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

by Laurie Pickard

  Welcome to the most nerve-racking part of the job search: the live and in-person interview. However, you can put aside your fear when you realize you have reached a major milestone. To get your foot in the door, you must have done something right. Your marketing campaign is working. Now you just need to gather up your courage and leap over one final, albeit challenging, hurdle. Your compelling story will fuel that leap.

  Before you sit down for an interview, face-to-face or online, make a list of the tough questions you expect to field. Then, look in the mirror and grill yourself. Rehearse your answers. As Ellen will tell you, performing well takes practice. As you perfect your answers, you may want to go back and make sure your credentials, your cover letter, and your resume reflect what you plan to say in response to the most difficult questions.

  Interviewer: Why should we even consider someone who has only studied business online?

  You: Because I have studied with the best professors from the best business schools (A and B and C Schools of Business), and because my successful track record proves my ability to put those lessons into practice.

  Interviewer Why does this position interest you?

  You: Because I am passionate about this field (specific industry and function). My education will help me make a valuable contribution to your organization’s (name) success.

  Joris began his consulting career as a freelancer. During one of his assignments, he ran into an old classmate he hadn’t seen in seven years. Imagine Joris’s delight when he learned that his old friend could offer him a connection to a well-known consulting firm whose practice ran the gamut from management and IT consulting to education strategy. It sounded like a perfect fit. Through his friend, Joris arranged a meeting with one of the company’s principals. After a wide-ranging and thought-provoking conversation, Joris hoped he might be offered a job on the spot. As if reading his mind, his interviewer said, “I really wish we had something open right now. Unfortunately, all of our positions are currently filled.”

  “That’s okay,” Joris said. “I think there could be an excellent fit here, and I would be happy to apply for a position as soon as there is one available.” A few months later, Joris’s patience paid off when the company called him back for another interview. Having thoroughly assembled his credentials and marketing file, he couldn’t wait to field the toughest questions the interviewers might ask. Of course, he aced the interview, and he got the job.

  POINTS TO REMEMBER

  1.Treat your credentials not as pieces of paper but as elements of a strategy.

  2.Validate your success with a mix of credentials, brand-name experience, personal recommendations, and impressive accomplishments.

  3.Build your personal brand by demonstrating thought leadership, sharing your original ideas through blogging, presentations, or other media.

  4.Think like a marketer when conducting your job search, particularly while preparing your resume, cover letter, and marketing file.

  5.Highlight your self-directed business education in job interviews.

  9

  Learn Forever

  Continuing Your Business Education Throughout Your Career

  MEET Karina, a lifelong learner we will follow as she moves from one self-directed learning opportunity to another throughout her career. A composite character drawn from my interactions with dozens of students over the years, she will illustrate the value of continuing your self-directed education long after you have reached your initial goals. After graduating from DePauw University with a degree in English literature, she relocated to Chicago, where she landed a job at the Perkins Public Relations Agency. Unlike many English majors, she actually put her education to work, writing press releases for the firm’s clients. She loved the fast pace at PPR and found the work both challenging and engaging. But after a couple of years on the job, she grew bored with the daily routine and longed to move onto a career track that offered a greater opportunity for personal growth and financial success. While she enjoyed communicating other people’s accomplishments, she wanted to get into the more creative side of the business. She knew in her heart that she could move beyond copywriting to a position where she could dream up the ideas behind the company’s PR campaigns.

  Karina set her sights on acquiring a solid business education without quitting her job, enrolled in a series of MOOCs that gave her the new skills she needed to climb the career ladder, and seized every opportunity to keep learning and growing throughout her life. MOOCs continued to figure prominently in her self-directed quest to acquire business skills and savvy, but she constantly looked for other opportunities to learn and grow. Like Karina, wherever you go and whatever you do in life, success will hinge on your ability to sharpen old skills and acquire new ones.

  Keep Sharpening Your Skills

  Whether you study beekeeping or branding strategy, your education will start to go out of date as soon as you finish your last course. That applies just as much to a MOOC education as any other form of learning. Fortunately, you can continually update a MOOC-based business education with a minimum investment of time and money. As a self-directed learner, you have not only learned a lot about business, you have mastered a methodology for learning that will benefit you throughout your life.

  Using MOOCs and following the guidance in this book, Karina put herself through a rigorous business education with a concentration in brand strategy. She began her next career move by volunteering for a nonprofit health communications organization, where she could use her new business skills to assist with a total brand overhaul (including a slick new social media strategy). At the same time, she also formed relationships with a number of marketing professionals she met through the organization’s network. These tactics enabled her to accomplish the shift from her PR job to a role with a small, fast-growing marketing firm, Brand Aid. Her writing skills, creativity, business savvy, and dedication to continuing her education made her an irresistible hire.

  Even after landing a position with greater growth potential, Karina vowed to keep seeking ways to further develop her knowledge and skills. To that end, she found Class Central (https://class-central.com), the leading MOOC search engine, quite useful. If you sign up for automatic updates on your field of interest, you do not need to search every few months for learning opportunities. Class Central will automatically put them in your inbox. These updates helped Karina achieve her goal of completing one or two relevant MOOCs each year, either to explore new areas or to brush up any skills that had grown rusty.

  For Karina, MOOCs have even come to her rescue at a few critical times in her career. When one of Brand Aid’s larger clients sought to implement an “omni-channel” marketing strategy, Karina knew exactly where to go to learn about this cutting-edge marketing concept. In less than a week she was not only contributing valuable ideas to implement the client’s strategy, she discovered a few risks no one else had detected. Becoming an “overnight expert” not only pleased the client, it impressed her boss so much that he put her in line to be the creative lead on new accounts the company acquired. “It’s not that I try to outsmart everybody else,” she says. “I just love to learn something new. It keeps me excited about my work.”

  That’s a great word—new. The self-directed learners I meet invariably welcome change and seek out ways to harness it. The world of business keeps changing at such an accelerated rate, the preset curriculum at a stodgy business school cannot possibly keep up with it. During my own business studies, one startup company became an overnight billion-dollar sensation by radically changing the way people move from place to place. The new idea: Make it easy for people seeking rides to connect with drivers for hire. Voilà! Uber quickly revolutionized a whole industry. It might take years for this phenomenon to become a case study in a typical business school curriculum, and a rigid set of course requirements might make it impossible to squeeze in an elective on the topic, even if one were offered. But in my own little business-school-of-one, I could be much more respons
ive. Toward the end of my studies, a course popped up that focused exclusively on Uber-style “platform businesses.” Not only did Platform Management, Strategy, and Innovation explore the intricacies of this new business idea, it looked at how such businesses operate on the African continent, where I was living and working at the time. Taking the course exposed me to the newest ideas about the newest approach to business, all in the newest MBA program on earth, my own.

  Win a Corporate Scholarship

  One topic especially piqued Karina’s interest during her studies: customer relationship management (CRM), the art and science of analyzing and strengthening interactions between an organization and its customers. Karina could see how CRM could play a crucial role in her own job as a branding strategist. Her coursework on digital marketing had stressed that the lines were blurring between these two marketing subtopics because a company’s brand and its relationships with customers were inextricably intertwined. Yet, after a year at Brand Aid, Karina felt that the firm hadn’t sufficiently linked the two. To make a case for doing that, she needed to learn a lot more about CRM, particularly the latest CRM software. A quick search of the MOOC platforms turned up nothing, but a little online research led her to a multi-week, online seminar class offered by a leading brand strategy firm. Unfortunately for the frugal Karina, it carried a hefty $2,000 price tag (not uncommon in the world of professional continuing education).

  Sensing a win/win opportunity for both herself and Brand Aid, Karina approached her boss, Miles, with a proposition. “I really enjoy my work,” she said, “and I am excited to continue to grow with Brand Aid. I’ve found a course that I think could really boost my skills and could open up some really exciting new avenues for the company.”

  Miles listened intently to her pitch. “I admire your initiative, Karina. You couldn’t have brought this up at a better time. Coincidentally, I’ve been hearing a lot about CRM and was wondering how we could most easily and quickly look into the possibilities it might open up for us and our clients. Sign up tomorrow. We’ll pick up the fee.”

  Never forget that your employer holds a major stake in your success. If you succeed, the company succeeds. Show your employer how your continuing business education can increase productivity and profitability and you may find yourself on the receiving end of a corporate “scholarship.” Farsighted employers will eagerly invest in you, if they see how it will benefit the bottom line. Larger organizations often bring in consultants to train their people or send them to off-site training, all on the company’s dime. If your company doesn’t do that as a rule, show your initiative by suggesting it yourself, stressing the potential cost savings and revenue increase by saying something like, “This training program could teach us ways to save on costs and increase our revenues.”

  Continuous learning makes you more and more valuable to employers. As Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T, told the New York Times in 2016, “There is a need to retool yourself, and you should not expect to stop.” Stephenson suggested that a five- to ten-hour investment per week in online learning can keep you from becoming obsolete.1 Acquiring more and more knowledge not only keeps you up-to-date, it also helps you get ahead where you currently work or land a better job down the street.

  In Karina’s case, after convincing Miles to sponsor her first course on CRM, she independently dove deep into the topic, learning about a variety of software solutions and reading John Goodman’s Customer Experience 3.0. Her final report to Miles suggested that Brand Aid form a separate unit to focus on CRM. “Great idea, Karina,” he said. “I’d like you to head it up.”

  Tap Your Network

  Karina stood at a whiteboard, furiously jotting down ideas as the group proposed them. “We could organize a walk-to-work day for the city,” a Brand Aid CRM teammate suggested.

  A manager from Chicago’s Recreation Department raised her hand. “How about a month-long competition with teams logging miles on pedometers?”

  “We might hold a Biggest Loser competition with local celebrities,” called out the director of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for a Chicago-based telecommunications company.

  The CRM team had invited local officials and prominent businesspeople to join them in brainstorming ways to promote an exercise program sponsored by Clearly Health, a new Brand Aid client. The group was applying what they had learned after taking an online course in human-centered design.

  When Karina had first suggested that her team and a half-dozen city officials and business leaders take an online course together, she worried that they might balk at the idea. Few had even flirted with online education. She fretted needlessly, however, because her team had seen the results of Karina’s own self-directed business education. Clearly Health signed on enthusiastically. Even the city health director was excited about the initiative, which supported a citywide wellness campaign he championed. Everyone enjoyed the course Karina had selected: Design Kit: The Course for Human-Centered Design. The group of ten met at Clearly Health’s office in downtown Chicago one evening a week during the run of the course. Karina loved the way everyone had gotten excited about designing a program that would to inspire citizens to tie on their walking shoes and get moving.

  In Chapter 6, we explored ways to grow your network by finding or forming a learning group, as Arjan did when he reached out to the startup community in his city. You can keep benefiting from your own “network university” long after you’ve finished the main portion of your studies. You might continue to nurture the learning group you found or formed earlier in your studies, checking in periodically or even taking a course together from time to time. You might also consider forming a group at your place of work or pulling together people from both inside and outside your organization who share common interests. Even if you don’t think you can afford the time and energy to organize a group course, consider inviting a professional acquaintance, someone with whom you wish to forge a stronger relationship, to take a course with you. Studying together, like walking together, can keep you moving forward while you develop a stronger professional and personal relationship.

  Try convincing your employer to sponsor learning initiatives for employees. More and more corporate executives appreciate the value-adding power of continuing education. If you are a millennial like Karina, you probably feel comfortable with online learning already. If you are a seasoned manager like her boss, Miles, it may take a course or two before you see the benefits.

  Bruce, another lifelong learner in my network, could have retired years ago, but he could not see himself sitting on his front porch watching the sun rise and set. Instead, he spends his days working with executives to create learning cultures in the workplace. The “learning circles” he creates foster employee development and stronger work relationships. In the old days, he relied on books such as Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive to spark discussions and impart new knowledge and skills. To maximize results through a company, the circles included both senior and junior employees from various departments. Over the years, Bruce’s learning circles have come to incorporate a variety of tools, including not just books but also videos and online games. Then along came MOOCs. While the format of the circles did not change, MOOCs added a powerful new tool to the experience. Learning How to Learn, the popular MOOC that applies to any learning endeavor, generated an amazing response. People loved this approach to learning and sharing ideas. Several C-suite executives became big fans. As Bruce told me, “They would say things like, ‘Nobody ever taught me how to learn. I’m going to suggest that everyone at my company take this course.’” Consider serving as a catalyst for a learning culture in your own workplace. It’s a great way to acquire and sharpen important skills. Internal, external, two people or ten, networks built for learning can help create a competitive edge for any organization.

  Go Global

  In recent years global business has become an increasingly popular topic in MBA programs, MOOC courses, and online concentrations. Regardless of yo
ur own area of interest, you will find that it crosses international borders. Many traditional MBA programs stress this fact and encourage global travel. Some even incorporate the cost into their regular fee structure. That can add a big chunk of change to the cost of acquiring an MBA. As the director of your own personal MBA program, you can find creative ways to gain some international experience by combining travel with learning. Even without a budget for major trips to exotic places, you can explore many different ways to expand your horizons beyond your home country.

  First, taking courses that are produced in other countries offers one easy and affordable way to dip your toe into the global pool. You don’t necessarily need to know Chinese to take a course from Tsinghua University because, like movies that come from overseas, many programs offer subtitles and the option to fulfill assignments in your native tongue. By taking a course produced in a foreign culture, you not only learn content you want to master, you also pick up information about how business operates in that culture. For example, when I studied accounting, I took two courses, one produced in the United States and one produced in Australia. I knew that the two countries employed different accounting systems: the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in the States, and the International Financial Reporting Standards down under. My MOOC coursework allowed me to “travel” to Australia and learn from a professor with experience in a system other than the one most commonly used in my home country.