6 reasons to be cautious when hiring an MBA

I just read an interesting article from Productivity501 called never hire a MBA. While the title might seem severe it does highlight several downsides of hiring a MBA graduate - Here is my summary (for the full article read here)

There are a lot of people who overvalue an MBA. A master’s of business administration might look attractive when hiring a new employee but here are some points to be careful of when hiring them.

If someone has a master’s degree in running a business, why are they coming to you for a job? Years ago, it made sense. It was very expensive to start your own business. That isn’t the case any more. So if someone with an MBA is coming to you there are several possibilities:

1. They can’t run a business. - If they can’t make it on their own, do you want them working for you? Is it possible you can find someone better without an MBA? If you need a particular part of their skill set, maybe it is a good fit. Just be aware that if you need someone with a really good skill at running a business, you need to understand why you should trust their skills more than they do.
2. Want real world experience. - This is a valid reason, but just make sure you aren’t paying someone for their MBA experience if they are coming to you because they don’t really have anything beyond their diploma. Someone with an MBA who says they want real world experience could be an excellent find and become a very passionate employee. However, as we’ll discuss later, one of the drawbacks of many MBAs is that they often over-estimate their skill set.
3. No ideas of their own. – Not necessarily a bad thing if you just want someone to execute your business plan, but make sure you aren’t paying a premium for them to have good ideas. If they can’t come up with a good business idea on their own, they may not be able to come up with good ideas for you.
4. Too specialized. - Someone who specialized in one specific area may not have a wide enough skill set to run their own business. If their expertise fits well with your business then it can be a great fit for both of you. However, usually the idea of an MBA is that it is a general education in all aspects of business.
5. Lack of Experience - Someone with a fresh MBA looking for a job, may not come with much real experience. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you understand that having an MBA doesn’t automatically make someone good at their job. A large number of people are going back to school to get an MBA after having worked for a number of years. On one hand, you may find someone who has a great deal of real world experience that they can apply to your business problems. On the other, you may be dealing with someone who is making a significant career change. When you look at someone’s experience make sure you aren’t throwing them into a situation that goes well beyond what they are capable of doing. It is easy to tweak a resumé to showcase skills in the past to align with the jobs they want in the future. If their resumé says they have “management experience” don’t automatically assume they possess the skills to handle having 40 people reporting to them. Make sure you understand exactly what they managed, the extent of their authority and the results they achieved. If their only experience with leadership is being under the leadership of others, they are likely to emulate all of the bad habits without picking up on any of the good ones. If you need a manager, don’t give someone this position based solely on their MBA. Make sure they have real experience with good results in management either before or after getting their master’s degree.
6. Overconfidence- This is more of an issue with people who have had very little real work experience. While most MBA programs offer good content, simply being exposed to a lot of great ideas doesn’t say much about your ability to implement those ideas in real life. Just because someone took a class in negotiations doesn’t mean they are any good at it. Worse, they may think they are good at it and blindly cause a number of problems. Confidence is good, but not when it blinds you to your inability. For an MBA, the pretty piece of paper they have hanging on their wall can make them less careful. It can encourage them to jump into things that they have no preparation for. It doesn’t take too much life experience to correct this, but you may or may not want to be their employer during this learning experience. Further, the value of the MBA is quite a bit lower if their real skill set is developed on the job at your expense.

Conclusion

If you are looking to hire someone, don’t overlook them simply because they have an MBA, but at the same time don’t over-value their degree and let it blind you to their actual real-life skills.

But, if you have no skills in running a business today, getting an MBA isn’t going to change that.


Read more: http://www.productivity501.com/never-hire-an-mba/7918/#ixzz0rG6JgqIQ