. If you’re lucky and I’m not perhaps I’ll see you out in the industry, drumming up stupid ideas, wasting my time, and generally making life as an engineer miserable.
do all of you think that you’re worth six figures for what you’ve learned? do you realize just how easy your major is? for two years you get to bullshit alot, in written assignments and in presentations. you learn a weak set of ideas you might call business theory which is without much substance or rigor. you learn how to use a few pieces of software at a level most learned people will just pick up on their own if they have the need. you learn a weekend’s worth of math and statistics and a few pertinant formulas. mostly, you learn the formalities and legal requirements of running business. amirite?
wow, that seems like quite the set you’ve got there now. hey, when i get to making valuable products or performing services, could you come exploit me and take most of the money that my efforts have generated? or would you mind managing me even though you don’t understand what i’m doing? better yet, could you think the BIG thoughts and play golf alternately for hundreds of thousands of dollars while i toil to accomplish your simplistic and misguided directives for a fraction of that? that sounds like a good deal doesn’t it, asshole?
“the virtuous circle [jerk] of recruitment?” … Ass.
“No wonder recruiters think we are arrogant” … followed by;
“…can’t you see we are heading for the boardroom not the mailroom?”
Douche.
Kudos on your new diploma, now go light it on fire and throw it off your balcony. Trust me, it’ll release less carbon into the atmosphere than the inevitably life-long amount of bull-shit you would otherwise be spewing from your mouth. Then aplologize to all members of your immediate family for a life lived of such ass-hattery, and get a real job doing something that matters.
P.S. Go see if that mailroom is hiring.
Thanks for the article! I particularly enjoyed reading the bashing comments. I will be getting my MBA this fall. True, I could “save lives” for less money, but I’d rather “spew bullshit” for more. From the comments, I know it’s the right choice. One thing business teaches you is that the job is worth what the market is willing to pay. Apparently, firms pay a lot for people to “play golf” instead of doing “something that matters.”
Some wonder why the ones who, in their opinion, do the least amount of work seem to make more money–others decide to join that group instead of whining and complaining about it.
I really had to lough about that truthful insight, it really is an eye opener and after reflection on my own life I must say it all is true.
Unfortunately the other comments show the disparity among high achievers and normal work people. This is something I realized after I dropped out of the MBA rat race for a while. Either you are in the MBA game play or you are not. There is nothing between it, in terms of salary, ambition and recognition. What normal employees don’t see is the intense work load during the studies and the incredible work load after studies. In terms of salary per hour there is not much difference. A salary if $180.000 after graduation is quite normal (it is even on the lower level!), I had more than this after INSEAD. However, compared to my previous job in engineering my salary stayed the same!!
I just worked 2-3 times the hours and 2-3 times the workload and responsibility. That is easily neglected by outstanders, who only see the salary part. And in addition it is true that a career is 80% decided by the perception of others about you. I say this after 15 years in business. A perception as being a decisive and resourceful leader is something extremely useful which you can learn in an MBA very well, but which takes much longer in a common work place to learn. In hindsight I abbreviated this learning phase by many years through my MBA.