9 ms·

Newly minted MBA? It's the best job market in years

46 points by jackgavigan 12y ago

ThomPete 12y ago
I don't believe this is due to optimism in the market, but simply an increase in requirements for what it takes to be a candidate.
- laurentsabbah 12y ago
  Read my mind...
- atom-morgan 12y ago
  Exactly. This is the higher education bubble in action.
kyllo 12y ago
Amazon is hungry for MBAs, so getting one might be a good idea--if you want to work for Amazon in a non-technical role.
- mason55 12y ago
  I have a good friend who went into Amazon after his MBA (formerly a MechE at Intel). They have an awesome leadership program where they start you on the line at a warehouse and work you up until you're running a big part of it, then move you to Seattle to start running pieces of the business. It's not easy, he was at the warehouse at 5am every day and worked many, many long days, but if your end goal is to be running a big company one day then it seemed like a great experience.
- Nicholas_C 12y ago
  Amazon seems hungry for folks without MBAs as well. I've had two friends without MBAs leave our company for Amazon, one was hardly out of school for two years, and they both received incredible compensation packages.
  - littletimmy 12y ago
    What does "incredible" mean here? Over and above market?
    - kyllo 12y ago
      Well it seems like the market is bifurcated. One is the Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon/Facebook market where the starting salary is between 100-130k USD/year. My understanding is that Amazon is basically on par with this group, possibly at the lower end of it depending the specific position. Then there's all the other companies out there that employ software development teams, and probably pay 20-40% less than the aforementioned behemoth firms on average. If you work at one of those companies (and I do), Amazon's compensation package seems incredible. But maybe a bit less incredible if you divide it by the actual number of hours worked. Amazon is notorious for being a workaholic environment.
    - Nicholas_C 12y ago
      Above market. My friends are financial analysts by the way.
- ExceptioNullMan 12y ago
  Amazon was eager. I'd highlight the non-technical role bit. Anecdotal but heres my story regarding them: Recruiter was very excited to fly me to Seattle. I attribute the MBA to that(CS Undergrad). Unfortunately I find a common stigma attached to the MBA for technical roles. During my Technical Program Management interview none of the interviewers had a business degree. PhD in cs, and an MIS, but I didn't connect much with 2/4 of the interviewers. 'So you don't want to be a developer anymore' was one of the opening comments I received. To address this i'm currently working on an intermediate step (title=founder?) to further distance myself from pure dev and thinking about PMP & Marketing certifications to help downplay the 10 years work experience developing. On the other side of the coin, they say that Amazon hires only one out of every 5 candidates, my sample size of 1 is too small, and I cant claim I aced every conversation.
  - ryandrake 12y ago
    I think it's more of a tech company culture thing, not specific to Amazon. I've been to interviews where the interviewers were genuinely bewildered that I left a coding-only career to do a full-time MBA program. The degree (even from a top school) doesn't really seem to help out here in the Bay Area (maybe Seattle too, I've never been there). The banks and consultancy firms would rather you had a finance or consulting background, and won't hire you unless you're fresh out of MBA school. The tech companies either can't get over their anti-MBA stigma (as if merely getting the degree makes you suddenly forget math/engineering fundamentals) or just assume you went back to school because you were a bad coder. Most tech companies seem to have a "Chinese wall" between the tech side and the business side, and there aren't many roles out there with the opportunity to overlap. Unless you want to do a start-up, where everyone wears many hats, but I like to be able to pay my mortgage and eat.
  - _yosefk 12y ago
    PMP? Seriously? (I'm not saying I know anything about the value of having this certification in terms of career prospects. What I do know is that you get to memorize a ton of horseshit to then spit it out in a brain-damaged multiple-choice test, and instinctively - not based on experience - I wouldn't want to manage a project in an org which values the "PMP" label, because it sounds like the kind of project where every pencil/square of toilet paper/etc. counts, the thing as well as the org in general being barely profitable.)
michaelochurch 12y ago
I would guess that MBA school has a similar bimodal (or, at least, bimodal-ish) outcome distribution as law school. If you go to a top-5 MBA school, the opportunities are ridiculous. I know plenty of unimpressive people making $500,000 or more straight out of MBA school. But it needs to be a top school, and there are a lot of factors (e.g. work experience) that are socioeconomic rather than merit-based. Top MBA schools are basically a 2-year networking event. I know a couple economics professors (at top MBA schools) who refuse to teach MBA students because they're sick of having the students demand of the Dean that they reschedule exams and classes to accommodate their leisure travel, and having the students win. Most MBAs don't get the ridiculous, unearned compensation bump that merits two years off and an expensive degree, though. If you make $500k with no skills whatsoever, then you can probably pay it off. If your next gig comes in at $75k, that isn't bad by most peoples' standards, but it'll make it hard to pay off the student loans.
- foobarqux 12y ago
  > I know plenty of unimpressive people making $500,000 or more straight out of MBA school. I assume that's finance. Is it trading, PE, IB or something else?
  - michaelochurch 12y ago
    I assume that's finance. Is it trading, PE, IB or something else? All of the above. It's harder for an idiot to get rich in straight trading, because there is a merit factor in that game. PE is a big one. Lots of highly-compensated but unimpressive people in that industry.
    - xadhominemx 12y ago
      There is maybe one person per year without PE experience hired into a PE firm large enough to pay someone straight out of an MBA $500k. Maybe one.
      - michaelochurch 12y ago
dccoolgai 12y ago
The Circle of Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ZnCT14nRc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ZnCT14nRc I find this somewhat troubling. Trust an old-timer: When the circle comes around to the point where it tips toward hiring MBAs again, it's time to sell and take cover. A couple years after they destroy the economy again, you come back in and buy. Not necessarily a bad thing - for everything there is a season - just something to be aware of.
- lgleason 12y ago
  This is probably why the Atlanta startup scene has taken off. If you look at the area it is saturated with sales and MBA folks. They all beat their chest about how great Atlanta is for tech and how it is emerging. But in reality it, along with a lot of other traditionally non-tech towns are getting the overflow from The Valley which is over-heated. When that bubble pops many of these towns, MBA's etc. will be faced with tough job prospects.
  - AJ007 12y ago
    Is there a city now without a 'tech' scene? From Milwaukee to San Juan - incubators, co-working spaces, education initiatives, financial & tax incentive programs, all proclaiming they will grow the entire local economy out of whatever doldrums it sits in. In terms of bubble, the low yields on junk debt globally are a really, really big problem. An angel investment in a small startup that folds, or a VC investment in an instant unicorn (term I saw on TC recently) that imploads, your money goes to $0. Or maybe you lose 50%, 60% on a public tech company. On debt, this will impact everything from the money markets holding business and individual cash to the institutions, both public and private, that think business is good because they depend on high risk low cost finance to perform their day to day operations. 2015+ is very scary even for bears.
    - dataker 12y ago
      Indeed, even Detroit has a considerable startup scene: http://www.fastcompany.com/3014543/detroit-is-going-bankrupt-but-its-tech-community-is-going-strong http://www.fastcompany.com/3014543/detroit-is-going-bankrupt...
littletimmy 12y ago
An economy hiring too many MBAs is never a good sign. This bubble is about to pop.
- atom-morgan 12y ago
  Who do you think will take the blame for this bubble?
  - Balgair 12y ago
    1 of 3 things: 1) The drought. Though it's part of a longer term trend, the drought will be the cause for everyone moving out. Expect memes about having a swimming pool or watering your lawn back east. 2) Mortgage brokers again. Housing in the Bay is crazy right now, just as it was in 2008. Expect them to be blamed once more. 3) Brogrammers. Idiot kids from B-list Ivys, Duke, or the like came out to the Bay, were very bro-y (sexist, racist, drunk, foolish, etc) and killed the golden goose with their bro-ness. If the rest of the US really takes a hit, expect stuff about 'too big to save' instead of 'too big to fail'. This is real bad and I hope it does not come to that.
    - atom-morgan 12y ago
      You seem to be implying the higher education bubble is restricted to or concentrated within the tech scene in California.
      - Balgair 12y ago
        Thats a much more complicated thing. I don't think the higher ed bubble will pop quite as publicly as the Social-techy bubble will. Law schools serve a better example for the pop and what it'll look like. What I'm saying is that the techy-Social bubble's blame may fall on the brogrammers as an emblem of a larger and more complex problem. Suffice to say though, I think most people on HN these days are competent enough to know there is a bubble and the end is not 5 years out, but less than 2
  - fweespeech 12y ago
realusername 12y ago
I don't think the employment rate of people graduating from MBAs is interesting by itself. People doing MBAs usually are not in the category of people who have difficulties finding jobs anyway. I would be more interested on a statistic showing the difference in salary between the two groups since I'm not fully convinced that it's worth it financially.
- ryandrake 12y ago
  If you're coming from engineering, your initial post-MBA-graduation salary will probably not be worth it, it might even be lower than what you're making. The key is the long-term trajectory. If you make it into investment banking or consulting, you'll see predictable linear salary and bonus growth year-after-year with pretty much no limit. As an engineer you'd reach a ceiling eventually and then it's the standard 2-3%/year cost of living increases until you die. If you have a tech background and are NOT planning on going into banking or consulting, doing the MBA is not worth it [EDIT]_financially_ (at best it's neutral long-term), in my opinion. This analysis, of course, ignores the general intangible benefits of education.
  - mathattack 12y ago
    Your last line caught it. A lot depends on the experience going in too. What's a CS major in the Midwest make with 2-5 years of experience make? What will they make with 4-7 years of experience? The new MBA in banking will make 200+K with large rises. Consulting perhaps a little less, but great upside for those who make partners. The other value for technical people is getting in to new areas. A CS major who learns Marketing and Finance may make a better CEO down the line. (Or a CS major who doesn't like coding any more) The MBA is the easiest way to make the switch.
- damoncali 12y ago
  If you're going to B school for the salary bump, you're doing it wrong.
  - bcoates 12y ago
phaemon 12y ago
Usually I see the bbc.com message saying I'm blocked from the content because I'm in the UK. This time it had: "This site was created for the BBC’s International audience by BBC Worldwide. Some elements including spelling and grammar may deviate from those found on our UK sites. BBC Worldwide is a commercial company that is owned by the BBC (and just the BBC). No money from the licence fee was used to create this website. Instead this website is supported by advertising outside the UK. The profits we make from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes." Is this a new thing to let UK folk see the content, presumably without the ads?
- samstave 12y ago
  There's your problem right there. If you had an MBA in BBC Studies, this wouldn't be an issue -- unless you already have an MBA in BBC studies, but received it a decade ago - then you just suck at timing. At any rate, hurry up and graduate right now with an MBA in BBC Studies so that you can capitalize on a high valuation in the current market with synergistic timing for first to market strategies that optimize for and leverage the BBC Studies MBA multi-billion dollar social niche! You'll make the world a better place!
  - aswanson 12y ago
    Bingo. Now lets mix and match plug and play best of breed solutions within our core competency for a win-win outcome.
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
...is it bad I read that as "newly-minted MacBook Air" until looking at the article and realising it was the other "MBA"?
mathattack 12y ago
There's a lot of people saying that MBAs are a sign of the top. Others are saying all MBAs are evil. I think it's more nuanced. (Full disclosure, I'm a CS undergrad with an MBA) Some generalizations.... 1 - MBAs tend to be risk averse. 2 - MBA career choices tend to be driven by who shows up to recruit at their campuses. 3 - MBAs tend to be value capturers and maximizers rather than value creators. 4 - MBAs tend to have debt load and follow who pays cash. (This ties with #1) Does this mean they are all evil? No. But you get what you pay for. A fancy MBA won't create the next great thing, but could help the current great thing be a little more predictable in hitting earnings. For what it's worth, Amazon seems to like quantitative MBAs. Google seems to like them with CS undergrads. Apple doesn't seem to care for them too much. Does that make any a black and white model?

46 points by jackgavigan 12y ago

I don't believe this is due to optimism in the market, but simply an increase in requirements for what it takes to be a candidate.

laurentsabbah 12y ago
Read my mind...
atom-morgan 12y ago
Exactly. This is the higher education bubble in action.

kyllo 12y ago

Amazon is hungry for MBAs, so getting one might be a good idea--if you want to work for Amazon in a non-technical role.

mason55 12y ago
I have a good friend who went into Amazon after his MBA (formerly a MechE at Intel). They have an awesome leadership program where they start you on the line at a warehouse and work you up until you're running a big part of it, then move you to Seattle to start running pieces of the business. It's not easy, he was at the warehouse at 5am every day and worked many, many long days, but if your end goal is to be running a big company one day then it seemed like a great experience.
Nicholas_C 12y ago
Amazon seems hungry for folks without MBAs as well. I've had two friends without MBAs leave our company for Amazon, one was hardly out of school for two years, and they both received incredible compensation packages.
- littletimmy 12y ago
  What does "incredible" mean here? Over and above market?
  - kyllo 12y ago
    Well it seems like the market is bifurcated. One is the Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon/Facebook market where the starting salary is between 100-130k USD/year. My understanding is that Amazon is basically on par with this group, possibly at the lower end of it depending the specific position. Then there's all the other companies out there that employ software development teams, and probably pay 20-40% less than the aforementioned behemoth firms on average. If you work at one of those companies (and I do), Amazon's compensation package seems incredible. But maybe a bit less incredible if you divide it by the actual number of hours worked. Amazon is notorious for being a workaholic environment.
  - Nicholas_C 12y ago
    Above market. My friends are financial analysts by the way.
ExceptioNullMan 12y ago
Amazon was eager. I'd highlight the non-technical role bit. Anecdotal but heres my story regarding them: Recruiter was very excited to fly me to Seattle. I attribute the MBA to that(CS Undergrad). Unfortunately I find a common stigma attached to the MBA for technical roles. During my Technical Program Management interview none of the interviewers had a business degree. PhD in cs, and an MIS, but I didn't connect much with 2/4 of the interviewers. 'So you don't want to be a developer anymore' was one of the opening comments I received. To address this i'm currently working on an intermediate step (title=founder?) to further distance myself from pure dev and thinking about PMP & Marketing certifications to help downplay the 10 years work experience developing. On the other side of the coin, they say that Amazon hires only one out of every 5 candidates, my sample size of 1 is too small, and I cant claim I aced every conversation.
- ryandrake 12y ago
  I think it's more of a tech company culture thing, not specific to Amazon. I've been to interviews where the interviewers were genuinely bewildered that I left a coding-only career to do a full-time MBA program. The degree (even from a top school) doesn't really seem to help out here in the Bay Area (maybe Seattle too, I've never been there). The banks and consultancy firms would rather you had a finance or consulting background, and won't hire you unless you're fresh out of MBA school. The tech companies either can't get over their anti-MBA stigma (as if merely getting the degree makes you suddenly forget math/engineering fundamentals) or just assume you went back to school because you were a bad coder. Most tech companies seem to have a "Chinese wall" between the tech side and the business side, and there aren't many roles out there with the opportunity to overlap. Unless you want to do a start-up, where everyone wears many hats, but I like to be able to pay my mortgage and eat.
- _yosefk 12y ago
  PMP? Seriously? (I'm not saying I know anything about the value of having this certification in terms of career prospects. What I do know is that you get to memorize a ton of horseshit to then spit it out in a brain-damaged multiple-choice test, and instinctively - not based on experience - I wouldn't want to manage a project in an org which values the "PMP" label, because it sounds like the kind of project where every pencil/square of toilet paper/etc. counts, the thing as well as the org in general being barely profitable.)

michaelochurch 12y ago

I would guess that MBA school has a similar bimodal (or, at least, bimodal-ish) outcome distribution as law school. If you go to a top-5 MBA school, the opportunities are ridiculous. I know plenty of unimpressive people making $500,000 or more straight out of MBA school. But it needs to be a top school, and there are a lot of factors (e.g. work experience) that are socioeconomic rather than merit-based. Top MBA schools are basically a 2-year networking event. I know a couple economics professors (at top MBA schools) who refuse to teach MBA students because they're sick of having the students demand of the Dean that they reschedule exams and classes to accommodate their leisure travel, and having the students win. Most MBAs don't get the ridiculous, unearned compensation bump that merits two years off and an expensive degree, though. If you make $500k with no skills whatsoever, then you can probably pay it off. If your next gig comes in at $75k, that isn't bad by most peoples' standards, but it'll make it hard to pay off the student loans.

foobarqux 12y ago
> I know plenty of unimpressive people making $500,000 or more straight out of MBA school. I assume that's finance. Is it trading, PE, IB or something else?
- michaelochurch 12y ago
  I assume that's finance. Is it trading, PE, IB or something else? All of the above. It's harder for an idiot to get rich in straight trading, because there is a merit factor in that game. PE is a big one. Lots of highly-compensated but unimpressive people in that industry.
  - xadhominemx 12y ago
    There is maybe one person per year without PE experience hired into a PE firm large enough to pay someone straight out of an MBA $500k. Maybe one.
    - michaelochurch 12y ago

dccoolgai 12y ago

The Circle of Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ZnCT14nRc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ZnCT14nRc I find this somewhat troubling. Trust an old-timer: When the circle comes around to the point where it tips toward hiring MBAs again, it's time to sell and take cover. A couple years after they destroy the economy again, you come back in and buy. Not necessarily a bad thing - for everything there is a season - just something to be aware of.

lgleason 12y ago
This is probably why the Atlanta startup scene has taken off. If you look at the area it is saturated with sales and MBA folks. They all beat their chest about how great Atlanta is for tech and how it is emerging. But in reality it, along with a lot of other traditionally non-tech towns are getting the overflow from The Valley which is over-heated. When that bubble pops many of these towns, MBA's etc. will be faced with tough job prospects.
- AJ007 12y ago
  Is there a city now without a 'tech' scene? From Milwaukee to San Juan - incubators, co-working spaces, education initiatives, financial & tax incentive programs, all proclaiming they will grow the entire local economy out of whatever doldrums it sits in. In terms of bubble, the low yields on junk debt globally are a really, really big problem. An angel investment in a small startup that folds, or a VC investment in an instant unicorn (term I saw on TC recently) that imploads, your money goes to $0. Or maybe you lose 50%, 60% on a public tech company. On debt, this will impact everything from the money markets holding business and individual cash to the institutions, both public and private, that think business is good because they depend on high risk low cost finance to perform their day to day operations. 2015+ is very scary even for bears.
  - dataker 12y ago
    Indeed, even Detroit has a considerable startup scene: http://www.fastcompany.com/3014543/detroit-is-going-bankrupt-but-its-tech-community-is-going-strong http://www.fastcompany.com/3014543/detroit-is-going-bankrupt...

littletimmy 12y ago

An economy hiring too many MBAs is never a good sign. This bubble is about to pop.

atom-morgan 12y ago
Who do you think will take the blame for this bubble?
- Balgair 12y ago
  1 of 3 things: 1) The drought. Though it's part of a longer term trend, the drought will be the cause for everyone moving out. Expect memes about having a swimming pool or watering your lawn back east. 2) Mortgage brokers again. Housing in the Bay is crazy right now, just as it was in 2008. Expect them to be blamed once more. 3) Brogrammers. Idiot kids from B-list Ivys, Duke, or the like came out to the Bay, were very bro-y (sexist, racist, drunk, foolish, etc) and killed the golden goose with their bro-ness. If the rest of the US really takes a hit, expect stuff about 'too big to save' instead of 'too big to fail'. This is real bad and I hope it does not come to that.
  - atom-morgan 12y ago
    You seem to be implying the higher education bubble is restricted to or concentrated within the tech scene in California.
    - Balgair 12y ago
      Thats a much more complicated thing. I don't think the higher ed bubble will pop quite as publicly as the Social-techy bubble will. Law schools serve a better example for the pop and what it'll look like. What I'm saying is that the techy-Social bubble's blame may fall on the brogrammers as an emblem of a larger and more complex problem. Suffice to say though, I think most people on HN these days are competent enough to know there is a bubble and the end is not 5 years out, but less than 2
- fweespeech 12y ago

realusername 12y ago

I don't think the employment rate of people graduating from MBAs is interesting by itself. People doing MBAs usually are not in the category of people who have difficulties finding jobs anyway. I would be more interested on a statistic showing the difference in salary between the two groups since I'm not fully convinced that it's worth it financially.

ryandrake 12y ago
If you're coming from engineering, your initial post-MBA-graduation salary will probably not be worth it, it might even be lower than what you're making. The key is the long-term trajectory. If you make it into investment banking or consulting, you'll see predictable linear salary and bonus growth year-after-year with pretty much no limit. As an engineer you'd reach a ceiling eventually and then it's the standard 2-3%/year cost of living increases until you die. If you have a tech background and are NOT planning on going into banking or consulting, doing the MBA is not worth it [EDIT]_financially_ (at best it's neutral long-term), in my opinion. This analysis, of course, ignores the general intangible benefits of education.
- mathattack 12y ago
  Your last line caught it. A lot depends on the experience going in too. What's a CS major in the Midwest make with 2-5 years of experience make? What will they make with 4-7 years of experience? The new MBA in banking will make 200+K with large rises. Consulting perhaps a little less, but great upside for those who make partners. The other value for technical people is getting in to new areas. A CS major who learns Marketing and Finance may make a better CEO down the line. (Or a CS major who doesn't like coding any more) The MBA is the easiest way to make the switch.
damoncali 12y ago
If you're going to B school for the salary bump, you're doing it wrong.
- bcoates 12y ago

phaemon 12y ago

Usually I see the bbc.com message saying I'm blocked from the content because I'm in the UK. This time it had: "This site was created for the BBC’s International audience by BBC Worldwide. Some elements including spelling and grammar may deviate from those found on our UK sites. BBC Worldwide is a commercial company that is owned by the BBC (and just the BBC). No money from the licence fee was used to create this website. Instead this website is supported by advertising outside the UK. The profits we make from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes." Is this a new thing to let UK folk see the content, presumably without the ads?

samstave 12y ago
There's your problem right there. If you had an MBA in BBC Studies, this wouldn't be an issue -- unless you already have an MBA in BBC studies, but received it a decade ago - then you just suck at timing. At any rate, hurry up and graduate right now with an MBA in BBC Studies so that you can capitalize on a high valuation in the current market with synergistic timing for first to market strategies that optimize for and leverage the BBC Studies MBA multi-billion dollar social niche! You'll make the world a better place!
- aswanson 12y ago
  Bingo. Now lets mix and match plug and play best of breed solutions within our core competency for a win-win outcome.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

...is it bad I read that as "newly-minted MacBook Air" until looking at the article and realising it was the other "MBA"?

mathattack 12y ago

There's a lot of people saying that MBAs are a sign of the top. Others are saying all MBAs are evil. I think it's more nuanced. (Full disclosure, I'm a CS undergrad with an MBA) Some generalizations.... 1 - MBAs tend to be risk averse. 2 - MBA career choices tend to be driven by who shows up to recruit at their campuses. 3 - MBAs tend to be value capturers and maximizers rather than value creators. 4 - MBAs tend to have debt load and follow who pays cash. (This ties with #1) Does this mean they are all evil? No. But you get what you pay for. A fancy MBA won't create the next great thing, but could help the current great thing be a little more predictable in hitting earnings. For what it's worth, Amazon seems to like quantitative MBAs. Google seems to like them with CS undergrads. Apple doesn't seem to care for them too much. Does that make any a black and white model?