<p>“The ONLY reason I want to get my MBA is because I want more interviews for higher-paying jobs.”</p>
<p>Then you need to work for awhile, get great letters of recommendation, do well on the GMAT, and go back to a full-time program.</p>
<p>When you say you’re an analyst, do you mean that you are a financial analyst? Are you doing budgeting and forecasting for a company?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, no. Back office, entry-level analyst position at BB.</p>
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<p>If employers truly wanted applicants with integrity, and presumably successfully filter out those who lack integrity, then pray tell, why is the business news so rife with stories of corporate malfeasance? Why has Barclays agreed to fines of over $400m and counting regarding the manipulation of LIBOR and EURIBOR, with the accompanying participation of other banks yet to be revealed but sure to come? Why just last week did GSK plead guilty to criminal charges and agreed to disgorge $3 billion - the largest settlement both nominally and after inflation adjustment in the history of the pharmaceutical industry - for extensive violations of the False Claims Act and the Food Drugs and Cosmetic Act? Why is the Board of Duke Energy being accused of “corporate deceit” over the recent merger and accompanying CEO ‘bait-and’ switch with Progress Energy? Why just last month was the former head of McKinsey and director at P&G, Goldman Sachs, and American Airlines convicted of 4 counts of felony securities fraud and conspiracy? </p>
<p>Or simply consider the entire rationale behind marketing and advertising, for which firms spend billions of dollars per year as a matter of course. Let’s be perfectly honest: most advertising is predicated upon elaborate misdirection and misrepresentation. Movie trailers are deliberately designed to show you only a movie’s most interesting segments - sometimes even including segments that don’t even appear in the movie at all (although in fairness sometimes the trailer was produced before the movie’s final edit was completed). And when exactly has anybody ever bought a fast food meal that actually looks as delicious as it does in the commercial? </p>
<p>If firms are allowed to withhold information to present their best possible image to customers through clever advertising, then I frankly don’t see what is so outrageous with potential employees doing likewise when trying to obtain employment with those very same firms. A resume is, like a movie trailer, merely a marketing document, nothing more.</p>
<p>@Sakky: Are you seriously suggesting that companies don’t care about whether their entry-level employees have integrity or not? </p>
<p>I’m not saying that companies, employees, or recruiters don’t lie. But if they see you lying or attempting to deceive them, God help you.</p>
<p>ECAdmstudent, you tell me. If firms truly cared so much about integrity, then why exactly are corporate scandals so pervasive? Wouldn’t firms have always screened out such miscreants from working for them in the first place? Let’s be blunt: firms are not exactly paragons of ethicality. What gives them the right to judge others regarding their ethics? </p>
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<p>But that’s the crux of the issue: why exactly is it deception or lying? In the scenario in question, the OP would have graduated from the University of Michigan. Granted, he didn’t graduate from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, but he never claimed that he did. So where’s the lie? Where’s the deception? Frankly, if the problem is with brand confusion between Flint vs. Ann Arbor, then that’s an issue that the greater University of Michigan system must deal with internally. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that the hiring process is a business transaction, nothing more. This is not a testament to God. You’re under no obligation whatsoever to provide complete information to a potential employer, for after all, do you think that employer is truly providing complete information to you? You are perfectly entitled - and indeed should be expected - to put your best foot forward and make your candidacy look as attractive as possible. That’s savvy self-promotion.</p>
<p>“If firms truly cared so much about integrity, then why exactly are corporate scandals so pervasive?”</p>
<p>I think it’s called the Golden Rule: Those with the gold make the rules.</p>
<p>My friend once interviewed for a financial analyst position at a company, and he walked out of the interview because after the interviewer described the job in more detail, it was actually a general ledger accounting job.</p>
<p>@sakky, I’m not saying that it’s immoral - I’m saying that as an attempt to be self-promotion, it’s not particularly savvy. Any recruiter worth their salt will see though that ruse in an instant.</p>
<p>An MBA from a non-top 25 school isn’t worthless. Can be risky though - so make sure you don’t pay too much - get stipends…etc - some MBA programs subsidize alot of their MBA student’s cost of attendance. And work your butt off - get active, make connections, get great grades…etc</p>
<p>I’ve definitely seen students go back and get their MBA at a non-“top” school, and then leave with a much better paying position and with better growth opportunities. So, it can definitely pay off. </p>
<p>But at the same time getting your MBA doesnt guarantee anything. So don’t view it as your golden ticket.</p>
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<p>Well, hey, there are plenty of recruiters clearly not worth their salt. After all, Scott Thompson apparently fooled the recruiters, human resources staff, and the board itself of Yahoo regarding the filling of the CEO position itself about having a computer science degree. It required the intervention of an outside activist hedge fund to bring his degree inconsistencies to light. If companies apparently can’t even be bothered with checking the backgrounds of their CEO’s, what does that imply about the scrutiny they apply to their entry-level hires? </p>
<p>Besides, many ‘recruiters’ are just regular people who happen to have hiring responsibilities, but have little knowledge or interest in the various types of college brand signals. For example, I can think of a number of managers who had never even heard of MIT, with some even thinking that it stood for the Milwaukee Institute of Technology, and even after learning the school’s true name, they still were unfamiliar with the brand. Yet their responsibilities include the hiring of engineers. </p>
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<p>Well, then perhaps this is merely a difference of opinion between you and I, for I would actually think that would be very savvy indeed. After all, the OP can’t legitimately be accused of lying regarding the scenario in question; he does legitimately have a degree from the University of Michigan, as UM-Flint is legitimately part of the University of Michigan. He doesn’t have a degree from UM-Ann Arbor, but he’s not claiming that he does.</p>
<p>Now if you insist on calling that ‘deception’, fair enough, but I hardly see how that deception is any worse than the corporate deception at the heart of every-day Madison Avenue advertising campaigns. Just as we all know (or should know) that the burger that appears so delicious in the fast food commercials looks nothing of the sort in real life, recruiters also ought to know (or should know) that candidates should be expected to be having themselves appear as attractive as possible. </p>
<p>Moreover, what’s wrong with that anyway? Shouldn’t people be trying to actively market themselves? If companies are free to market themselves, why not job candidates?</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if it is right or wrong, savvy or not, lying or not</p>
<p>If they find out they may not hire him because of it, plain and simple</p>
<p>I wanted to post on this thread, but sakky basically said everything I wanted to say but better. </p>
<p>I fully think he is correct in this endeavor. OP, you’re not lying, you have nothing to lose here but to experiment and see how it works for you. The worst that can happen is you won’t get the job. If you feel like that is high risk because it is a specific job you would kill for you need to make that personal decision yourself. However, you wanted CC’s opinion and my opinion rests with sakky.</p>
<p>I think you should try both. Honestly, sakky’s main point is that what you’re doing is seriously not as bad as 99.9999% of people within business. Why? Because it isn’t a lie, you’re automatically more honest than anyone that has outright lied before (which is probably a majority if not super majority of employers - yes I’m definitely stereotyping and generalizing this with zero sources. Bite me). </p>
<p>Go ahead and try it with some of the resumes you send out. See how it goes. Treat it like a science experiment. If you seto be getting noticably positive results with a particular wording of your credentials, stick to it. After all, doesn’t that prove you’re good at selling something to an interested party?</p>
<p>I’d agree with golden and sakky, except you cannot omit that it was an online MBA program. An online MBA is much different from the traditional MBA (and thus your highly unlikely to get any analyst position–even back office). Stating that you received an online MBA from University of Michigan is more accurate and more honest.</p>
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<p>Whether they have the right to judge others regarding their ethics does not stop them from doing so. Many people have a double standard in that they take great offense to being lied to or deceived, but have less qualms about lying to or deceiving others. In an employer context, an employee or candidate who deceives an employer is disliked, even if deceptive behavior with respect to outsiders (customers, other firms, governments) is accepted or encouraged.</p>
<p>With regards to the University of IL system, it is considered to be perfectly legit to say you graduated from the University of IL regardless of campus. On the diploma it says University of IL in big letters, and in little letters, the campus location. They have been trying to generalize the name University of IL to all the campuses. The campus locations do overlap. The most infamous of these is the University of Illinois at Chicago at Urbana. UIC has a satellite campus at Urbana.</p>
<p>Well, I think you need to take a hard look at what the curriculum and experience at a top MBA program entails. See it’s not just the reading and papers- it’s face time with well respected profs, plus the team projects, some quite lengthy and involved, and for real-life clients. Not to mention the peer contacts you make. Online is a poor sister. </p>
<p>MBA’s don’t pay for themselves just for having the paper. Many companies will split the cost wth you, after x years employment- and you can do a great program at night.</p>
<p>Thank you for all of the replies. I’m glad that a few of you agreed with my school of thought. As I mentioned in previous posts, I currently have an entry-level, back-office, analyst position at a BB.</p>
<p>I work full-time in the tri-state area, which is the capitol of Finance, so actually getting up and moving to somewhere like Michigan is out of the question.</p>
<p>I am simply trying to establish the best credentials in the most sensible and cheapest way. I am NOT going to be able to attend Wharton. Furthermore, most of the other “top” programs aren’t near me locationally.</p>
<p>So…what is the problem with an online degree from a REPUTABLE school? I understand that an MBA is about face-time and connections. I GET THAT. I’m more concerned with how it looks on paper. Why should I explicitly state that it was (in this scenario) University of Michigan’s ONLINE program? I know that employer’s will look negatively upon that, so why would I include it on my resume? I would have no ethical qualms about omitting it because if U of Michigan feels that the work is deserving of a normal MBA degree then why should I discount it and hurt my chances?</p>
<p>It looks silly on paper because it’s off base. It’s not a particular program that can lend itself to book learning and home thinking. </p>
<p>You identify it’s their online program because… it is their online program. If you know your employers would look down on an online “degree,” doesn’t that give you the slightest clue that it isn’t up to their standards? If you are this worried about all this, doesn’t that suggest it’s not the real thing? If you don’t get the difference, maybe we can’t explain better. If you are loking for our endorsement, fugettaboutit.</p>
<p>So, this becomes an ethics issue. If you are so all fired up to get an mba, do it right, build yourself long-term hireability. If you don’t want to do it right, save your money.</p>
<p>There are plenty of good programs in the tri-state area. Doesn’t have to be Wharton.</p>
<p>ps. the fact that Mich implies it’s the same is meant to entice you. That doesn’t make it real world or ensure the best competitive positon.</p>
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<p>True enough, but I would then harken back to the OP’s respond that you may also not be hired if you’re being entirely truthful. </p>
<p>Let’s be perfectly honest: people are routinely hired and fired for a wide bevy of arbitrary reasons. Consider some of the [weirdest](<a href=“http://www.oddee.com/item_97163.aspx”>http://www.oddee.com/item_97163.aspx</a>)reasons for people being fired, including a waitress who was fired for shaving her head to express solidarity with her cancer-ridden father or the Cal State Fullerton lecturer who was fired for following her Quaker religious beliefs in not signing a loyalty oath. And that includes only cases of people being fired for provably silly reasons, much less those who are never even hired in the first place for reasons that nobody can prove. I therefore agree that while you might be disqualified from some jobs because some employers would somehow feel “deceived” (a point to which I shall return to below), I would also argue that you would surely also be disqualified from other jobs by being entirely truthful. It is ultimately an empirical question as to which is worse. </p>
<p>Besides, I believe it has been shown that women who use male-sounding shortened versions of their names (e.g. Chris rather than Christine, Alex rather than Alexandra, Pat rather than Patricia) or those with ambiguously unisex names (e.g. Taylor, Robin, Riley, Peyton, Jordan) receive more interview callbacks than women with distinctly female names. Indeed, I know of one [url=<a href=“http://www.harbus.org/2007/The-Name-Game-3879/]woman[/url”>http://www.harbus.org/2007/The-Name-Game-3879/]woman[/url</a>] who legitimately goes by the name of ‘Alex’ in her everyday life who reports the “shock, confusion or outright disbelief” that recruiters express upon finally conversing with her face-to-face or on the phone after numerous email exchanges and discovering that she’s a woman. I’m not sure what’s worse: companies refusing to hire you out of a sense of ‘deception’ when they finally discover your gender during the interview, or companies never even calling you back in the first place because of sexism?</p>
<p>And, you may no tbe hired if you pick your nose and spit, despite having some rationale or other. Let’s try to stay on track.</p>
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<p>I’m afraid that I can’t agree with that either. An online MBA program is still an MBA program and seems to me is perfectly legitimately to list it as such. </p>
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<p>And I must ask again: where exactly is the deception? UM-Flint is a fully legitimate part of the University of Michigan. Indeed, that’s why it is called The University of Michigan-Flint. Like I said, if the problem is brand confusion between UMAA and the other UM’s, well, frankly that’s something that UMAA should have resolved back in the 1950’s when the other UM campuses were being established. UMAA should have insisted that those other campuses be prohibited from invoking the UM brand (in the same manner that UMAA obviously would vociferously object if Michigan State were to attempt to use the UM brand). But that’s all water under the bridge now. Whether we like it or not, the fact is UM-Flint (along with UM-Dearborn) are indeed legitimate members of UM. Anybody who feels deceived by that frankly needs to learn more about the structure of the University of Michigan system.</p>