Graduates From Top MBA Programs Are Struggling To Land Jobs (bloomberg.com) 112
Job placement rates have declined at all top U.S. business schools [non-paywalled source] since 2021, leaving MBA graduates anxious about their expensive degrees' return on investment. Harvard Business School, which produced Wall Street titans like Bill Ackman and Ray Dalio, saw the percentage of graduates without job offers three months post-graduation rise from 4% in 2021 to 15% currently.
Similar trends are evident at Stanford, Chicago Booth, MIT Sloan, and Wharton, where 7% of 2024 graduates lacked offers within three months of completing their programs. Industry experts cited in a Bloomberg report attribute the downturn to tepid white-collar job growth, declining private-sector wages, and high-profile layoffs at companies including Meta and JPMorgan.
Similar trends are evident at Stanford, Chicago Booth, MIT Sloan, and Wharton, where 7% of 2024 graduates lacked offers within three months of completing their programs. Industry experts cited in a Bloomberg report attribute the downturn to tepid white-collar job growth, declining private-sector wages, and high-profile layoffs at companies including Meta and JPMorgan.
Zero Value (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see the world falling over itself for "paradigm shifts" and "buzzword" generators now that we have ChatGPT.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
We are a long ways away from welding being a viable alternative career paths for people with Harvard MBAs. I'm a lawyer, but also a hobbyist welder. Even if I were in the upper echelons of welding skill, I couldn't replace my income with welding. This is the case with most white collar professions. Until welding pays better than the average white collar job, we aren't going to see more people going into trades.
As a final note, beware of stories like "my buddy made $150k as a welder right out of college." Yo
Re: Learn a trade already (Score:3)
Ask if those guys making 150k were in or doing jobs for a union.
Outside of certain specialities like underwater welding, a good number of high-paying welding jobs tend to be union work. Some job sites advertise union positions at 40 an hour.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are making $150k through a union, you are probably very senior. $40 an hour is $80k a year. And unions aren't necessarily easy to get into. I had a conversation with a plumber in NYC who said he made pretty meager wages because he couldn't get into the union. The unions with really good pay/benefit setups tend to guard membership zealously.
Underwater welding is a bit misunderstood. The people who are welding while immersed in water are mostly divers who happen to weld, not welders who can dive. The t
Re: (Score:1)
First the job is given to PHBgpt, so you become a PHBgpt engineer; then PHBgpt is sold to China where AI engineers go for about $15/hr.
Race to the Bottom. Learn a domain and its bullshit, as liars go further.
I contradiction in itself (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with MBA programs, and much contemporary education, is the contradiction that is their very dynamism. Higher Education is not about credentials - it is about humanism (in a broad sense: expanding one's sense of humanity). At least law and medicine, despite their credentialism, are still based on learning the human body, and the idea of natural right. BUt biz school is all about employment, which counters the liberal nature of scholarship (BTW schola is Greek for leisure, the opposite of business, or busy-ness. In Latin, otium means leisure, and negotium means business, i.e. not-leisure.).
This contradiction lead to the expansion, but it is being resolved in contraction. Just like the whole higher ed sphere is discovering.
You cannot be what you are not, which is is the revenge of the principio identitatis.
Depends on the Subject (Score:2)
Higher Education is not about credentials - it is about humanism (in a broad sense: expanding one's sense of humanity).
That depends very much on the subject. In STEM fields the focus is very much on learning the required material to give you an in-depth understanding of your chosen field and the skills needed to learn more. If you are taking physics and can't solve basic E&M, quantum and classical mechanics problems and then use that knoweldge to devise approaches to tackle problems you have not seen before then you are not getting a degree no matter how great your sense of humanity might be.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey look we found the out of work English major. Lots of words without any actual clue to the real world.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My statement is clear. It means that students joined MBA programs to get something that universities don't really offer, and that led to increased enrollments (expansion). But these have shrunk (contracted) as this contradiction between mission and reality became obvious. Yes, I know that this year MBA applications have shot up, but that's in the face of a multi-year decline.
I am getting accused of being an English Major. I am not. Instead, I am a pure research guy, the guy who did not write a thesis to hav
Re: (Score:2)
The name is not the thing.
I think that everything you said about the name is correct (not sure), but not everyone named Theodore loves god.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If the people running this show could read, then what you said would be very insightful. Unfortunately, it is only, "give me more money" without any thought whatsoever. No rationalizing, no concerns for others, just give me give give me. NOW.
Re: (Score:2)
(BTW schola is Greek for leisure, the opposite of business, or busy-ness. In Latin, otium means leisure, and negotium means business, i.e. not-leisure.).
I think that comes more from the fact back then people who worked didn't have the luxury of spending time to study, so it really was leisure pursuit.
Still largely true for most of the world.
Re: (Score:3)
Your argument is essentially circular. You might as well say "Law and Medicine are based on plimitude." That could well be true, depending on how you define "plimitude". The poster is saying that competence in these areas requires a humanistic education.
Now I'm not entirely comfortable with lumping legal and medical education together because I think that the differences between those professions would lead to a lot of pointless quibbling. I think it's more productive to think about each one in turn, bu
Re: (Score:2)
"At least law and medicine, despite their credentialism, are still based on learning the human body, and the idea of natural right"
No.
Law and medicine are based on COMPETENCE.
You did not read what I read. I granted their credentialism. But my point is that, at heart, they are studies of the human condition. You literally cannot define law or medicine as competence, as in that case nothing would distinguish them from one another, or from carpentry. They are are all different crafts with their own material. And, as opposed to wood, the matter of (i) law and (ii) medicine is the human concerned (i) as social and (ii) as an individual body. These aspects are literally their bases. H
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent funnier seasoned with insight or something.
But one of my best friends has an MBA. I actually helped him earn it with some programming support. In FORTRAN, a long time ago.
My joke? I recently asked DeepSeek to evaluate some of my code. Quite an interesting analysis that stopped just short of calling me a FORTRAN programmer working in JavaScript... (The code it was evaluating was actually structured like the stuff I did for the MBA friend. Using an algorithm I may have gotten in HS, but in that cas
Re: (Score:2)
I recently asked DeepSeek to evaluate some of my code. Quite an interesting analysis that stopped just short of calling me a FORTRAN programmer working in JavaScript... (The code it was evaluating was actually structured like the stuff I did for the MBA friend. Using an algorithm I may have gotten in HS, but in that case it was probably in BASIC.)
People often write code in one language using what they learned in another, which usually fails to take advantage of features / idiosyncrasies of the current language. When I graded for an AI class (way back) in University, there were engineers whose LISP code belied their FORTRAN experience -- like 1-6 character, upper-case variable names, starting with I to N for integers, etc... (obsolete conventions now) -- even then, most LISP systems allowed *much* longer, mixed-case variable names, usually with al
Re: (Score:2)
This. Long ago, when I was an undergrad, I remember hearing from our CS tutor that one assignment he graded drove him to write on it: "you're writing a FORTRAN program." One of the objectives of the course was to de-FORTRAN people who had been immersed in it -- far too many, as it turned out.
Re: (Score:2)
They should have had them use Mortran. Possibly Ratfor, but I don't think that would have done as good a job. (ref https://www.osti.gov/biblio/71... [osti.gov] )
Mortran basically eliminated the goto statement, and had many other useful, but strange, features.
Re: (Score:2)
I won't say what language was used in the course, but I can tell you its initials were PL/I.
Re: (Score:2)
Mark me peculiar, but I liked PL/1. Of course, I also liked Mortran. And Snobol was fun.
Re: (Score:2)
I had learned C, then took a Pascal programming course as part of a BS program
The teacher gave me a hard time for not producing pseudo-code first, my reply was that Pascal WAS pseudo-code to me
Re: (Score:2)
A real programmer can write Fortran code in any language.
The source of the joke is that all programming languages have their own unique idioms and features. Some concepts are implemented in many languages, and transfer easily. Others aren't.
Re: Zero Value (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
But the last time I was working in C my code looked rather like Lisp... I remember there was this weird data structure I was using for an experiment in incremental image transmission, and the "natural" (to me) approach involved nested recursion, but going in opposite directions within the nested loops... Perhaps it was a cute bit of code, but I'm "pert' shure" I couldn't reproduce it now.
And a lot of my function names tended to follow Pascal conventions mixed with Lisp conventions... Someone else mentioned
Re: Zero Value (Score:2)
There probably is a large market for an inverse version of chatgpt. Enter an entire transcript of a business meeting and generate the prompts that may result in that conversation.
The AI future might be bright after all.
Re: (Score:2)
There probably is a large market for an inverse version of chatgpt. Enter an entire transcript of a business meeting and generate the prompts that may result in that conversation.
That sounds somewhat like a summarization of text, in this case the meeting transcript. That's something LLMs like ChatGPT have been able to do for awhile.
They'll take you down with them (Score:3, Interesting)
They tend to be wealthy and well connected. They're not gonna eat a bullet, they're gonna start nasty little businesses using the skills they've learned, ones targeted at hurting you for their personal profit.
Those top schools teach them how to run right up against he law with what they do. And now you've got a ton of people with those skills desperate for some quick cash in a count
The UK sees it differently (Score:2)
27th February 2025
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jobs/career-advice/world-class-degrees-unlock-200k-graduates/
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out that author's other articles at The Telegraph. All basically get-rich-quick schemes. She must have an MBA too!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/au... [telegraph.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The UK sees it differently (Score:5, Insightful)
After working in software development for a decade, I gained my MBA
I can assure you that most MBA programs are imbued with propaganda that seeks to support a small wealthy class and business ethics that border on theft
IMO the the current work by DOGE is the ultimate in MBA group think, that kills the very thing they are trying to "make more efficient"...
Because their methods are designed to meet quarterly projects for investors and have nothing to do with "doing the job" they are tasked with (like governing a country, building new products, etc...)
That is why HP went from being a technological leader into a seller of ink for printers, and the US will similarly become a grain exporter instead of leading the work in innovation and good governance
Re: (Score:3)
While I am with you on your reasoning, I also think DOGE already uncovered a list of very questionable practices that nobody in their right mind would be sad to see go out the door.
Personally, I don't know if we have a choice here. It's either cancer surgery with a blunt axe or let it fester and kill the host sooner or later. I'm not sure humanity is currently or any time soon capable of a middle ground.
I've gotten involved with my local church this year. You would NOT believe the egos that need to be strok
Re: (Score:2)
While I am with you on your reasoning, I also think DOGE already uncovered a list of very questionable practices that nobody in their right mind would be sad to see go out the door.
Which ones? The biggest questionable item was the retirement processing. And it's notoriously hard to get right.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't that big enough? That is a problem that should be solvable by a yearly run SQL query, yet here we are.
Re: (Score:3)
An SQL query is only as good as the data. A huge amount of the data is still not in a form that can be queried.
Many of the records involved easily go back 40 years. The solution is not to say "it's broken" - the solution has to both do what is necessary now (for those applying for entitlements [the things they EARNED]) while also fixing it for those that retire in the future.
Like the reforms to the FAA: we need to fix a running engine, not just stop it with no clear plans to restart it immediately.
Re: (Score:2)
And I doubt that they _are_ going to fix it. Likely they'll just digitize the paper, and retain the same workflow. Except now it will be slower.
Re: (Score:2)
So what, because the whole government deals in trillions of dollars, wasting 50 million a year is suddenly not worth fixing?
What?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is called, Cost Benefit Analysis [wikipedia.org] and it is a part of Best Practices [wikipedia.org] that businesses follow, because they are proven to be effective
Sometimes the cost of an action is greater than the benefit, and business do not pursue them.
Businesses also consider the Risk of an action, and weigh that into the CBA [wikipedia.org], and the government operates in many risk-prone situations like insuring the insurers when natural disasters happen.
The social security administration is not the same as an electric car or space launch company
Re: (Score:2)
It's either cancer surgery with a blunt axe or let it fester and kill the host sooner or later.
Given the view outside from the US that seems a pretty apt analogy for DOGE. The problem is that cancer surgery with a blunt axe is likely to kill the patient a lot faster than letting the cancer fester while figuring out a less drastic alternative. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease.
Re: (Score:2)
Where the analogy falls apart is in the fact that a government isn't exactly an organism. Especially one of this size is very resilient.
It would also depend on the cancer. Skin cancer or breast cancer could work ;)
Re:The UK sees it differently (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to beat the analogy to death
Surgery is a horrible way to treat cancer, tuning the immune system is becoming the preferred method of eliminating cancer
The US Government has it's own immune system, made up of Inspector Generals in each department, which identify and eliminate waste
One of the first things DOGE did, was remove all Inspector Generals, in which case DOGE behaves more like HIV than anything else I can compare it to
The outcome from there is predictable
Re: The UK sees it differently (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I assume you have evidence for these claims.
Actually no, I don't.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't care. They will cash out and then move on to other countries to exploit.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that time will prove most of the DOGE cost cuts to be grossly overstated
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Absolutely. So far all I've seen doge do is actually increasing costs. Closing offices, firing, then re-hiring. Oh sorry we got that wrong. And all they are playing with is still small change. Musk's dream is to take social security away, and reclaim all that money for his own purposes (take it to himself through spaceX, tesla, and others I assume).
When it's all over the cost to the next administration to repair the damage and make government actually function again will likely bankrupt the nation. A
Re: (Score:3)
Your sentiments are confirmable when I run into gangs of MBA students (Kellog mainly) on the train. They can't just sit down and ride the train, they have to coalesce in groups to continue babbling about the exciting work opportunities they'll have once they graduate even though they're on the "quiet cars" where actual workers sit because they want some peace for the duration of a train ride.
One guy tells everyone to wait to activate their train tickets until the conductor comes to check. That way, if the c
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot used to be where the clever guys posted.
Re: (Score:2)
HP was one of the pre-eminent companies in digital technology and supporting tools, they only got into the printer game relatively recently
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Never understood how business is a major (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Gotta play devil's advocate for a second and say "Computer science isn't a programming language" or "Chemistry isn't a drug anyone sells"
There is such a thing a high-level concept that has recurring value beyond it's immediate application. Now, that's not to say business school teaches any useful high-level concepts. My observation has been it is pure credentialism, "We can't let COMMONERS run our department, we need the elite" on the part of higher executives, with no concern whatsoever for what functi
Re: Never understood how business is a major (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are willing to group all non-human animals under one professional there.
Re: (Score:2)
This.
Most MBAs I've come across have an undergraduate degree in something. In my area of work, it tended to be engineering. So, the worst that's going to happen to them is that they have to find jobs as plain old engineers. And give up that fantasy of a climb up the management ladder to the CEO position.
How sad.
Re: (Score:2)
Most MBAs I've come across have an undergraduate degree in something. In my area of work, it tended to be engineering. So, the worst that's going to happen to them is that they have to find jobs as plain old engineers.
I would think an MBA is something you do after working in the field for a while. That was my plan until I realized I'm not cut out for management.
Re: (Score:3)
I realized I was not cut out for management during the 'kill the bunny' exercise, where they force you to rif an employee for not real cause, just to prove that you are willing to do it
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
'kill the bunny' exercise, where they force you to rif an employee for not real cause
So, rif the instructor.
Re: (Score:2)
This exercise happened where I was employed as a software development manager over a great team that I, nor the company had any reason to RIF
The instructor was a "consultant", like The Bobs, who was just there to reduce head count
Re: (Score:2)
Specifically, this article is about the MBA degree, which is about business *administration.* That is indeed a specific part of what a business does, that is common to all businesses. They *all* need sound administration. It's possible to use the principles across many business types.
Now, the question here is, does one need a master's degree to properly administer a business? No, not sure it does.
"Hey, Nerd Herd, bizbros are hurting right now." (Score:3)
Everyone is struggling to land jobs (Score:2)
nt
Who'd a thunk (Score:3)
Seems appropriate that useless "efficiency experts" would be the first to go.
Re: Who'd a thunk (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Modern MBAs are much more than efficiency experts. Modern business is all about how to make the most money in a quarter regardless if the company survives for a year. Take Intel for example. They spent $100 billion on buying their own stocks back over a decade. They didn't bother to invest in research and AMD started beating them easily. R&D costs yield no gains in a quarter therefor they are pointless.
Red Lobster is another good one. They were bought by an investment firm and instead of trying to make
Re: (Score:2)
Real efficiency experts are worthwhile. They are also very scarce. (I probably didn't put that strongly enough.)
Calling someone an efficiency expert doesn't make him one.
Peak slashdot dupe! Highscore! (Score:2)
Not only is this a dupe from a few weeks back, I think it even has the exact same wording in the title. Not sure if I've ever seen that in my 25 years on slashdot.
To be fair, ever since Firehose dupes have gotten less, I'll give them that.
Halle-bloody-llujah (Score:2, Insightful)
They can all go find jobs as greeters at Home Despot or Walmart.
They've fucked up the economy, driven businesses out of business, because a) they have no ethics; b) outsource everything (so that employees can't join unions (what did you *think* that was about?)); long term planning is next quarter;, and who cares about the products or service the company's allegedly providing, it's only about ROI, and transferring money from the suckers, er, customers to us.
MBA is out (Score:3)
Evolve and learn or die!
Re: (Score:1)
They'd then be hired as an entry-level IT person, not as a manager. Analyzing a company you know shit about is usually useless. I've been asked to extract stats from multiple companies I contracted at, but they were often close to useless on the first few passes because I didn't understand the domain.
Thus, might as a well get a direct degree in data analytics so that you at least get a better start by havi
Good (Score:2)
MBAs are like hipsters: they ruin everything.
Learn to code.
Simple fix: (Score:5, Funny)
They just need to increase team synergy via productivity oriented innovation envisionment by leveraging cutting edge staff participation that aligns with the company's pro-growth goals.
Re: (Score:2)
MBA means? (Score:2)
Ex GF had an MBA from the U of Washington.
I learned that MBA meant Mediocre But Arrogant.
Re: (Score:2)
In the U.S. Higher Education System (Score:2)
Political uncertainty makes business hesitant (Score:2, Offtopic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/id... [theatlantic.com]
Tariffs, government downsizing, immigrant deportation, cuts in research grants, and more, all threaten wide sectors of business including farming, tech, food, software, consumer spending, etc. Business does not like uncertainty, and it is not fun to fire people you just hired.
Re: Political uncertainty makes business hesitant (Score:2, Offtopic)
Probably an unpopular take, but... (Score:3)
Good.
We need to rid ourselves of the rot economy and get back to making things people want rather than focusing on number go up.
Re: (Score:2)
I completely agree.
Should have (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Should have (Score:3)
And also flood the trades with mediocre talent like what happened with CS? Good way to depress wages and craftsmanship across the board.
Gripes aside, despite common perception many trades are not easy to get into, let alone succeed in. Be it plumber, electrician, or welder these are physically demanding jobs where pay is not always the best and work conditions far from ideal for human health and safety.
This is not to say we do not need these jobs nor should we dissuade people who are serious about getting i
Re:Should have (Score:4, Interesting)
Go back and get them to do this 8 years ago? Just looked it up- in Texas at least, you need 4000 hours of experience as an apprentice to get a tradesman license, 8000 additional hours to get a journeyman's license, and 8000 more hours to get a master plumber's license. You can become a physician in that time. Yeah, as an apprentice, you do get paid, but you're also doing the carpiest jobs available.
Still, the hours are actual work hours- in the trades, few are actually employed 2000 hr/year. It is all hourly.
Over on reddit, I saw another post that mentioned to become a journeyman plumber, it takes 10,000 work hours, and 1000 classroom hours.
Guilty of schadenfreude (Score:2)
Place your bets (Score:2)
I would bet the increase in percent of graduates without job offers will grow until it matches the percentage of graduates who aren't from influential families.
"Top MBA" = "bottom everything else" (Score:2)
These people are good at destroying value, not at creating it. And at least part of the market has woken up to that.
oh the irony it burns (Score:2)
Good. (Score:2)
There's too fucking many and most that I've met are worthless.
See if they learned supply and demand, shall we?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. Excellent.
The less MBAs an organization has, the better.
So many great companies destroyed by them. GE, Boeing, Intel come to mind.
Supply & demand (Score:1)
Maybe the increase is due to DEI? (Score:2)
According to the TFA, rates of not getting hired went from 4% to 15% from the top MBA schools over the last few years.
One thing I have noticed when interviewing candidates recently, is that there are now grads from "good schools" who obviously during the interviewing process, are not even minimally qualified for any MBA job (or any other professional job) at all.
These candidates have been almost without exception minorities (except east Asian) or "immigrants" (illegal or otherwise, as places like California
why hire an MBA (Score:2)
If the economy is in the toilet, consumer spensing is down, and business expansion is increasingly unlikely.
Biz reaction to antisemitism in "top schools" (Score:2)
Some of this is big businesses' reaction to the antisemitic disruptions in the so-called "top schools". A number of companies have decided to no longer hire the graduates of many of the ivy league schools which have condoned or even supported the anti-jewish intimidation and violence of the allegedly pro-palestinian protests.