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Comment by kkwteh | Hacker News Reader

That 30% MBA unemployment figure is much more striking to me than the article. Any thoughts as to why your friends can't find jobs? Where were they planning on working?

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My guess is that they got their MBA from lower tier university. One of the dirty secrets of MBA programs is that only MBA's from top tier schools (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, etc.) have significant positive value. The ones from the 2nd tier MBA programs might be worth what they cost if you have reasonable industry experience prior to going for it. Other MBA programs are about as valuable as an undergrad degree in "business". Note, I'm not commenting on the quality of education -- I'm sure many less prestigious MBA programs provide a great education. I know this sounds harsh and insensitive, but from my experience, it is the way it is.

I got an MBA (not from a top school) back in 2010. It has not changed the trajectory of my career in any way as far as I can tell.

I'm a 39 year old Senior Software Engineer. My BS in Computer Science has done much more for me, obviously. In fact, sometimes I forget that I have an MBA until someone corrects me when I fail to mention having a Master's degree, or calls me out for saying something derogatory about people with MBAs :)

These are areas like: Data analysis (low-level stuff, like excel, MySQL stuff, etc), Product managements, Project management, etc. Location: bay area. One guy, spent 2-3 years looking for a job before he finally found something in slimy real-estate firm that makes him work day and night and weekends. Some of them are going back for another degree because they couldn't find work and their visa is running out. Another one, just finished a 2 yr contract at facebook and is having trouble finding work (they don't reknew contracts there). Another guy I know, spent 18 months looking for a job before he finally got a contract job at Google.

And yes, these people didn't go to stanford, harverd or any top tier business school.

Many of the executive producers and product managers I knew at gaming companies had to leave the bay area in order to find jobs in that industry, some of them are still unemployed after a couple years. some of them (especially the high level ones) start their own "consulting business" to prevent their linkedIn from looking like they're unemployed. everything looks great from the surface and they don't show up on statistics as unemployed, but things aren't rosy.

It's an anecdotal comment that treats "MBA" as some sort of discernible bucket. Don't call it a striking figure when it's a guess based on a single qualitative observation.

Unfiltered anecdotal comments are often much richer than the kind of piece that makes it through the editorial process of a large publication like Bloomberg. That's not to say I don't take it with a grain of salt.

> Anecdotally

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