Case I

Post date: Apr 20, 2009 9:10:57 AM

Q. 小的正在等admission,也開始想post-MBA career

昨天在business week forum看到關於大環境對申請MBA與就業的討論。焦點當然是放在sub-prime crisis的後續發展。今天也在這看到些許間接的討論。

想知道大家對於這兩年申請MBA與就業的看法。

我認為讀MBA有兩個關:第一關是拿到admission,下一關是一兩年後拿到job offer。第二關的好壞多少決定了這個MBA的短期效益。如Mark Hsu所說,admissible與employable是不同的。而申請學校與找工作的timing對上述兩關有很大的影響。 今年各校的申請人數比去年多,明年預估會更多。供需的改變使得這兩年的申請變的更難。

至於就業市場,不知道2009年與2010年美國、歐洲或亞太地區的大環境對於屆時的畢業生是多是空?小的在倫敦工作,客戶今年的預期調薪budget已從去年的4.0%降到今年的3.5%,許多客戶對於大規模招募也趨於保守。希望我唸完MBA時,就業市場已走出次貸風波的影響…

A.

There is no right & wrong answer, but I think the current subprime crisis offers you a good gut check to see if you really need an MBA.

I see a lot of parallels between 2008 and 2000.

In 2000, the NASDAQ hit a peak of 5,000+ around March and began its decline. The NASDAQ is now at 2,340.

Funding for my start-up basically ceased & I backed my bags and headed back home to the US.

I applied to school in early 2001. (So did everybody else in the world.)

I got to Columbia in Jan 2002, found a bunch of people who were laid off dot commers but who wanted to do banking/hedge funds/pe. (I thought to myself, either I am stupid or they're stupid.) I decided they're stupid because I didn't see how the financial markets were going to come back. (This was right after 9-11). Withdrew from Columbia.

I returned to SF. Did Rd 2 interviews, even though I had pretty much decided against going to b school, I re-applied to Wharton for Fall 2002. My interviewer was a Wharton Class of 2001. He had been jobless for 10 months. This confirmed for me that I made the right decision.

To make a long story short, I would have been class of 2003 had I gone to b school. Upon graduation, I would have been 30 and most likely jobless and by my calculation, I would have burned through about US$150,000.

As I recall, most of the Taiwanese & Taiwanese-Americans from the Class of 2003 who wanted to work in Asia had a hard time finding work. A lot of people went to Citibank's MA program in Taipei. IB hiring was 0.

2004....things begin to pick up

2005-2007 => bull markets in banking/finance, especially in Asia.

Anyway, timing is everything.

Treat an MBA as an investment. What else can you do with US$150k-200k? What else can you do with 2 yrs of your time? What are your objectives? Is the MBA the only road you can take?