Monica O'Brien is the author of the book Social Pollination: Escape the Hype of Social Media and Join the Companies Winning At It. The book is a step-by-step guide for small and mid-sized businesses that want to find more customers effectively. Get the book:

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Education

Alternative MBAs – The Latest Fad for Anti-Establishment, Uber-Cool Internet Geeks

By Monica O'Brien on December 4th in Education 17 comments

Yesterday, Seth Godin announced he was taking applications for an apprenticeship. And then someone called it an alternative MBA program, not Seth Godin, but I can’t remember who. I am writing about it because I am sure talk of alternative MBA programs will spur more of those silly anti-MBA blog posts by people who aren’t getting MBAs and don’t want you to get one either. (By the way, this is a silly MBA blog post about why you should get an MBA so my MBA actually means something.)

Anyway, I think the concept of alternative MBAs is, well… lame.

Hang on a second – I think I just got mobbed by Seth Godin’s tribe. Picks herself up off the floor, unflattens. Reminds everyone that this post is not about Seth Godin, just about the concept of alternative MBAs. Continues.

But really, who cares what I think? Maybe I am just a bitter Betty because I’ve already shelled out $50 grand at Chicago Booth to study entrepreneurship, and will get hit up for another $50 grand over the next year – all so I can finally hold an ivy league-scented hoity-toity piece of paper with my name on it that declares me officially prepared for the business of running a business. All the while, there are people all around the blogosphere who have shelled out zero dollars, read a bunch of blogs, worked their butts off, and are making millions now.

So what though? All that says is you can be successful without an MBA. Umm… Duh! Nobody is arguing that MBAs are the only successful people in the world. (If they are, they are delusional.) Yet people argue that just because they are moderately successful or even millionaires without having a degree, nobody else should bother getting one. (Two words: intuitive and lucky. Or delusional and crazy. Trust me, one of those two descriptions is basically how all people make millions.)

Bottom line – there is no such thing as getting the “MBA experience” without getting the degree. Unless you went to classes taught by real professors, with real peers to interact with, with actual lectures, with  assigned homework that you were motivated to complete, and you took all the required classes. And then didn’t get the degree.

But wait – that would be a lot more work than reading blogs Monica, and not getting a piece of paper at the end seems really stupid. I know. Just like someone saying he had an experience that he didn’t actually have is really stupid also.

Imagine for a second typing the words “alternative MBA” on your resume, for instance. And then having to explain to a hiring manager that what that entailed was was working for free on some cool projects with this neat guy who writes genius books.

“So, you did an unpaid internship?” she questions, thoughtfully.

“Er. No.” You try to explain in simpler ‘corporate non-blogger’ terms. “It’s like this – I got an MBA, but without actually going to school.”

“You see, I did stuff that you would typically do in an internship, but since I might have learned some stuff that those hoity-toity MBAs learn in graduate school, I call it an alternative MBA.”

Pause. Blink, blink. “But the hoity-toity MBAs did those too. Except they called them unpaid internships.”

You sigh. “But this is what the cool internet kids who are hip with social media do. It’s cheaper, less time-consuming, and a lot less actual work. Kind of like the the 4-Hour Work Week. You know, GTD is my middle name.”

“Umm…I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss gestational trophoblastic disease in an interview… and you do know we work more than 4 hours a week, right? Next!”

Wait. Ridiculous, yes?!

And look – Seth Godin, the king of cool internet people who built great careers on ideas alone, went to Stanford GSB, one of the top 10 business schools in the country, if not the world. I know he writes that he didn’t learn a lot there, but “reinventing” requires learning the traditional ways first, which is why I think getting an MBA is a good idea for people who are serious about changing the world like Seth Godin has.

Apprenticeships like the ones Seth Godin is offering are fantastic for bright, talented candidates as well (and honestly if you are a fanboy of Seth Godin you better jump at this chance) – but let’s face it – the experience could never equal an MBA. Or an alternative MBA. (Eww. I just shuddered. Let’s please banish that phrase and not use it again.)

And maybe you don’t want it to. The MBA experience isn’t for everyone. But if I can be biased once more, without someone hurling The Dip at my head, I must add that while I learned a lot of great stuff working at a startup for six months, I learned at least as much – probably more – about starting a company from my ten week entrepreneurship class this past quarter.

Yeah, really.

Which is why I’m going to begin writing more about my experience getting an MBA on this blog. Starting now, not every blog post, but maybe every few. And then I’m going to go even further, and teach anyone who wants to listen everything you need to know to get an MBA too. If you want to learn more about my mini anti-anti-MBA revolution, subscribe to Twenty Set (for free) today.

Graduating Soon? Here are some Recommended Resources

By Monica O'Brien on April 22nd in Careers 13 comments

Image Source: ykmm85 via FlickR

As school winds down for the year, there is a lot of talk about recession and the prospective job market for graduating seniors. The economy is not the best, but luckily, there is a lot of great expert advice for students looking for jobs or struggling with the quarterlife crisis. I’ll be posting any opportunities or resources I come across in this thread. I encourage others to leave comments of any resources they find as well – I’ll be adding those comments into this post with a link to the recommender’s blog.

Lindsey Pollak is offering free advice to graduating seniors and free professional consulting to those who were planning on working for Bear Stearns and have now had their offers rescinded. She writes:

For any of the 250 undergraduate student with a rescinded job offer from Bear Stearns, I would be happy to provide you with a free 30-minute career counseling session by phone between now and September 1, 2008. For the first 10 students to respond to this offer, I will mail you a free copy of my book, Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World (HarperCollins, 2007).

Get the rest of the details at Lindsey’s blog.

sampleissue2.jpgGen Y personal branding expert Dan Schwabel will be releasing the fourth issue of Personal Branding Magazine on May 1st. For less than 10 bucks, you get 25 articles about personal branding for HR recruiting.Here are some of the highlights:

  • An interview with Robert McGovern, former CEO of CareerBuilder.com and current CEO of a new job board, JobFox, which focuses more on personal branding.
  • An interview with Pamela Slim, blogger and founder of the acclaimed Escape from Cubicle Nation
  • 10 Thought Leaders Speak About the Future of Recruitment – Founders, CEOs, and celebrity bloggers in the HR world answer the question “If you could change one thing about recruitment, what would it be?”
  • 20 Personal Branding Tips to Make Your Career Recession Proof from personal branding consultant Paul Copcutt
  • Two Sides of the Recruiting Story from recruiter Justin Orkin
  • plenty more, including articles from gen Y bloggers Tiffany Monhollon and Adam Salamon

Still not convinced? Download a free 9 page sample of the issue here. You can purchase the magazine here starting May 1st!

Alexandra Levit’s new book just came out – How’d You Score That Gig?: A Guide to the Coolest Jobs-and How to Get Them I got my hands on a copy of the book and plan to give it a full review; but right now I will say if you are looking for your dream job, this book is a great resource to find very cool jobs that are tailored to your personality type.

JT O’Donnell is relaunching her book Careerealism in conjunction with a new website described below:

Launching in late spring, Careerealism.com plans to become the on-line encyclopedia of career options for college grads and young professionals. The site will offer career insights from those in the trenches, fellow twentysomethings, who will relay first-hand what work is really like. Careerealism.com intends to help the more than 15 million individuals seeking degrees in America answer the big question after college, “Now what?” Subscribe today by e-mail and you’ll be invited to the on-line launch party where they will be giving away thousands of dollars in career coaching products and services.

I’m looking forward to JT’s website launch and I will be contributing my own career story to her website. Her book Careerealism will be available on May 1st, but advance purchasers will receive 20% off her Professional Strengths Assessment Package.

Kristen Fischer’s new book is out as well, smartly titled Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life. She says,

“Life after college doesn’t have to be an all-out crisis—it is more so a time of change that can be very beneficial for young adults if they have an idea on what they’re facing.”

This book helps recent graduates:

  • Determine what career path will bring satisfaction
  • Select a job hunting strategy that gets results
  • Decide if graduate school will benefit their career
  • Prioritize work responsibilities with personal commitments
  • Cultivate better relationships with family and friends
  • Organize a living plan—at home or on their own
  • Manage their finances with the future in mind
  • Overcome stress, anxiety or depression

I haven’t read the book yet, but what I like most about it so far are the topics covered span much more than just getting a job. Looks like it will be a great resource for recent grads who feel a little clueless about the transition to adulthood.

Finally, the women at LifeBeforeNoon are doing a series of guest posts about graduation and advice on life afterwards. I am excited to be contributing to their Week of Wisdom, which will start sometime in May.

If you know of any other resources or opportunities for graduating seniors, please leave a comment!

Women MBAs Should Consider Hiring a Cook. Or a Maid. Maybe Even a Nanny.

By Monica O'Brien on April 1st in Careers 3 comments

So everyone I know is going to read the article about higher divorce rates for female MBA’s (Hat Tip: Brazen Careerist) sometime this week and I feel obligated to write about it, even though the numbers in the article will bother me until the study itself is published. Here’s an overview of the study’s claims:

  • Education Level for Females – Divorced or Separated
    • 12% MBAs (business)
    • 10% JDs (law)
    • 9% medical degrees
    • 11% only bachelor’s degrees
  • Education Level for Males – Divorced or Separated
    • 5% MBAs
    • 7% JDs
    • 5.1% medical degrees
    • only bachelor’s degrees not given

The first question I have is the statistical significance between women MBA divorcees (12%) and women w/only undergrad divorcees (11%). The article doesn’t list the details of the study, but there is a range of error for both these percentages due to the sample population. If that value is 1% or more for either (say women MBA divorcees are actually in the range of 10-12%), then comparing the two is moot. What makes these statistics more suspect is that both law and med. female graduates have a lower divorce rate than women with only undergrad degrees.

My second issue is that the author doesn’t compare these stats to all women, and studies show that women with any higher ed. degree are less likely to get divorced than those without.

So if there isn’t much of a difference between undergrad vs. grad degrees, and there is still a huge difference between no degree and any higher ed. degree, then getting a graduate degree is still a fine idea for a woman. Between these two issues, it’s doubtful that getting an MBA as a woman is an automatic marriage death sentence. My gut tells me it has little statistical significance actually; but I guess we’ll see when the study is published.

And yes, I have a third issue. For MBAs, the author fails to mention that the actual number of women and men getting divorced is about the same. With roughly 30% of MBA candidates as women, the number of MBA divorcees is about 7% total, with half men and half women. What’s interesting is in law and med programs, women make up roughly 45-50% of the population, so the disparity is much clearer there; though the gap between women and men is much smaller than with MBA graduates.

Despite disliking the way the study is portrayed, I do think there is some truth to the conclusions the author presented; namely that highly successful women are attracted to similarly successful men but might be better matched with men who have less stressful careers and thus more time to support a high-earning spouse.

This is not representative of all professional “high-earning” women, but every female MBA I know falls into one of two categories: “single” or “serious relationship with highly successful man.” My friends date dentists, lawyers, their fellow MBA candidates, or PhD candidates from other fields. My own husband is going to be an eye doctor.

But this partnership is difficult when trying to run a household, even without kids. My husband and I know we’re being pulled in different directions trying to balance two careers and the possibility of a family in the distant future; so we recently decided we each need to compromise on one thing until we finally meet somewhere in the middle. The first thing I asked of him was that he support my career decisions and trust me to make good financial choices while still following my entrepreneur dreams.

He asked that I cook at least once a week. I’m not joking. Way to waste your three wishes Aladdin.

So that’s the (impossible?) challenge for a woman who wants her dream career: conquer the world, but be home in time to start dinner. Because most men still just want wives who will take care of them the same way their mothers did (Hat Tip: Art of Manliness). And really, I can’t completely blame them, because I sometimes get irritated that I’m the sole breadwinner. It goes both ways.

Will this compromise work for us, or other couples who both want high-powered careers? I have no idea. But when posed the question: do you need an extremely supportive spouse to have a high-powered career as a woman? My answer is a resounding hell yes. I guess the article got something right in the end.

This Way Up: Does the Real World Suck?

By Monica O'Brien on February 28th in Careers 18 comments

Image Source: Lil’ Pete via FlickR

This is part of a recurring series called This Way Up, where I answer questions and give advice to readers and friends.

I received a facebook wall message today from a computer science major a few years younger than me. In it, he wrote:

“Back in June, I made a note about how I didn’t like working full time at my internship and how I was dreading the adult life.. in the note, you left a comment agreeing that being an adult sucks.

Now that a bit more time has passed, what do you think now? The thought of joining the workforce is really stressing me out, and was wondering if there is any comfort knowing it’ll get better?”

I wanted to respond to this on my blog because I think this is a question a lot of soon-to-be graduates face.

There is definitely a period between graduation and the real world that “sucks.” The transition between college life and adulthood is a 1+ year period where many recent graduates get depressed and wonder what they are doing with their lives.

This is completely normal, and here’s why:

I found this website that assigns values for the most stressful life-changing events. Graduating from college isn’t explicitly one of the options, but you can get to it by checking the following: change to a different line of work, major change in finances, changes in responsibility at work, change in residence, change in living condition, change in work hours or responsibilities, change of personal habits, purchase of major items, change in recreational habits, change in social activities, change in sleeping habits, and change in eating habits. You can also throw in mortgage and marriage for many people, but for the average college graduate I won’t include them.

Each of these is what a typical college graduate experiences when entering corporate. Even without marriage or a mortgage, the overall stress score is 277, which is at the high end of the scale (0-300+). Add either a marriage or a mortgage to the equation and you become at a high-risk for stress-related illnesses.  (Edit: Here’s another version of the test at Reader’s Digest.)

Graduating from college is a bigger life-event than most people realize, because of all the other factors that naturally change with it.  Life-changing events require a lot of adjustment time and are bound to cause depression, second-guessing, and confusion.

The good news is you can get through this transition just by being aware that you are in a transition. When I graduated from college I felt like I should be able to figure out my life; but since graduating, I’ve changed jobs, moved, and started a graduate degree – none of which were in my “after-graduation” plan. Two years ago I had no idea I would be here now, but that’s the way life is; just realizing this will take away a lot of the pressure to “know it all” when you graduate.  (Another Edit: I found a website called The Big Transition that is all about transitioning from college to career.  I really like it, and if you’re going through this transition now you probably will too!)

If you are or will soon be a recent college graduate, give yourself a year or two to adjust to adulthood. Don’t see anything you do during this period as a failure, but rather a learning experience. There was a light at the end of the tunnel for me, and I enjoy being an adult now – I can’t see myself ever going back to the college lifestyle.

There is so much more I’d like to write about this, but I think I’ll turn it over to my readers.

If you’ve made this transition from college to adulthood, how would you answer this question?

If you are a junior or senior in college, what other questions do you have?

Forget About Getting a Degree – Get an Experience

By Monica O'Brien on January 31st in Education 16 comments

I was talking to Ryan Paugh (of EE fame) the other day, and we got on the subject of grad school.  He asked, “Why are you getting an MBA?  You should do a start-up.  Start-ups are the new grad school for entrepreneurs.”

Ryan Paugh is great; in fact, both Ryans are cool, at least in my experience.  But they make me laugh because they are doing a start-up without MBA degrees, so it’s hardly a shock they don’t see the value in having one as an entrepreneur.

They are right though – you don’t need an MBA to become an entrepreneur.  In fact, you don’t need an undergraduate degree to become an entrepreneur either, as proven by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  Heck, why even bother graduating from high school?  Ben Casnocha and Emerson Spartz started their businesses in their early teens with great success.  Both even have books out; though I noticed this didn’t stop either of them from doing a few laps of undergrad.

Despite the traces of sarcasm in my tone, here’s my admittedly biased opinion:

Maybe you do need grad school.  Maybe you don’t.  It depends on who you are, what you’ve experienced, and what your goals are.

My goal is to start a business… soon.  But not now, because I’m young and want to enjoy my early/mid twenties with a great social life in a large city.  To me, a business is a huge commitment; something you pour your life and soul into for years before it starts profiting (if it ever profits).  I can’t understand why someone would give up everything else to do that in their early twenties; but who am I to talk, when Ryan thinks it’s crazy I’m married already.  Maybe it’s not about needing guidance or needing help or not having enough passion so much as it is about personal preference.  Maybe we’re talking about the same thing – compromise.

And while an MBA provides great networking, you can also network without it.  Personally, I want to network with as many people as possible; that’s why I started this blog and started grad school.  My online network can’t compare to my grad school network or vice-versa, as they both offer different opportunities I plan to take advantage of in the future.  I choose both though, because I am able to find like-minded people both ways and discuss ideas with them – essentially, I’ve diversified my network portfolio.

Because unfortunately, people in the real world don’t care about how many subscribers your blog has unless you have the real-world skills to match it.  And just having a degree won’t get you hired – people who go for the classes and good grades have hardly any advantage over non-MBAs.  Both blogs and degrees are means, with the end result, the meat of it all, gaining knowledge and lasting connections.

People without degrees will tell you you don’t need a degree.  They have to, don’t they?  Because if they didn’t you would question their authority and credentials.  It’s defense, job security, an issue of personal branding.

People with degrees will give you mixed opinions.  “It helped me when I first graduated, but it doesn’t now.”  “It helped me with what I wanted to do, but it’s not for everyone.”  “It didn’t help me get a job, but I still use the skills every day.”  People with degrees want others to join the club; otherwise their degree loses value.

It’s a confusing mess, so stop listening to everyone else and believing their path is yours.  Know what degrees get you and what they don’t.  Forget about getting a degree; instead, get an experience that will help you reach your goals.  Maybe that’s a degree, maybe it’s a trip abroad, maybe it’s a start-up; only you will know.

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