OUT OF LEHMAN: Quitting your job to do an MBA may be the worst career move ever
Are you in a job and going nowhere? Consider yourself lucky. Quitting a job to do an MBA in the current market, particularly one of the accelerated MBA programmes which the Wall Street Journal appears so keen on, is a very stupid thing to do.
While you will learn new skills, and graduate with a better chance of being recruited, the MBA is an expensive and intense experience. Before you take the plunge think carefully whether your already beaten-down morale can handle the worst case scenario - graduating jobless and heavily in debt.
A good friend of mine used to work as a product manager in a FMCG company. Frustrated with her job, she applied and got admitted in one of Europe's Top 3 business schools. She quit her company and joined the program in Sep 2008. She graduated last month and her timing couldn't have been worse. Her ex-employer has a hiring freeze; recruitment on campus was down to a trickle and her hopes of becoming a management consultant are all but over.
Even when the times were good, landing a career triple jump (switching industry, role and location) was tricky. In this job market recruiters are less inclined to take the leap of faith. If you are keen to switch careers, make sure you put in a long internship stint - it will do wonders to your chances of landing a full time offer.
In times like these, therefore, if an MBA makes sense at all, a two year MBA programme will be best. It may be more expensive, but unless you are really good at predicting when the economy will recover, in which case you case you stand to gain much more by investing in the markets, the two year program will give you a little more time to find that right job. Opportunity cost is still low (compared to the boom years) and the summer internship will give you the chance to test your career preferences.
A two year MBA will also give you more time to network. A 100-hour work week in the accelerated program doesn't leave you with much time to socialize. The two year program gives you the time to build a strong network of friends to lean on when the times are bad. In the last eight months, I have switched two jobs. The leads for both came through my business school classmates.
Think wisely and don't be in a hurry. An MBA is not necessarily the key to a six figure income and life at the top of the executive food chain. In the worst case scenario, it may simply leave you shackled with debt.
