A business school campus.
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The MBA isn’t what it used to be.
Over the past decade or two, the MBA has seen a dramatic evolution. Once a “must have” for executive management positions, it was downgraded to a “nice to have” for those privileged enough to take a two-year workforce sabbatical. And for tech giants, many of which have college dropout founders? It’s not necessary at companies like Facebook and Tesla, whose executives have denounced the degree.
But after 2020, the MBA meaning has been downgraded even further. For a growing subset of employers, a MBA degree on a resume may potentially pose a negative signal.
What Was The MBA Meaning, Historically?
Designed for those who aspire to leadership positions, the MBA used to be a requirement for professionals to reach the top rungs of finance or management consulting or the C-suite at large companies. The (typically) two-year master’s degree has coursework in foundational business skills like finance, accounting, marketing, economics, and information technology, and there’s also a heavy emphasis on group work and networking with other students and alumni.
Covid-19 has changed not only the MBA’s meaning, but it has also upended many professionals’ career ambitions. And hiring managers’ needs.
So, what is the MBA meaning in a post-Covid world?
What Can An MBA Mean On A Resume Today?
As the CEO of a modern business education company, I often speak to employers about what they’re most looking for in their recruits. At the top of the list are a can-do attitude, hunger to learn, and flexibility.
Very rarely do I hear them say they’re looking for someone with a specific type of degree. And in some cases, they tell me that they hesitate when they see the MBA degree on a candidate’s resume. In a post-Covid world, a MBA program can carry negative signals:
Retrospection
“An MBA has become a two-part time machine,” entrepreneur Seth Godin famously wrote. “First, the students are taught everything they need to know to manage a company from 1990, and second, they are taken out of the real world for two years while the rest of us race as fast as we possibly can.”
He’s not wrong. One of the key learning tools of MBA programs is case studies: Looking back on a business problem a company faced and analyzing how they dealt with it. But as leaders around the world learned this year, nothing we’ve done in the past could have prepared us to deal with a global pandemic.
For years, I’ve heard hiring managers say they don’t want a team member who’s been out of the workforce studying old solutions to old problems; they want someone who’s been actively solving current problems in real time.
And in our post-Covid world, that need has only accelerated. Instead of “here’s how we’ve done it before” thinking, companies need innovative leaders who can quickly pivot and adapt to ever-changing circumstances.
Privilege
MBA programs are notoriously male, wealthy, and white. So, while business schools like to say that their curriculum teaches students to work well with others—in most cases, that means a pretty homogenous group. Especially at top schools, women, people of color, first generation students or those with non-traditional backgrounds often feel excluded or sidelined.
For companies that care about diversity, equity, and inclusion (which is, increasingly, all of them), MBA programs haven’t historically been the breeding grounds of the inclusive, forward-thinking leaders they’re looking for.
Some employers also worry about privilege when it comes to MBAs post-grad job expectations. As Harj Taggar, co-founder and CEO of Triplebyte and Group Partner at Y Combinator, told US News, “There’s also a more broad stigma that MBAs, while often smart and capable, will be overly entitled and expect to go straight into senior management and leadership roles after graduation.”
The Past
Would-be students have been opting out of MBA programs for the past decade. And that’s not just because the cost is soaring. The savviest professionals realize that they can gain real-time business education via on-the-job learning, networking, and using alternative learning platforms—all without leaving the workforce for two years. Many look at the ROI of an MBA and realize the degree simply isn’t worth it.
Increasingly, hiring managers like to see this scrappy resourcefulness among candidates. Many companies are increasingly looking to do more with less, so they want to see professionals who have found ways to accelerate their learning and development without the six-figure price tag of an MBA.
What’s Next For The MBA
So what do these trends say about the MBA meaning in the future? The good news is, even business school insiders are saying that the MBA model needs to change and improve in the coming years. If it does, my hope is that modern business education will focus on real-time learning and application of that knowledge; allow students to build more diverse and inclusive networks; and—crucially—not plunge them into a mountain of debt.
If it doesn’t? My advice for anyone considering business school is to take a hard look at their career goals and assess: Is the MBA the right path to get there, or is it taking you in the wrong direction?
