Is A One-Year MBA Worth It?

Jullien Gordon

The Value of Recruiters: “Avoid on-campus recruiting. It creates career tunnel vision and the time line is screwed up. Have you ever been in a crowd an experienced everyone just start running. You’re not sure why people are running, but you figure that you better run too. That’s exactly what on-campus recruiting is. Just because the companies are ready to hire doesn’t mean you’re ready to be hired. A successful on-campus recruiting season is not measured by the number of offers you get. It’s actually measured by how FEW interviews it takes for you to find your fit. Since business schoolers like to golf, you understand that hole-in-ones are better than bogies. There are more jobs in the world where you could create (and capture) extreme value than the limited number of ones that come to campus. Get off campus and go find them.

Don’t be recruited by a company. They will never know you the way you know you. All they are really looking for is a huge ball of clay talent to mold. You can try to fit in, but you are who you are. Therefore, recruit the company you want. Find the company that will fit you by thoroughly researching opportunities (usually off-campus). I would recruit like an archer instead of machine gun. Rather than shooting everywhere hoping something hits, I would take my time, take aim, and release. You save a lot of rejection, inauthentic conversations, and stress that way. When I went to business school, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. When I failed to position myself as an entrepreneur post-MBA due to some poor leadership choices, product delays, and lack of funding, I knew myself so well that I interviewed with one company and got the job.”

The Value of Business School: “Business school is simply a space for you [to] find yourself and what you love if you choose. Most people come to business school or grad school in general to hide out for two years because they hated their previous job and don’t know what they want to do yet. Everyone is hoping that business school will help them find IT, but in reality, they must find IT using business as a time and tool…The problem is that grad school buys you more time, but it doesn’t guarantee self-discovery. Most people graduate from grad [school] with a masters degree but no mastery of self. If you know who you are and what you have to offer, you will always be able to find a place to fit and a way to contribute and create value. If you simply know your options, but don’t know who you are, the likelihood of you finding a fit is a shot in the dark.”

Declare Your Greatness: “…you can be great at anything so why not get great at the thing that you want to be great at. Declare what you are committed to being the world’s greatest at. As talented as MBAs are, if I asked everyone in this room the question, “What is the one thing you are committed to being the world’s greatest at?” many people wouldn’t have an answer. We’ve become comfortable with “good enough”. We were good enough to get into b-school. We were good enough to get that grade or GMAT score. We were good enough to get that job or internship. But what are you great enough to do?”

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Source: Linkedin