Today's MBA student. What kind of employee will they be?
Tuesday, August 8, 2006 at 06:33PM Today’s students are not like students who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. Back in the days that men wore their hair greased back hair and women wore their hair teased up into ruler high beehives, cheating on a college term paper meant paying a few dollars to a business-minded nerd. When opportunity knocked, nerds listened and they made a pretty good part-time salary out of ghost writing for their fellow students. What worked for students back then, still works today although the methods have changed. Today’s nerds are better known as “geeks” and the business of geek ghost-writing is still booming. Why? Because business savvy geeks never stopped listening to their “customers”.
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”
My father’s has a philosophy that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. I think it is as true now, as it was when he first shared his philosophy with me many years ago. That philosophy got me thinking about what’s happening with today’s college students and how businesses reward those who possess a “jack of all trades” background.
I recently read a study done by a technology staffing firm who polled companies about the qualities they look for when hiring candidates. 41% of the companies they polled said they preferred IT candidates that also have “some” business knowledge. Companies also complained that many of the candidates they hire are lacking basic computer skills. The message again to students and job candidates is make sure you have “some” computer knowledge. The characteristics that are required by today’s companies undoubtedly require multi-faceted employees, but can hiring a candidate with a little knowledge about something other than their focus field a dangerous thing? It can be.
Top job candidates, like top students, are smart, competitive, creative, and self motivated. As an employee they possess the characteristics that will make them excellent problem solvers, problem solvers that will save a company time and increase profits. What is better than having an employee who can see a problem and resolve it without costing the company money? Sounds like a good deal to me. But what if those same characteristics are used for their own benefit?
As a student, the same characteristics that may make them financially valuable to an employer may potentially be used for their own betterment. Think of it this way, you’re a student working your way through college and you have a boatload of assignments due and their deadlines are quickly approaching. You’re a top ranking student who strives for perfection and you’re feeling increasingly stressed about how it will all get done and get done on time. You need your job to pay for your tuition, your car loan and insurance, and your living expenses, so quitting your job is not an option. What would you do? As a problem solver, you’d come up with a solution that will help you deal with your lack of time to get your assignments done, wouldn’t you? You might vent about it to your friends and listen their ideas about how to solve your problem. Your friends tell you to relax and offer you a solution to your problem. The solution is easy to find and will cost you less than filling your car up with gas. It sounds like a solution that’s worth exploring.
As we noted in an earlier post called “Is an MBA worth the paper it’s printed on?”, an MBA degree can be as easy as doing a Google search for an MBA diploma. Diploma mills are rampant on the internet. Even those who chose the traditional route of obtaining their degree from an accredited educational institution are smart enough to know that technology can help them save time. Time constraints imposed on today’s students make it pretty tempting to use the internet as a resource. For less than the price of filling your car up with gas, you can buy a term paper written by an MBA geek utilizing his degree to make some recurring income. Undoubtedly, business savvy students have the talent and skills necessary to take the shortest, easiest route to reach their objectives; finish school and put an MBA on their resume. But does having an MBA degree and the intelligence and ability to outsmart professors mean they might use those tactics with their fellow executives at your company? If it’s true when they say “you can take a boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy” and a “leopard can’t change its spots”, then the answer is yes.
The qualities that businesses seek in candidates may sometimes miss an important aspect in assessing whether or not a candidate is the best choice for their company. Education and skills are measurable assessments that can help you make a decision about their skills, but are you considering the personality traits that would make them a trustworthy employee? Do you know what their moral and ethical standards are?
How do you, as a hiring manager, spot a country boy or a leopard? Do you use personality tests like the Myers Briggs Personality Type test or a Workplace Skills Summary as part of your evaluation of potential candidates? Do you rely on your instincts? Do you check a candidate’s college records? Did you know that colleges are now handing out XF grades to cheating college students?
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