A few years ago I was looking to get back into the corporate world after running my own business for 14 years.
Prior to running my own business I was a fairly high level VP for a regional bank. Prior to that I ran large operations for a very large cable TV company.
I am not writing that to “brag”—but just to say that I had done alright at a pretty young age.
So, I go to this interview and one of the youngish HR folks says, “We like your history, but we need to know: Why didn’t you get your MBA? We would expect people in this role to have an MBA.”
I just looked at her and said that when I was young, I kept getting promoted and did not have time.
Then I got to the higher levels of the companies and my “expertise” was not an MBA subject, so it didn’t make sense.
Then I had kids and I had no time.
Then I started my own business....and I really had no time. I mean...I made the company several million more dollars a year—every year. They never asked...it didn’t seem like it was needed....”
And then a few years ago....I went to work in healthcare. I would notice everyone had their “credentials” listed on their email signature. I would see these non-physicians put things like their Associates Degree under their names.
I was told I wasn’t qualified for a Billing Manaqer’s job in the Health System because I did not have an MBA. I had managed the billing operations/collections/service for a CATV company in the same area for a decade. I told the President that when he drove home tonight...leaving the city and crossing a state line 35 miles away to look at every home. And then drive east for 40 miles...and look at every home that way.
Then I told him that I sent bills to 8 out of 10 of those homes. Every month. For ten years.
He just mumbled and said something about the requirements from “Corporate.”
Folks put so much emphasis on getting a Masters...it’s scary. It’s almost worse than trying to convince every high schooler that they need to go to college. And the worst thing...the Master’s students believe the BS.
In the west, education is followed blindly like nationalism in China or religion in the Middle East. The professor or masters degreed person is equivalent to the ayatollah or imam in a Muslim country.