Thread: MBA

Originally Posted by Banker

You won't like this.........but pass on doing an MBA and don't look back.........with one exception.

We take in around 6 Oxford MBAs per year onto the trading floor in a program that's lasted four years. Average retention rate is 1 person per year. In fact, their lack of capacity to think and act outside a very tight doctrine has led us to cancel the program. In short, they're just not good enough (and we generally take the those with the best results, and only then after they've done an internship) but, more importantly, they seen incapable of modifying their thinking.

Do an MBA if you want to learn the most basic language of business, but don't expect to know how to write a book afterwards.

The exception I mention is if you need an MBA to change career (the majority of candidates are in this position). In this case, just be very careful to take what you learn with a pinch of salt.......

1. Gissa job!

2. I guess you are referring to straight out of university MBAs? In which case then yes, it's a total waste of a qualification. This, (funnily enough is one of the things that Mintzberg rails against) is very much the American model and your programme probably had expectations set too high, bearing in mind the likeley experience of such a cadre. You are spot on correct IMHO, in identifying the value of an MBA as a programme of study that helps someone change career. I use some of what I learned on a daily basis and can't get too excited about the postnominals.

Quite agree about the pinch of salt - but much of what I learned now helps me spot a bluffer...

what a load of crap they are! Once MBA became weapon of choice - the global economy melted!

Originally Posted by Victorian_Major

Originally Posted by Banker

You won't like this.........but pass on doing an MBA and don't look back.........with one exception.

We take in around 6 Oxford MBAs per year onto the trading floor in a program that's lasted four years. Average retention rate is 1 person per year. In fact, their lack of capacity to think and act outside a very tight doctrine has led us to cancel the program. In short, they're just not good enough (and we generally take the those with the best results, and only then after they've done an internship) but, more importantly, they seen incapable of modifying their thinking.

Do an MBA if you want to learn the most basic language of business, but don't expect to know how to write a book afterwards.

The exception I mention is if you need an MBA to change career (the majority of candidates are in this position). In this case, just be very careful to take what you learn with a pinch of salt.......

1. Gissa job!

2. I guess you are referring to straight out of university MBAs? In which case then yes, it's a total waste of a qualification. This, (funnily enough is one of the things that Mintzberg rails against) is very much the American model and your programme probably had expectations set too high, bearing in mind the likeley experience of such a cadre. You are spot on correct IMHO, in identifying the value of an MBA as a programme of study that helps someone change career. I use some of what I learned on a daily basis and can't get too excited about the postnominals.

Quite agree about the pinch of salt - but much of what I learned now helps me spot a bluffer...

1. What do you want to do?

2. I was thinking I'd been a bit harsh, but I'm glad you read between the lines. Whatever you do, my advice to potential candidates is to take the finance module seriously (financial modelling, cashflow analysis, discounting, basic derivatives, basic accounting etc.). Make sure you learn the principles and some basic applications (i.e. learn the math, not the spreadsheet functions). But, most importantly, do as Victorian Major says and make sure you think freely rather than apply doctrinaire thinking. At the end of the day, an MBA should be about you learning the tools to apply your smarts..........the tools are not smarts in themselves, and that's where the majority go wrong.

Originally Posted by Banker

We take in around 6 Oxford MBAs per year onto the trading floor in a program that's lasted four years. Average retention rate is 1 person per year. In fact, their lack of capacity to think and act outside a very tight doctrine has led us to cancel the program. In short, they're just not good enough (and we generally take the those with the best results, and only then after they've done an internship) but, more importantly, they seen incapable of modifying their thinking.

So if, in your experience, those MBA types have been poor, who instead are the type of people who have proved to be good on the trading floor? Is there a typical trajectory?

Originally Posted by bullshit

what a load of crap they are! Once MBA became weapon of choice - the global economy melted!

Oi, you're supposed to be my mate!

PD - I have witnesed your finances

Just heard it as a qute the other day, re, the rise in MBAs was equal to the economic downturn!

Originally Posted by PoisonDwarf

Originally Posted by Banker

We take in around 6 Oxford MBAs per year onto the trading floor in a program that's lasted four years. Average retention rate is 1 person per year. In fact, their lack of capacity to think and act outside a very tight doctrine has led us to cancel the program. In short, they're just not good enough (and we generally take the those with the best results, and only then after they've done an internship) but, more importantly, they seen incapable of modifying their thinking.

So if, in your experience, those MBA types have been poor, who instead are the type of people who have proved to be good on the trading floor? Is there a typical trajectory?

We're one of the banks that do psychometric testing before hiring (math, logic and verbal reasoning). They're time constrained tests, so answers are generally a reasonable show of behaviour under pressure. Trouble is that new graduates are used to sitting test, so generally do well. Yet, seasoned professionals who I know can do the job easily (I generally know the "older" people I hire) generally have difficulty (I just hired somebody I've been chasing for 18 months, yet her test was mid-lower-quartile). That tells you something about the tests.

Having an MBA is fine..........neither good nor bad. As said above, the course is about providing you with the tools to find the answers rather than providing you with the answers themselves.

For inexperienced hires, the main characteristics I look for are a strongly quantitative bias (but the intuitive feeling for numbers is more important than mathematical formality), good conversationalist with the ability to create a rapport (quick wit), polite, with very inquiring mind and good work ethic. You can tell a LOT by somebody's sense of humour too. Also, as absurd as it sounds I like to get a feel for whether the candidate is "lucky".....(a sense of "mojo" perhaps). People with these charateristics are easier to mentor and, to a large extent, are able to mentor themselves in the right environment.

Experienced hires are another bag altogether. Trouble is that the "system" seems to fill all "no experience required" roles with recent graduates rather than the more mature. Perhaps that's the role the MBA fulfils.

If I'm really honest, a lot of the MBA graduates I've intereviewed who have used the course as a catalyst to a new career did so because they failed to reach the level of seniority they expected in their old career. There's generally a deeper reason for that than not having an MBA, and I don't believe and MBA will magically change that.

I left school at 16 and joined as a boy soldier. Never went to university never mind A levels. So, whilst I respect those with Ph.D's that work for me for what they're achieved, it's much more important to me how they think. Opposing views or mindset isn't necessarily a bad thing. I did a bit of guest lecturing at MBA finance modules in the past and always tried to make these points.

Originally Posted by Banker

We're one of the banks that do psychometric testing before hiring (math, logic and verbal reasoning). They're time constrained tests, so answers are generally a reasonable show of behaviour under pressure. Trouble is that new graduates are used to sitting test, so generally do well. Yet, seasoned professionals who I know can do the job easily (I generally know the "older" people I hire) generally have difficulty (I just hired somebody I've been chasing for 18 months, yet her test was mid-lower-quartile). That tells you something about the tests.

Having an MBA is fine..........neither good nor bad. As said above, the course is about providing you with the tools to find the answers rather than providing you with the answers themselves.

For inexperienced hires, the main characteristics I look for are a strongly quantitative bias (but the intuitive feeling for numbers is more important than mathematical formality), good conversationalist with the ability to create a rapport (quick wit), polite, with very inquiring mind and good work ethic. You can tell a LOT by somebody's sense of humour too. Also, as absurd as it sounds I like to get a feel for whether the candidate is "lucky".....(a sense of "mojo" perhaps). People with these charateristics are easier to mentor and, to a large extent, are able to mentor themselves in the right environment.

Experienced hires are another bag altogether. Trouble is that the "system" seems to fill all "no experience required" roles with recent graduates rather than the more mature. Perhaps that's the role the MBA fulfils.

If I'm really honest, a lot of the MBA graduates I've intereviewed who have used the course as a catalyst to a new career did so because they failed to reach the level of seniority they expected in their old career. There's generally a deeper reason for that than not having an MBA, and I don't believe and MBA will magically change that.

I left school at 16 and joined as a boy soldier. Never went to university never mind A levels. So, whilst I respect those with Ph.D's that work for me for what they're achieved, it's much more important to me how they think. Opposing views or mindset isn't necessarily a bad thing. I did a bit of guest lecturing at MBA finance modules in the past and always tried to make these points.

Thanks - very enlightening indeed.

Originally Posted by bullshit

PD - I have witnesed your finances

It's a fair cop.

Quite frankly, as soon as a senior commander in Cyprus started using phrases like "senior management level buy in" and requesting "stakeholders" to respond to his white fleet review I realised that all is lost with the Forces. Until they realise that there is no requirement in the military for business language we are truly a force of lions led by (well-educated) donkeys.

The first time I noticed this sort of behaviour was during the mid-80s when a squadron 2i/c started complaining about lost "man-hours". His complaint was in reference to the amount of time lost in the ET stores due to the troops doing PT on Tue and Thur mornings, then parading after Naafi break. The fact that he was a fizz- dodging, borderline alcoholic carried no weight, he was quite prepared to sacrifice one of the basic requirements of soldiering, in this case fitness, in the pursuit of some vague business quantity known as "man-hours". A quote that I can attribute to him is that the troops could do fizz in their own time.

The Army is the Army and it costs money, lots of money. I quite agree that we should all try to be as effective and efficient as possible, that said, I firmly believe that now, most of the fat has been trimmed away and any further efficiency measures will only hinder capability. Anyone in the chain of command that proposes hindering capability should be sacked.

At the camp I work on now, some of the streetlights are turned off at night to save energy and thus fuel bills. A lot of these lights are at junctions and areas with road/pavement boundaries. It is not beyond belief to anticipate an accident in these pools of darkness. Once someone is injured and claims against the MoD for the accident (uneven pavement, lights turned out, road, cyclepath etc etc) someone is going to wish they'd left the lights on.

That is just an example of where we are now, I'm sure there are many more. I'm not really sure that an MBA had anything to do with the lights going out, but I'm not sure one has helped keep them on, either.

I'm all for improving one's education, my argument is that some aspects of a better education ie an MBA are not suited to soldiering.

Originally Posted by bluntslane

Quite frankly, as soon as a senior commander in Cyprus started using phrases like "senior management level buy in" and requesting "stakeholders" to respond to his white fleet review I realised that all is lost with the Forces. Until they realise that there is no requirement in the military for business language we are truly a force of lions led by (well-educated) donkeys.

A good example of the "buzz-word bingo" that makes me pull my fecking hair out. It's nebulous rubbish.

Well qualified perhaps, but certainly not well educated.

Hi

I agree the MBA provides you with the basic tools for analysis. But unless that is coupled with practical management experience and good commercial/organisational awareness of your company or chosen sector, there is often a risk of jumping to text book solutions which are not appropriate. Once accepted these become hard to reverse. Protesting managers are all too often seen barriers to change until such time as the associated increased/wasted costs cannot be ignored.

In essence, the MBA alone is not enough, you need to bring to the table creditable experience, domain knowledge and an inquiring and open mind.

I too was a Boy Solider and left the Army at 21 without any qualifications. Luckily I joined the electricity industry and worked my way up in procurement and commercial management picking up college courses along the way at night school. Whilst making good progress, the absence of a degree relative to my competing managerial peers became my own glass ceiling which I eventually overcome by doing the OU MBA. A great course and I would recommend the OU which I have found to be highly regarded when I was made redundant 8 years ago. Getting a new job at the same level was no problem

My experience is that there are two types of MBAers. (i) In-house company man MBAs who is sponsored in his 30s and dominates the professional middle to high management of companies and are committed hard workers there for the long haul and (ii) consultant MBAs working from assignment to assignment for which the good ones bring their wide range of different organisations and experiences to bear. Best outcomes tend to be collaborative ones in which the company man with domain knowledge is assisted by the consultant MBA who is able share his wider external experience work. Both add value when used properly.

Without doubt, an MBA (as will a range of other qualifications) will probably get you on the interview list, but in most cases without credibility you won’t get further. Once there, the rewards for your hard work are pretty good with consultant MBAs s on £120k+> pa if he can get the work vs. the company man on the lower £70-80k pa, but benefitting even in these times from better job security.

Gerry

[align=justify]bluntslane said:

“…I'm all for improving one's education, my argument is that some aspects of a better education ie an MBA are not suited to soldiering.�

Entirely agree bluntslane. Military life is different in a multitude of ways to civilian life and work. I guess many approaching termination of service/discharge/time up will want to secure a bag full of understandable qualifications (understandable to civilian employers that is) and MBA is understood by most employers. However so is MSc and the University of Leicester do an excellent range of MSc distance learning courses in such vocational areas as Training, Human Resources Management and more. I completed their MSc whilst in civilian employment, funded by my employer and immediately gained upward promotion with a corresponding salary increase. An MSc positively and visibly presented along with all the more than useful transferable soldiering skills can be a real boost to the prospects of the ex soldier seeking a rewarding position. Most large and medium sized organisations have a training function and my own army experiences (joined at 15 left at 40) provided me with a wealth of expertise to bring to the delivery of technical training in civilian life. I gained an awareness of budgetary control with a few short management accounting courses and with experience was soon ‘up to speed’ with business finances.

I’ve since completed a Doctorate and was immediately snapped up by the university as a tutor.

I admire those who do the work and gain an MBA, it is a very worthwhile qualification but soldiers with many years experience of managing and leading, motivating, organising, making the best use of resources and achieving goals by overcoming obstacles have a lot to offer any civilian employer. Couple these attributes with an appropriate MSc and you can become very employable.

Have a look at:

http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/clms or pm me.
[/align]

Sorry, fundamentally disagree. Anyone who can bring a different perspective on a problem has something valuable to offer:

http://www.da.mod.uk/publications/sf-publications

See the article by Andrew Mackay

MSR

Originally Posted by msr

Sorry, fundamentally disagree. Anyone who can bring a different perspective on a problem has something valuable to offer:

http://www.da.mod.uk/publications/sf-publications

See the article by Andrew Mackay

MSR

I presume, MSR that you are 'fundamentally disagreeing' with my last post??

Thanks though for the lead to Mackay and Tatham (2009) very interesting. My point is that for the purposes of resettlement there are more options than the MBA. Note that Mackay and Tatham (2009) write:

“However it is not sufficient to simply send people on courses, we have to send them onto the right courses…� (Mackay,and Tatham 2009 p26) . This objective is as equally sensible for military career development (and military strategy) as it is for working in civilian life after military service.

I was delighted to see in their paper yet another reference to the wealth of military academic literature emerging from the US with, by comparison very little from the UK. I am delighted because it is a point I make frequently to aspiring armed forces post grad students trying to find a 'problem' to research. The sad history of the demise of UK centres of academic excellence is also well made. My own university has taken a lead in making PhD dissertations available on line and a small number of military related works can be accessed. These are of course outside the Canon of the defence 'establishment' and whilst they do make a contribution to the benefit of their particular organisational specialisms, they also lead to the award of a post graduate qualification for the individual. MSc level dissertations which I have supervised in the last two years have included some extremely interesting armed forces research by serving officers. There is in fact a great deal of research into the topic of the ‘armed forces’ but a lot of this (mostly US based) is concerned with the detrimental affects of combat and military service generally on individuals. The benefits of military service to the individual (and in the long term to society in general) are rarely written about.

Hi all,

I'm resurrecting this thread again so that I can take advantage of Arrse MBA-ers feedback:

I'm at decision point whether to commit to an OU MBA (few days left to register for April start), and just need to be sure I'm making the right choice.

I'm one of those who has stumbled through life without having the opportunity to collect a string of formal qualifications: I dropped out of a (fairly high-level) Mech Eng degree due to injury, then went into the Army, did a couple of fairly rubbish business diploma-type courses in the days when there really wasn't any proper military resettlement on offer. Only thing I've done in recent years was Prince2 Practitioner (toilet paper, but useful on a CV).

BUT, I have now accumulated about 20 years’ business experience, mostly in general management positions - and mostly overseas in fairly "frontier"-type business environments (e.g. Russia). This has all been real hands-on stuff, covering all senior management functions.

With the economic slump, my usual overseas job opportunities are completely flat at the moment, and I've been forced back into the UK job market - which not only is a bit alien to me, but is of course very heavily CV-filtered/ tick-in-the-box. I am now at the level where I need to compete against candidates with (apparently) good qualifications, in order to break into senior management positions from whence I can build a UK track record.

(Ironically, like most fairly experienced “hands-on� managers, I’m actually very cynical about much “business school� theory and practice. Most major companies I’ve worked for had the most dreadful “management-by-PowerPoint� culture, usually stemming from fast-track thrusters who have clearly shot up the ladder without ever having to deal with real people or real problems. My last company had a management core imported directly from the prestigious consultancy firms, and it was one of the worst-managed organisations I’ve ever seen - including some third world shockers….. I have to say that, when I recruit my own employees, I look for a work experience period before the date of a higher business qualification.)

Hence my current vision of doing an MBA, to:

(a) properly train on technical aspects of business - finance & accounting, law, etc;

(b) quantify my existing experience base and top-up my fragmented education;

(c) have a lead qualification on my CV to get past tick-in-the-box HR filters.


Signing up for a course is a bit of a dilemma, because:

(i) money and time are tight: I don’t know if I’ll have a benevolent employer to assist in the future; I simply don’t have the means to do full-time study for a year or two;

(ii) I wouldn’t want to “waste� time & money on frippery that might not be directly productive in my future career.


Ramble mode off/ questions on:

1. OU seems to have a good rap; is it the best of the distance-learning faculties?

2. Is the OU 2-year course the fastest-track available, short of a full-time course?

3. Given that I tend to end up in jobs with a heavy work commitment, is the time allocation for pure academic study in any way assuaged by real-world experience?

4. Finally, those of you who are now employers of senior employees, has achieving your own MBA made a significant difference to the way you recruit others?

Hope the below helps,

Originally Posted by 4(T)

...Hence my current vision of doing an MBA, to:

(a) properly train on technical aspects of business - finance & accounting, law, etc;

Finance is covered by the OU MBA syllabus - in comparative detail on a nightmarish course called Financial Strategy which is an elective module. Law is not covered in particular detail but there is an excellent Canon of management level briefing on the various flavours of Law that you need to be comfortable with

(b) quantify my existing experience base and top-up my fragmented education;

(c) have a lead qualification on my CV to get past tick-in-the-box HR filters.


Signing up for a course is a bit of a dilemma, because:

(i) money and time are tight: I don’t know if I’ll have a benevolent employer to assist in the future; I simply don’t have the means to do full-time study for a year or two;

Very few of us have!

(ii) I wouldn’t want to “waste� time & money on frippery that might not be directly productive in my future career.

Too late, you've done Prince 2! :D

Ramble mode off/ questions on:

1. OU seems to have a good rap; is it the best of the distance-learning faculties?

It certainly suits the itinerant lifestyle, however be aware that if you cannot do the residential courses the Alternative Learning Experiences (ALEs) can be a bit tedious. However, the OU has a good and growing Eastern European footprint with seminars and study groups in Moscow, Prague, etc, that may meet your needs?

2. Is the OU 2-year course the fastest-track available, short of a full-time course?

Be careful. IIRC the fastest route is 2 - 2.5 years but that means doubling up courses. Nasty in itself with some horrible study spikes where an exam in one elective coincides with a dissertation in the other. If you are serious about doing some of the tougher courses you are setting yourself up for some very very late nights.

3. Given that I tend to end up in jobs with a heavy work commitment, is the time allocation for pure academic study in any way assuaged by real-world experience?

No - it does not defray the amount of time you will commit, only the value and quality of your work - the OU MBA course is based on and designed around on the need to reflect on your past practice so is arguably useless to someone unlike yourself with no management experience.

4. Finally, those of you who are now employers of senior employees, has achieving your own MBA made a significant difference to the way you recruit others?

Absolutely it has because I think I am better at identifying my needs and targeting the right candidates. However, those candidates need not have MBAs...

V_M, MBA (Open) 2010 (Distinction)