For those who work in Corporate America..

I've been locked into a fortune 500 company now for 20 years. I've been through the upsizing, the downsizing , the outsourcing , the low cost country costing, the re-aligning, the quality programs , six sigma , cost cutting etc etc etc and one thing that does stand clear , at least in the company I work....the bar has been raised to get a job here......

Most mid level jobs ( from engineering , R&D , finance , procurement ) are demanding a BS with a preference of a MBA as a minimum and MOST we hire have MBA's

1st question for those in similar situations.....is your company the same?....we just hired three MBA students out of Penn for an astronomical amount of $$$$ and a signing bonus and they don't even know where the bathrooms are yet. It makes the people who have paid their dues over the years a bit ticked off.

2nd question - what is happining out there with people already embedded for a number of years. Are they pushing you to go back and get those BS/ BA's and MBA's ?

Just need a pulse of the corporate life elsewhere but I have a feeling we are all living in the land of Dilbert

Every day above ground is a good day......

 

Interesting post. I can't give an opinion as to the standard Fortune 500, but in the Silicon Valley 100 a BS is pretty much the standard. However, it really depends on your background. There are still quite a few companies that look at the overall candidate and not the degree. Even Intel does that - although they are degree happy.

This is what really bothers me about Corporate America. They are buying the "entitlement generation" bullshit (19-26 year olds) who think that they can walk into a job with no experience and an MBA (or MSCS/EE/CE) and make $100K a year. MOST engineering programs provide little practical hands-on experience so to pay these toads this amount of money is totally ridiculous.

I hire people on occassion. I can hire a solid engineer with a BS degree - middle age with 20 or more years of experience for between $80-110K a year. They are used to working the 50-60 hour weeks - they have also been a technician before so they know how to troubleshoot (and are willing to do anything to get the job done). Why would I want to hire an engineer from Stanford or MIT for that much with no experience at all? They are unproved. We hired a guy from UC Berkeley with a MSEE and he didn't know the difference between a diode and capacitor (a first year tech would know this) Most of the time when managers hire entry level MBA's or engineering, it is a "prestige" thing or the hiring manager is hiring an someone from their alma mater.

Sad state - this is why so many companies are in bad shape - hiring education over experience is almost never a good move. (having both is the real key)

 

Here in Canada, the situation is not quite as bad in Canadian companies, but some of the American corporations working up here are crazy for people with prestigious degrees.

I remember this one ad, HR called for an engineer with an MBA degree from one of the Top 20 ranked business schools in Canada and the US overall. Imagine that?

The larger corporations seem to have put degree barriers in place (i.e. you cannot move to the next level without a bachelor's or master's). So, there are some quite talented people "stuck" in positions of lower or middle management that cannot move up because they only have a college diploma or bachelor's degree.

The problem with all this is that these jobs do not requires master's degrees. Heck, most probably just require a bit of common sense and some basic business courses.

They are giving jobs to engineers with master's degrees when a skilled electrician or electronics technician could do it easily. Why??? I don't have the answer, but I suppose the private business schools and top universities would not be in business if their grads were not required...

 

We are not England or Sweden. We don't have any royalty here. So, might as well look to the Harvards, Yales, and Stanfords for our "royal" line. Can you imagine any President not being from Yale or Harvard now?

 

Yup

I can imagine President Fred Dalton Thompson, BA from Memphis State U, JD from Vanderbilt U.

Wouldn't be the first actor in the White House (with a SAG card, I mean)

 

I've seen this with others who have long tenures at companies. That is the downside of staying with the same firm for a lengthy (10+ year) period of time.

It has been my experience that those who have experience in multiple firms tend to draw better salaries. Of course, that doesn't explain why they hire greenhorns (MBAs or not) for large sums of money.

You might find life a bit more rewarding elsewhere at this point. Or hey, get your current employer to fund your MBA pursuit, then leave them when they don't step up.

Cheers.

 

Re: Yup

Is Thompson going to make a run?

 

Re: Re: Yup

I don't know and I haven't actually heard anything. I'm basing my guess on the high profile that he has kept since leaving the Senate, and the fact that he only served one complete term. (always a good idea when contemplating a run, cuts down on legistlative baggage).

Maybe I'll start a thread in the off topics forum...