What about MBAs

I sometimes get this question. Is an MBA still valued by employers? Will it give any edge to my career? Will I get more salary or faster promotion with an MBA?

Well...yes and no.

Yes, if you think of acquiring an MBA for the actual management knowledge as your purpose. The process of getting the degree is your goal. When you believe that actually learning about all areas of business management from strategy to management accounting and 4Ps of marketing (ok there's 7Ps and 5Cs and many theories we could go on for days..) will be useful as you move up the corporate ladder and have bigger responsibilities.

But....

No, if your actual goal is only about walking up the stage on convocation day and holding a certificate stamped with your name that you later proudly include in your already long resume (primary school qualification, hobby, favourite color... Yes, I'm kidding). Or if you start marching into the boss's office demanding a promotion because you now know PnL actually means profit and loss, not the petite collection of Ralph Lauren.

There was a time when such qualifications did 'entitle' employees to some sort of extra allowance or better salary. I don't quite understand the rationale but I guess it was because such qualified employees were rare then (God I feel old!). But those days are gone.

I acquired mine many moons ago for none of the reasons above but just because I was offered a scholarship to study part time by my employer and well, everybody seemed to be doing it so why not. As icing on the cake, I knew most of the people who would be my course mates I thought it'd be fun. 

Now, studying while working full time and having a family was another thing altogether. It was tough because like everything else I get myself into, I want to do my best and there's just so much hours in a day to juggle everything. My course mates would smirk at this if they read this now because to them it looked like a breeze for me to a point I also had a baby (my third!) during that period. Haha. Super multi tasker eh?