How to know if business school is right for you
DO NOT GET AN MBA If This Is You!
Timecodes:
last week we talked about the three
types of people who should get an mba
well guess what now i'm gonna tell you
if you're one of the shouldn'ts
i'm angela guido the founder of career
protocol and you've landed on mba monday
every week on this channel right here
i am talking about how to apply to
business school and how to do it in a
logical painless
and
slightly more intelligent way
than some of the other advice you might
find on the internets
today we're talking about
are you someone who maybe shouldn't
pursue an mba
here we are we're talking about
should you not
apply to business school the decision to
apply to business school is ultimately a
really personal decision and it's up to
you to look inside yourself and make the
choice that's right for you because
there is no one-size-fits-all approach
there is no binary answer to any
question in the world ever about should
or shouldn't it just really depends on
you so today i'm going to talk about the
three kinds of people the three
categories of candidates
where when they come into my free mba
strategy calls i try to talk them out of
applying to business school or if i
don't try to talk them out of it i give
them a ton of advice of things they need
to do before ultimately making this
ultimately making the decision about
whether or not they're going to go ahead
and apply
the first category of mba shouldn'ts
are
the clueless
that's not the kindest way to refer to
it we're all doing our best right
so wherever you started your career
maybe you made a good choice
maybe looking back you would do it
differently
but in the first four five or six years
of our career we're all doing the very
best that we can do and we've only had
the experiences that we've had so
there's a whole universe of
opportunities that you know nothing
about because you've only got one life
and you're doing the things that you're
doing but if you're like a lot of people
who are looking at the mba as their next
step
you're in the category of people who you
don't really know what you want you just
know what you don't want and what you
don't want is what you're doing
right now
the mba is actually really good for that
in my last video i talked about how it
can help you make a very radical pivot
from something you don't like to
something that you do like
but it's really important to know
what you want out of business school if
you enter the mba application process
sort of drifting hoping that the mba is
going to give you a sense of purpose
that it's going to give you time to
contemplate what you want to do post mba
and find your passion or that it's going
to magically shuttle you into a job that
you love more than the job that you love
now without you doing the work to figure
out what you genuinely love
you are in for a very rude awakening
post mba you're going to spend all that
money and you're going to end up in a
post mba job that you don't love any
more than the job you have now you're
just deeper in debt so if you're looking
at the mba as
an escape route
from a career that you're not satisfied
with i'm not saying don't apply i'm
saying don't apply yet
think about what you really want
hire a career coach do some work to
figure out where you want to go in your
career and answer that question
independent of the mba really look at
what are your skills what are your
strengths what are your values what's
the impact that you want to have and
then see if you can formulate a career
game plan
and then ask yourself does the mba help
me fulfill this career game plan faster
or in a way that i couldn't without an
mba if the answer is yes then go for the
mba but for many people the answer is
not really not really you don't need an
mba to do most jobs not even most jobs
in business so do that hard work of
looking at what you want before you
embark on your application journey trust
me you will be glad you did not only
because you'll save yourself time money
and effort but because your application
will be that much stronger
the second category of person who
shouldn't get an mba is really closely
related to the first and i'm gonna call
this the people who want the mba to do
it to you
it's like you wanna
change
you wanna be a better leader you wanna
make more money and have more influence
and you're hoping that the mba is going
to be a magic wand that will transform
you into a great leader as elon musk put
it it will allow you to parachute in and
run a business post-mba of course the
mba doesn't really work that way in fact
the mba doesn't solve many problems in
fact it creates more you got a lot more
debt and you're still going to have to
work your way up you're still going to
have to build a network you're still
going to have to earn the right to lead
so if you're hoping that the mba is
going to magically transform you into a
better business person or a better
leader it's not really going to do that
ultimately the hard work is still going
to rest on your shoulders but you're
going to be saddled with a lot more debt
while you're doing it so if you're
hoping that the mba is going to
magically change your career i'm going
to go back to the advice i gave to
category one which is
do that work now figure out exactly how
do you need to grow to achieve what you
want to achieve in your career this
speaks to having a direction having a
sense
of where you want to head you don't have
to know
the job title or the company or even the
function in industry that you want to go
into but you do need to identify what do
i want to be doing
what are the pieces that i need in my
day-to-day work life and in the long
term to actually be happy at work
and then
go after those
right now if the mba is going to help
you get there that will become a parent
and you can apply for business school at
that time but if you're not already
taking action to
actualize and to become the person that
you want to be post mba the mba probably
isn't going to help so do that work
first all right the third type of person
who probably shouldn't apply to business
school is what i call the overnight
entrepreneur
this is someone who again
they don't love their work and when i
probe deeply
on
what they don't love about their work it
often comes down to the fact that they
just lost
the boss lottery they got a bad boss
they got someone who's micromanaging
them who's telling them what to do who
isn't giving them the chance to express
themselves and to be creative and to own
their work and so the remedy for that is
to become an entrepreneur or
alternatively
uh they have like an area of passion
something that they really care about
maybe they believe in the importance of
education and so they want to start an
edtech company but they've never worked
in education or tech they just have this
passion that they care about but with no
track record yet of doing anything in
that space these are two flavors of the
overnight entrepreneur but basically
what it amounts to is
not having really thought through
what you really want in your career
you're still
moving away from something that you
don't want or moving towards some
nebulous vision that doesn't have any
pragmatic reality to it
both of these scenarios are not just
situations for big disappointment post
mba but there are also situations for
crappy mba essays the admissions
committee is really good at vetting your
goals they can tell if you've done the
work to develop the self-knowledge so
that when you say what you want to do it
has heart behind it and it has
credibility it has gravitas even if
you're trying to make a major pivot
there's a way to do it in a way that
makes you seem credible and reasonable
and there's a way to do it in a way that
makes you seem like you don't really
know what you want you're just throwing
darts at the board and frequently people
who say they want to go into
entrepreneurship post mba fall into this
category because entrepreneurship
is an entirely different animal
the mba frankly isn't the best
preparation
for what most of us mean when we talk
about starting a business when you're
starting a business you're going from
zero to ten not from a hundred to a
thousand growing a company from a
hundred to a thousand is a completely
different challenge than going from zero
to ten or zero to a hundred going from
zero to ten is guerrilla warfare it's
about staying up all night it's about
eating
ramen while you're building things
it's about
being crafty innovative resourceful it's
not about corporate strategy and
marketing it's about being in the
trenches rolling up your sleeves and
doing really hard work
the mba doesn't help with that frankly
like all that helps with that is
intention and hard work and just
basically never giving up
so when i talk to people who want to go
into entrepreneurship post mba my most
frequent advice is
don't go to business school take out a
business loan for that amount of money
and just start the company now just make
it happen if you really have something
that you want to bring into the world go
do it you don't need an mba for that and
in fact an mba might just slow you down
that doesn't mean that you can't go into
entrepreneurship post mba it also
doesn't mean you can't talk about
wanting to go into entrepreneurship post
mba it just means that if you're going
to do that
the plan has to have teeth it has to be
credible meaning you have to have either
an idea or you have to have some kind of
track record already of entrepreneurship
you have to have started something on
the side you have to have created a club
at least maybe it's not a company but
you started a club you started an
organization you started a non-profit
you've gotten your feet wet in what it
takes to get something off the ground
from zero if that's your situation
then by all means
consider an mba as an accelerator for
your own sense of entrepreneurship so
frequently in some cases it's still not
the right call the most important thing
though is to know
what you want and to talk about it with
credibility and authority in your mba
applications
if you can't do that then you're not
ready to apply
so be sure to watch
all of the videos we have on developing
your career game plan and if you want to
talk to us
about working together
to build that career game plan you can
request a call anytime the link is down
below in the description
the whole reason nba monday exists is
because we we i genuinely care
about whether or not you achieve your
career dreams about whether you achieve
your potential and give everything that
you've got to give in this life through
your career i genuinely care about that
the mba is one
pathway to doing that which is great for
some people but not for everyone so
whether the mba is right for you i'm
rooting for you to get everything that
you want in your career
come back next week and we'll talk more
about nba stuff
bye
the awkward outro is just gonna have to
be a thing i mean it's already in half
of our videos
[Music]
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