4 ms·

This doesn't seem any different than the language wars that take place here. In fact, you could cherry pick anecdotes to support hate towards any demographic- a

by atldev 14y ago

This doesn't seem any different than the language wars that take place here. In fact, you could cherry pick anecdotes to support hate towards any demographic- age, hometown, music preferences, etc. An MBA proves nothing more than the candidate was interested in pursuing graduate level education. I'm a solo technical founder. I write code, marketing copy, and proposals. I'm a product manager. And my MBA curriculum covered areas that would be a huge help to product managers. If you auto-reject CVs with an MBA, you're missing out on a great talent pool. Perhaps you should only give "black marks" to candidates who are clueless about what it takes to manage products. But don't tie that to the MBA.

wpietri 14y ago
When you're looking for resumes, you're not looking to be perfectly fair. You're looking to sort wheat from chaff. For me, for example, developer certifications are a black mark. Does that mean I auto-reject people with them? No. But it is correlated with a couple of different kinds characteristics I don't want in a developer, so they lose points. But aren't there some good people with certifications? Am I not being unfair? Sure. My job isn't to be fair; it's to find a great person in minimum time.
MattRob 14y ago
To be clear, it's not an auto-reject, it's an early warning mechanism. I see the relationship between MBAs and cluelessness as one of correlation not causation.
- hnriot 14y ago
  If you find a correlation between MBA and cluelessness then I would either doubt your sample size or your methods. Be very very careful in any kind of statistical fashion to allow anecdotal evidence to cloud your opinion. People who think there's a correlation with MBA's and cluelessness are themselves, just as clueless.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    He's not saying MBAs are generally clueless. He's saying that fresh MBA grads are clueless about startups, which is something they haven't been trained for.

by atldev 14y ago

wpietri 14y ago

When you're looking for resumes, you're not looking to be perfectly fair. You're looking to sort wheat from chaff. For me, for example, developer certifications are a black mark. Does that mean I auto-reject people with them? No. But it is correlated with a couple of different kinds characteristics I don't want in a developer, so they lose points. But aren't there some good people with certifications? Am I not being unfair? Sure. My job isn't to be fair; it's to find a great person in minimum time.

MattRob 14y ago

To be clear, it's not an auto-reject, it's an early warning mechanism. I see the relationship between MBAs and cluelessness as one of correlation not causation.

hnriot 14y ago
If you find a correlation between MBA and cluelessness then I would either doubt your sample size or your methods. Be very very careful in any kind of statistical fashion to allow anecdotal evidence to cloud your opinion. People who think there's a correlation with MBA's and cluelessness are themselves, just as clueless.
- wpietri 14y ago
  He's not saying MBAs are generally clueless. He's saying that fresh MBA grads are clueless about startups, which is something they haven't been trained for.