The value of an MBA....

[JR8]

I think it goes with the culture.

Things go bad? They can always go back home and live with mummy and daddy.

There seems much less drive/need between the career-forming years of say 18-25 to go out there and make it for yourself (or else!)

[sundaymorningstaple]

ZZM, you have to admit though, some of the ones we get sound like they were crafted by Shakespeare himself using the most flowery archaic English you could every imagine. Most saying absolutely nothing at all except that they know how to use a Thesaurus and have a masters from some 'reputed' university that nobody in the rest of the world has ever heard of.

The rest? Atrocious English spelling, grammar & punctuation (mostly local). Don't they realize that a one page CV is not 3 pages long but shorted by using sms style texting, is just not very professional at all.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I think it goes with the culture.

Things go bad? They can always go back home and live with mummy and daddy.

There seems much less drive/need between the career-forming years of say 18-25 to go out there and make it for yourself (or else!)

There was a time when I would have readily agreed with that, but now, even in the US, kids stay at home so long that the parents are going crazy.

[JR8]

Generation-E

E for entitlement.



p.s. Gen-E v real world = kaboom!

[the lynx]

As one who was a headhunter and now an HR Manager, the problem, as I see it, is that local graduates come out of school with an entitlement complex demanding salaries equivalent to someone with 5 years experience (local - not expatriate). They use the same approach as the local recruiters do. We call it the shotgun method. They fire off their CV's to all and sundry (as do most in the world today) rather than targeting the company with a specifically crafted CV, but if/when they actually get an interview, the first thing they want to know is how much is the salary, rather than worry more about getting their foot in the door and showing the company what they are made of. But, the law of averages will find them getting a job that they will not stay at for more than a year or two at best. So then you see CV's with reasons for leaving like "change of environment" or "left for better opportunity" but 3 or 4 months or more between jobs and the next job exactly like the last including the same or even less salary as each succeeding HR Exec sees the same crap so offers them even less - take it or leave it.

As someone from that particular generation, even I myself am appalled by the entitlement complex that my fellow graduates throw around when they do job-hunting.

When I was in my previous work, I was tasked to find my replacement. I sought after my former lab mates/course mates and half of them demanded twice my leaving salary and the very same title I had (I was in managerial role that time). The group was the the same group who submitted to my hand poor CVs with atrocious English, 3-4 pages long and boasted of redundant info AND never stayed in the same job for more than 6 months since we graduated together (while I remained in my first job since I graduated).

Don't they know how hard people work from bottom up?

[morenangpinay]

i think for the new grads they tend to ask high salaries because they have this list in their head, iphone, ipad, travel overseas, car, house...which they expect they will be able to afford once they have a job. I read this complaint all the time in the foreigner related articles of yahoo, the local is a fresh grad and finds out the boss hired the other applicant who is a foreigner with experience. Local expect he should be hired because he graduated from Singapore's "high quality education" while the foreigner came from probably South East Asia which he perceives has lower education standards.



What I also noticed in Singapore is that everybody is a manager even when they don't have a staff to manage.

[zzm9980]

What I also noticed in Singapore is that everybody is a manager even when they don't have a staff to manage.

I was told by my previous manager here in Singapore it is extremely difficult to find highly skilled individual contributor candidates for advanced roles in Singapore, because everyone with 3-5 years experience expects to be made management, and won't apply for the technical roles that require 7-10 years experience. Even if they pay more.

Funny enough, I met a former manager from this former company recently. We were chatting about random gripes, one of the things that came up were what he thought were salary caps on various job grades. He was telling me how grade XX never gets more than $&&k per yer, no matter what, it's an HR cap. I told him "funny, that's the grade i was and I wouldn't have qualified for the EP P1 I have if that were true." That shut him up

[BillyB]

What are the conclusions? That an MBA is generally a waste of time, or something that adds value?

[nakatago]

EDIT: posted on wrong thread

[sundaymorningstaple]

Nak, what's that got to do with MBAs?

[BillyB]

Having gay friends who are out for years, I think I have acquired gaydar...and boy, there are a lot of gay men out there who are obviously in denial just because gahmen say cannot!

That is seriously OT!

[the lynx]

I think he posted in wrong thread!

http://forum.singaporeexpats.com/ftopic89051.html&highlight=

[nakatago]

Corrected...

Anyway, I had a friend who posed this question:

"Who would you rather hire? Someone who had years of experience administering a business and because of it, knows what and what not to do but no degree or someone who just learned things from books and from someone teaching who has no first-hand experience what he's teaching?"

MBAs can add value but it should be from the proper perspective. A lot of people think they can just get by with labels ("prestigious university," "in an MNC"). It's also the fault of the institutions for over marketing the value of their MBA.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Spot on.

[x9200]

Corrected...

Anyway, I had a friend who posed this question:

"Who would you rather hire? Someone who had years of experience administering a business and because of it, knows what and what not to do but no degree or someone who just learned things from books and from someone teaching who has no first-hand experience what he's teaching?"

I would hire somebody with MBA and years of experience. Your friend different, huh.