Are MBAs for losers?

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If you decide to return to school to gain an MBA, it seems like a declaration of ambition to grow. But Penelope Trunk views it differently: An admission you are failing at your work.

With admission deadlines for many schools coming up, she urges you to withdraw your application or stop working on it.

“Because you should not go to business school. If you want to start a company, you should start a company. And if you want to climb the corporate ladder you should do that. An MBA does not help you with either of those goals,” the provocative careers blogger insists.

For many people, the MBA is a path to middle management. But she argues if you’re a strong performer you’ll get into middle management faster by working than taking two years off for studies. And if you think you need to go to MBA school to become an entrepreneur, she says you’re clearly not cut out to be one.

She sketches out various types of performers who take MBAs, including:

People who work with morons: After all, if you were working with talented people they would want you to stay alongside them. “If you are due for a promotion and your boss says you need an MBA to move up, your first thought should be ‘My company sucks.’ Because an MBA doesn’t teach you anything you can’t learn on the job or teach yourself as needed. If you absolutely have to get an MBA to move up at your company then get a mail-order MBA from a terrible school that requires very little effort,” she writes.

People who can’t close in the job chase: They hate job hunting, so they hope the MBA will land them a new job, almost automatically. But life and work is about learning to sell yourself and your wares. So get on with that directly. “The school won’t sell you – you’ll still have to sell yourself. Nothing changes except that you are older and you have more school loans,” she says.

People who are uncoachable: People who can’t take advice from top performers may need an MBA school to compensate. Coachable people get great advice from top-performing colleagues and don’t need to waste time at MBA classes.

Getting to the top is a race. And in this one, the tortoise who takes a break at MBA school loses in her estimation.

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