Who or what is an MBA?

For quite a long time in my life, I had this aspiration of wanting to hold an MBA degree. I really don’t know why I wanted to do an MBA course, but during my College days, I thought it was the best way for me to move out of the “technical” space. Also, I was generally interested in solving arithmetic and logic problems and felt that the MBA entrance exam would be one place where I could excel. As history has pointed out repeatedly, I don’t do well in exams. And despite my near Ghajini-like attempts at joining some MBA course or the other, I haven’t progressed anywhere.

But this post is not going to chronicle the numerous unsuccessful trysts with MBA that I have had over the years (ranging from entrance exams to joining long-distance courses). Rather, it is going to address something more important – why I don’t want one anymore.

The reason for this change can largely be attributed to my experiences in interviewing a bunch of MBA students who would be passing out this academic year. In few earlier posts, I have shared some interesting experiences I’ve had in interviewing fresh graduates and sometimes, even lateral employees. When I went into this MBA campus recruitment last week, I certainly didn’t expect anything interesting. I was a little off-target.

I asked a few candidates, what courses they studied as part of their electives. There were 2-3 who actually couldn’t list the 5 or 6 major topics that they study. At least 2 guys in Marketing said that Sales was a part of Marketing and 2 others felt otherwise.

There was one other girl who felt that she was quite old; the profile listed her at 26 years of age.

To one candidate, whose profile said that he was majoring in Operations Management, I posed a simple question.
Me: “Assume you have opened a petrol bunk. Can you tell me what all would you do to reduce the operating costs?”
MBA: “I will hire cheap labour”
Me (mind voice): “Maybe he is talking about salary costs. Ok, let me see if he says it directly.”
MBA: “You see, I am from Kerala. And in Kerala, if we employ the local Kerala people, they ask for higher salary. So, I will hire people from other states.”
Me (mind voice): “Whoa whoa whoa”
Me: “What else would you do?”
MBA: “I will install CFL bulbs everywhere.”
Me (mind voice): “Have I come across the joke where they ask how many MBAs are needed to change a light bulb?”
Me: “Ok, moving on…”
As a fresh MBA he was only expected to state where the costs are generally high and that he would focus on the high cost items to see what can be reduced. This guy directly went ahead into the solution and even there, came up with the option of hiring people from other states and switching to CFL bulbs!

Then there was a strikingly good-looking girl who came up to our panel. Her major was in Human Resources. I asked her why she joined an MBA course. Her response was: “Sir, my father works in (Govt. Company) and so we live in that colony. If you see, in my colony, everyone does only B.E/B.Tech. I wanted to be different and so, I decided to do B.Com and then took up this MBA course”.

We gave a simple puzzle to almost all the candidates. It was the standard “How would you get exactly 5L if you use a 3L and 4L jar?” I was actually surprised that the first 2 candidates couldn’t even think beyond “I will cut the jar in half” or “I will look and estimate”. But what surprised me even more was the fact that despite this question being “leaked” out, only the 7th/8th candidate could actually come up with a convoluted answer to the query.

While these responses may pale in comparison to some of the gems I have http://jawaman.blogspot.com/search/label/interview experienced earlier, they clearly showed me that an MBA degree is certainly not of any use, unless you apply your mind. Otherwise, it is just a set of alphabets that one adds at the end of their name. My parents have been asked by quite a few prospective in-laws “The groom doesn’t have even an MBA degree?” and I now understand what that “even” stands for!