Don't Pay for Your MBA: The Faster, Cheaper, Better Way to Get the Business Education You Need

by Laurie Pickard

  I would not be doing my job as your MOOC MBA Adviser if I did not say that there’s nothing wrong with signing up for a traditional MBA education, provided you have done your due diligence. In Chapter 1 we talked about Explorers who seek to take the MBA for a test-drive. Some of these Explorers conclude that they really should buy the car (i.e., take the traditional route to an MBA). For example, Jessamine, who started her career in book publishing, decided through the course of her independent business studies that she wanted to go into management consulting and work her way into upper-level management at a large company. Her research into the companies and roles on her short list convinced her that only an old-fashioned master’s degree would make the transition possible. She used what she had learned in a MOOC on financial valuation to determine that a one-year European MBA program would yield a positive return within a two-or three-year time horizon. If you find, as a result of all of your studies, personal reflection, and research, that an MBA degree is your best bet, go for it.

  Demonstrate Thought Leadership

  You can powerfully strengthen your personal brand by demonstrating “thought leadership.” Thought leaders gain respect by taking a fresh and often unexpected perspective on a particular subject. You don’t need to be a household name to be a thought leader (though the most successful thought leaders often do become famous). As professor Barbara Oakley points out in the MOOC course Learning How to Learn, new insights in science and other fields often come from people who are new to the discipline, including both young people and people initially trained in some other subject.

  You may never have heard of Roger Connors, but he spent twenty-five years establishing himself as the number-one thought leader on the subject of accountability. Author of the New York Times bestseller The Oz Principle, he founded Partners in Leadership, a global consulting company that has trained over a million people to take accountability for results. Whether or not you shoot for fame, I recommend that you develop at least a modest catalog of material that makes your expertise visible to the world. The easiest way to start sharing your ideas and expertise is by blogging. If you don’t want to set up your own website, consider using Medium, a blogging platform specifically designed to house thought leadership pieces. LinkedIn offers another good option for sharing your thoughts easily and quickly. While you might want to repost any articles you write to Facebook and other social media sites, I do not recommend Facebook as a primary outlet for sharing your thoughts. Facebook does not lend itself to building a catalog of articles for perusal by current or prospective employers or potential investors. (Not to mention, you probably do not want people you hope to impress professionally digging deep into your personal account.)

  Before you hit “publish,” keep in mind that even Hemingway needed a good editor. The number-one enemy of self-publishing is poor quality. You can learn to serve as your own editor, or you can ask a friend or colleague to lend you her expertise with the English language. Do not rely solely on autocorrect and spell-checkers to catch embarrassing mistakes, egregious spelling and grammar errors, or logical lapses. I once posted a blog article titled “5 Reasons I’m Okay with Not Getting a Degree.” Soon after the post went live, a reader responded, “I think you left out a key word in point number 3.” Turns out I had written, “The content of an MBA is valuable with or with the degree,” rather than “with or without the degree.”

  If you enjoy blogging, you might expand your thought leadership strategy into other media, such as podcasting, writing articles for external publications, or curating content through social media. You might also take a look at Karen Nelson-Field’s book Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing. It and other books on the subject show you how to think and act as a marketer, reaching more people with messages that are relevant to them. Keep in mind that the way to establish yourself as an authoritative thought leader is to build trust with your audience by consistently providing high-quality, thought-provoking, helpful content.

  Like any successful marketer, you need to carve out a unique, somewhat narrow niche. For example, do not try to become a thought leader on a far-ranging, overcrowded field such as “leadership” or “marketing.” Rather, look for a small subset where you really can become a leading-edge expert on the subject. Roger Connors did it with “accountability,” a distinct subset of “leadership.” When Joris started blogging, he drew on his unique experience with MOOCs, his interest in business strategy, and his passion for education. His published articles included such titles as “3 Things I Learned from Completing 60 MOOCs in 10 Months” and “The Future of Education: A School in 2025.” Finding a niche where you can amass knowledge and share meaningful, important, and helpful insight can help you chart your professional path, as discussed in Chapter 5. Look into your heart, tap your passion, and devote time to learning and communicating something new.

  The niche approach also applies to your audience. Do you want to beam your messages to the whole World Wide Web indiscriminately, or can you target a subset that really wants and needs to hear what you have to say? Look for publications in the field where you want to become a thought leader. Post reactions, reviews, and comments that contribute to the discussion of an issue that excites people in that field. Not only will you add value to the conversation, you may gain fans and friends and followers who like and respect your ideas.

  Market, Market, Market

  Luke, a psychiatrist, didn’t begin his MOOC adventure with a career transition in mind. He just wanted to learn a bit about business. However, as he was taking courses on design thinking and entrepreneurship, he fell in love with the idea of customer-centered design. “What would mental health care look like,” he wondered, “if we delivered it from the perspective of the patient, not the pharmaceutical company or even the doctor?” He soon discovered several new companies hard at work answering just that question. Two in particular attracted his attention. Both were developing smartphone apps capable of gathering data, offering customized care recommendations, and connecting patients to experts who could provide on-demand attention. “Yes,” Luke thought, “this can make a huge difference in people’s lives. I would love to work for one of these companies.” But having worked only in big, bureaucratic health systems, he felt unsure about convincing a startup tech company that he would make a valuable hire.

  Luke addressed that issue by overhauling his LinkedIn profile to emphasize his independent business studies, as well as some modest entrepreneurial efforts he had undertaken to reduce inefficiency in the hospital where he currently worked. Next, he tweaked his resume and prepared cover letters detailing how his medical background, coupled with his newfound passion for user-centered design, would bring tremendous value to a tech startup focused on mental health. Finally, he reached out through his network of connections to obtain some important introductions. Luke soon found himself interviewing with two of the hottest startups in the emerging field of personalized mental health services.

  To paraphrase the old real estate adage, career advancement depends on three things: marketing, marketing, and marketing. By adopting his customer’s/potential employer’s perspective, Luke figured out how to present himself as an ideal job candidate. Throughout your pursuit of your MOOC-based MBA, you have been wearing your learner’s cap. Now it’s time to replace it with your marketer’s hat.

  Any introductory marketing course would stress a few key concepts you should understand before you march into an interview with your boss, a potential employer, or a would-be investor. First, focus on customer value. Success in any marketing campaign depends on giving customers what they really need and want. To do that, you must put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Luke did it by pondering a startup’s main goals and then displaying how his education, work experience, and keen motivation could help the fledgling company achieve those goals. Then he thought about his competition for the job. Who else will most likely apply for the same niche? What gifts will they bring to the party? Will you find yourself competing w
ith folks who hold Ivy League MBAs, or will you run up against a panel full of engineers? To answer those questions, you need to establish what marketers call points of parity. What makes you similar to the competition? How will you deliver as much, if not more, value to the customer? Then you must think about differentiation. What makes you stand out from the pack? What can you offer that your rivals can’t match?

  It helps to use a little imagination to answer these questions. Luke received callbacks from both prospective employers because he had assembled a unique combination of medical background and business savvy. One of the recruiters told Luke that she admired the drive he displayed when he took an unconventional path to acquire the business education he needed. Her company prized that sort of entrepreneurialism. As Luke discovered, it pays to present your unconventional approach to your education as a positive point of differentiation. Other candidates applying for the product development job may have outmatched Luke in terms of design experience, but none came close to his high-energy determination to succeed in this emerging field, and very few were likely to possess his deep knowledge of medicine. Think of it this way: Most of your competitors will have taken the well-traveled path to obtain the credentials they need to win a promotion, land a new job, or attract an investor. But you have taken the less-traveled path, one that requires more creativity, perseverance, and self-discipline. On your unique path you have learned a few things you seldom pick up in a conventional classroom: an entrepreneurial spirit, a high level of motivation, an abundance of creativity, cost-consciousness, practicality, critical thinking, resourcefulness, follow-through, and fierce independence. Think deeply about your points of parity and difference, then use a spreadsheet or chart like the one in Figure 8-2 to make a list of each.

  Figure 8-2. Your Differentiation Game Plan

  POINTS OF PARITY POINTS OF DIFFERENCE

  Qualities, skills, characteristics, experience, and education my competitors may offer Qualities, skills, characteristics, experience, and education my competitors may not offer

  Luke’s Differentiation Game Plan might look like this:

  Points of Parity: I am enthusiastic, entrepreneurial, team-oriented, and good at solving problems. I communicate well with people. I understand the market for mental health care and what matters most to a startup business.

  Points of Difference: I am a trained physician with over ten years of experience in clinical care. My firsthand experience has taught me that my profession relies too heavily on prescription drugs dispensed by doctors with too little intimate knowledge of their patients’ needs. My expanding education in entrepreneurship, combined with my clinical experience, gives me insight into how a technology-based system might deliver a higher standard of care.

  If, like Luke and Joris, you have set your sights on landing a new position, then you will want to make sure you have taken a marketing approach to creating a convincing cover letter and attractive resume. Remember that people form first impressions in mere seconds. A 2012 study using eye-tracking technology found that recruiters looking at a resume make an initial fit/no-fit decision after only six seconds.3 Put your unique educational accomplishments and their value in the workplace up front, where they will grab a reader’s attention during that first glance. A word of caution: Even if you have taken twice as many business courses as someone with a conventional MBA, you cannot claim those initials on your resume. But you can make it crystal clear that you have put a tremendous amount of blood, sweat, and tears into getting the equivalent of an MBA, and that you have done it in order to provide great value to anyone who hires, promotes, or invests in you.

  Figure 8-3

  ADVISER’S CHALLENGE

  ASSEMBLE YOUR MARKETING FILE

  Showcase your self-directed business education in your resume and cover letter. You will want to include clear, concise, and accurate descriptions of your accomplishments under the heading Advanced Business Education (20XX–20XX) or another similar heading. Consider using this basic template:

  Advanced Business Education (20XX–20XX)

  Online course work equivalent to a Master’s in Business Administration, including Entrepreneurship (MIT Sloan), Corporate Finance (NYU Stern), Accounting (UPenn Wharton), and Business Strategy (UVA Darden), as well more than 15 other massive open online courses (MOOCs). Concentration in marketing. Portfolio at: www.nopaymba.com/yourname .

  Caution: while recruiters generally view MOOCs and online learning as a positive accomplishment, listing a lot of introductory courses can make you look like a novice. While you certainly should take basic courses, make sure your resume highlights your advanced coursework and how it relates to the bigger picture of your nontraditional business education.

  Add bulleted highlights under at least one of your previous positions. You want to show concrete examples of how your education helped you succeed in a position of responsibility. For example, under “Summer Internship at TechBox” you might bullet a specific accomplishment, such as “Used my knowledge of digital marketing to help the Marketing Director design a strategy for increasing online signups for extended service.”

  Tell your story in your cover letter. You do not want to burden your reader with a lot of long-winded prose. Dedicate an early paragraph to your self-directed advanced business education, using a concrete example of how you’ve applied what you learned. It might go something like this:

  After taking a series of courses on digital marketing from the University of Illinois (through the online platform Coursera), I ran A/B testing experiments to optimize the landing pages on TechBox’s website. As a result, mailing list signups tripled, from 5% to 15% of visitors, and overall sales increased by 35%. My commitment to evidence-based decision making and the skills I learned while studying digital marketing will enable me to create, refine, and perfect any organization’s online messages with measurable results.

  Tweak your resume and cover letter to match each opportunity. Think of each resume as a tailored glove made to fit an individual hand. If you are applying for work in the garment industry, highlight any interests and accomplishments that relate to that particular industry. Then, when you go for a position in the technology sector, adjust certain elements of your resume accordingly.

  Keep it short and sweet. You don’t need to include everything you’ve ever done in a single, definitive library of achievements that goes to every prospective employer. Maintain a master resume that does include everything you’ve ever done, with bullets for every component of your job description and every accomplishment. Then, when you tweak it for a certain opportunity, you can easily pull what you need from that master document to create a tailored resume. The same applies to the cover letter.

  Link, link, link. Whenever you send a resume and cover letter electronically, provide live links to your portfolio, your website, and your relevant social media profiles (the professional ones, not the personal ones where you post pictures of your cat and your brother’s wedding).

  Seek help. We’ve discussed the fact that MBA students in traditional programs work with career counselors to make sure they have written the best possible resumes and cover letters. You might want to invest a little money in a career coach or counselor.

  Whole books have been written about the art of crafting strong resumes. I suggest you consult one of the better ones, Martin Yates’s perennial bestseller Knock ‘Em Dead Resumes: A Killer Resume Gets More Job Interviews!

  Wow Them in Job Interviews

  On a recent Tuesday, Ellen, the arts administrator you met in Chapter 4, logged into an online videoconference to interview for a position as the executive director of a symphony in a midsize American city. On her screen she saw ten interviewers sitting in one conference room, two in another location. One other person joined the group by phone. Uh-oh. Ellen imagined herself sweating through an intense grilling by thirteen people. As she struggled to calm the butterflies churning in her stomach, she tried her best to flash a warm smile, but in the back of her mind
she was already preparing to move on to her second choice.

  The interview began. One panelist asked Ellen about her current position in management at a small opera company. Another wondered about the strategic planning consulting she had done on the side for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. As she fielded these questions, Ellen felt herself gradually loosening up. She loved her work and always exuded confidence when she talked about her passion for the business side of the arts.

  Then one interviewer asked, “Why have you taken so many online business courses? Wouldn’t you have been better off with a good old-fashioned MBA?” Since Ellen had listed her MOOC-based business studies in the Education section of her resume, she had expected some questions about her unconventional approach to business education. She explained her lifelong passion for music, as well as her realization that she couldn’t build a stable career waiting for a role as a leading lady. Wishing to continue following her heart, she decided to look into the business side of the industry and quickly found that she enjoyed it as much as performing before a live audience. “I love learning, and MOOCs give me a chance to learn what I need when I need it, without costing me an arm and a leg.” What turned her on about business? “I can help make an organization successful and profitable. That helps other musicians thrive.” Why should anyone take a MOOC education seriously? “I got a top-notch education at some of the best business schools in the country. I also learned to seek value and to be financially savvy, an attitude I bring to management of arts organizations, which often have to stretch their limited resources. In fact, the accounting course I took from Wharton Business School has already helped with the budgeting process I’m leading in my current position.” She could see her interviewers nodding their approval. Several scribbled notes as she talked.