An excerpt from the ebook "THE MBA VALUE PROPOSITION"







An excerpt:

LinkedIn and Facebook are two of the largest pools of potential customers on-line today.  Companies are tripping over themselves to find ways to market to them, turning sites that may have been designed to provide a little fun for us into major business tools.  HR departments and recruiters were quick to pick up on the potential of these social networking pages and turn them into social recruiting and brand management platforms.  These sites became the perfect hunting ground for “passive” candidates, otherwise known as the “currently employed happy candidates.”  While this may make you feel like prey in a large hunting ground, this is actually great news for everyone, whether you’re employed or not.  You can just create a great profile on-line as a kind of billboard that passers-by can view as they stroll through the internet.  If they see something they like, you’ll be the first to know.

To this point, most of our discussions have been focused on creating value offline.  Maximizing opportunity takes more than just shaking hands and kissing babies.  You need to utilize every tool possible to increase your likelihood of being found.  The Internet is certainly a great place for that.  Building your brand and communicating value to others online is not too much different than doing it offline.  While there are many techniques for building a branding strategy online, we’ll only focus on a few of them; more specifically, social networking and sharing your thoughts with the world.

LinkedIn.  In this chapter, we’ll take a closer look at how MBAs can utilize social networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, to create the type of value companies are looking for in their candidates.  To do this, we’ve talked with a few experts to find out what they see as the most valuable attributes of an online presence.

One of the top professional social networking sites is LinkedIn, which has over 100 million users.  LinkedIn boasts adding a new member every second.  It’s users are split geographically with about half the users in the United States and half spread out across the rest of the globe.  Now that’s a good place for opportunity.

Mike O’Neil & Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Rockstars™, are industry experts who travel the globe to demonstrate how to effectively and efficiently harness the business development power of LinkedIn.  O’Neil and Ruff suggest that your on-line profile should maintain a consistent look and feel as your offline presence.  It should mirror who you are.  While we all have hopes of growing into someone with more accomplishments and success, your profile isn’t the place to start creating that “new” person.

When you begin laying out your profile, consider the following setting to help you get into the right frame of mind.   Imagine you are at a networking event and you are holding a casual conversation with someone you just met.  Think about the types of questions they will ask you and answer them somewhere in your profile.  Your profile essentially replaces that initial interaction between you and a stranger (or your desired audience).  You’ll want them to be able to review your profile on-line and them be able to find you in a crowded room of people.

O’Neil and Ruff propose you follow two basic principles in building your profile: stick with the norms of the site and make your profile look better than all of the others.  Let’s take a look at how to do just that, section by section.

Headline.  Your LinkedIn headline is the only customizable personal information people will see in listings, group discussions and homefeeds. When you appear in search results, for instance, your name, location and headline will be the only three visible pieces of your profile. The headline is your 120 character value proposition.   

Your first step is to capture attention to your name when it shows up in search results.  You can capture interest from Internet travelers visually, before they ever even read a single word.  There are two ways to stir action: your photo and special characters.

The photo you use on your profile should be professional and of high quality.  Why?  People want to see you.  They need to be able to put a face to the name.  So you should avoid using a picture that has poor resolution, taken from 300 km away, or from 20 years ago.  Your photo should be of sufficient quality that a potential contact could look at your photo and be able to pick you out in a crowded room during a networking event. 

The use of symbols is another way to stand out in the search results.  You can simply generate them in MS Word to separate titles.  Once your wording is perfected, copy and paste it into the LinkedIn headline section.  

Summary.  Linkedin’s summary section in your profile is a 2000-character canvas that allows you to communicate your value statement and what you can give those looking for someone with your skills.  Linkedin Summary should mirror an informal conversation at a networking event.  Answer questions that people would normally ask but do so in short sentences that address a single point.  Try to keep each line simple and precise. 

Your summary should highlight the quality, benefits and value you bring to your desired audience.  This value can be estimated by highlighting key skills and experiences.  Now these aren’t just any skills and experiences but are ones that should be memorable to whoever is reading your summary.  Just pretend they read your summary out loud, as if you were actually saying it.  What would they hear?  How does it sound?  What would they remember?  You can add the typical work experience and skills for the ‘Experience’ section of your profile.    

O’Neil and Ruff suggest including an action statement at the end, such as “if you need me to speak at your event, here’s how.”  This is a call to action for your audience.  If you’re looking for a new job, then you want recruiters and HR professionals to find you.  If they do, consider what you want them to do.   You can give them an email address to reach you or send them to your blog or website to confirm the information listed in your profile.  An action statement provides the final link to reaching you directly, which is what you want. 

Facebook.  According to Tessa Hood, one of the UK’s most sought after author, speaker, expert and facilitator on branding.  Hood admits that LinkedIn and Facebook are the two best ways to be found on the Internet.  She considers Facebook to be the more social of the two outlets; thereby, presenting the greatest challenge to professionals looking to build their brand.

Not only do your qualifications, experiences and the size of your network define you, your thoughts and words provide further insight into how you think and feel.  Sometimes events stir our emotions and we have the need to share them with others, even our friends and family on Facebook.  However, Hood advises you to avoid expressing your opinions too vigorously.  Not only are harsh comments viewed as undesirable, they are permanent and hard to remove.  Keep your comments professional and avoid controversial topics.  As my dad would say “you don’t discuss two things with your friends: politics and religion because in matters of opinion, debate if futile.” 

If you’re going to provide something to the Facebook world, make it positive.  Hood suggests that you should “be a giver and not a taker. You should offer help and expertise before you ask for anything online. Give away a lot of information and you will be recognized as special, and grow your reputation online.” 

As an MBA, you should focus on building a brand for your expertise.  One of the best methods for showing the world what you’ve got is video.  Your video should incorporate two important considerations: content and quality.  Your content should be valuable to your audience and should demonstrate your command of your area of expertise.  If you want to be seen as a great leader, teach your audience about leadership principles and theories.  Maybe you could take a leadership role in a charitable organization and share your experiences online.  The quality aspect of your presentation should resemble any presentation representative of someone at your professional level with the quality your audience has come to expect.  Just pretend that each video you display will be used by your next employer to evaluate you as their next hire.  If you’re professional, insightful and inspirational online, then everyone will expect you to be just the same in real life.

Lastly, you’ll won’t to consider many of the same things you do with Linkedin; that is, use a good photo  of yourself, use good grammar and build a decent size network of friends.  If you use both LinkedIn and Facebook, ensure your profiles support each other, with no conflicting information.  You can use Facebook to share a little more information about your personal side, giving potential employers a chance to

Articles, blogging and discussion groups.  Writing articles for online publications is a form of developing a personal brand and demonstrating expertise and knowledge.   However, first time writers struggle with topics to write about.  There are numerous venues for ideas.  The first is local and national news.  Can you draw a correlation between an event of the day and your area of expertise?  Other ideas include:

• Interviews – contact experts in your field for a brief interview on a particular topic you are interested in.  Then, create an article and blog about the interview.  Put each in as many places on the internet as you can to increase your exposure and develop a following.
• Faqs – solving people’s problems by answering their questions is a great way to demonstrate expertise.  Find questions on the most popular websites in your profession.  Write articles and blogs to answer these questions.  Rinse and repeat.
• What you wish you’d known – share the lessons you’ve learned over the years from specific experiences.  Guidance and advice are always appreciated by those who are experiencing what you did for the first time.
• Trends – websites, blogs, ezines and magazines are always looking for the latest trends in just about everything.  Pitch your ideas to publications and websites. 

You can also tap into the general utility of answering questions on LinkedIn and other Q&A websites like Quora. In Linkedin, the section is called Answers.  Here you can ask your own questions, such as to understand trends, or you can answer other people’s questions.  Ideally, it’s good if you do both.  I typically ask questions to understand certain aspects about my profession.  For example, if I want to know what career barriers people are running into in a specific corner of the world, I ask a question to a discussion group in LinkedIn that is for setup for that geographical region. 

Answering questions to help individuals is an exciting activity.  You get to share what you know with others and hopefully, solve their problems. It’s a great way to build your network, hone your troubleshooting skills, demonstrate you’re a problem solver and simply help people overcome adversity. 

Finally, though social media gets all the attention these days, a good "old-fashioned" blog focusing on a niche of expertise should not be overlooked as a potential online form of reputation building.

If you had to identify the biggest challenge most of us have with achieving our goals, you’d probably guess correctly that most of us just don’t plan for it.  Sure, we work hard to accomplish specific tasks but we do so with the hope that someone else will see these great feats and automatically make the connection to the next step in our career.  We don’t think about what these connections might be or how to make them ourselves. It’s not an easy thing to understand and takes time and analysis to comprehend.  But, we don’t take the time or is it that we don’t have the time. 

With so many things competing for our attention today, how can we effectively wade through the barrage of information to sort out what is truly important to our career?

In order to understand our challenge a little better, I interviewed David Allen, author of “Getting Things Done,” to find out what we could be doing differently.  While the question was directed at MBAs, David’s answer will give everyone the key we’ve been looking for.  Here’s part of our discussion.

Todd:  What do MBA graduates miss when they develop their career goals?

David:  One of the biggest things they miss that they don’t get in their training is to create a personal systemic process to manage keeping their own work and lives under control and being focused on the right things at the right time.  This is a core or a meta-behavior or a meta-set of best practices that make all other best practices viable.  If you’re out of control and unfocused, you can read all the best “market yourself” books but you won’t be able to execute on it.  The critical element is that when you think about going into a job or a career, in terms of how well you manage the stuff you need to manage, you must be able to keep track of it.

It comes down to the two aspects of self-management: control and perspective.  The only time you think you need a better system of management is when you think one of these is suboptimal.  Either things are not as in control as possible or you feel you’re on unstable ground.  If you’re on unstable ground, there’s a part of you that has the inability to focus appropriately or execute appropriately.  You don’t have any traction.   Even if you’re on stable ground, are you pointed in the right direction? If you’re pointed at the wrong stuff, you’ll create instability again.  There’s a direct correlation between control and perspective. 

If you have good self management skills, you’re ready for anything.  If you have these behavior sets, you are ready for surprises that show up or if things don’t go as expected, you can recalibrate yourself quickly to take in new data, new situations and decide what they mean.  Then you can hold this up against everything else you have going on and re-point yourself in the right direction.  Simply put, can you keep yourself only as organized as you need to be and no more?  [End of Interview]

To maintain control and perspective, you must possess a method that you can refer to when you need it.  It must be easy to use.  It must be simple.  We’re already too busy and a lengthy process would never find time in our calendars.   Well, David has suggestions for that too.  In his simple approach, you must take the time to understand what it is that is commanding all of your attention.  What are all of the things that are living inside your head?  When it comes to mental processing, your conscious mind does not do the hard work.  Most information goes to your subconscious mind anyway, where your problems are really solved.   Your conscious mind actually gets in the way when you have too many things you’re trying to focus your attention on.  You subconscious mind wants you to just tell it what you want it to figure out and then forget it.  It will do all the work and come back to you with an answer.  If you’re constantly thinking about an issue, your subconscious can’t help you figure it out.  Your task is to keep your conscious mind clear.

Here’s a tip you can do today that will clear your mind and free up some processor time to solve problems and plan your path.   Grab a notebook and write down all the things that are occupying your attention.  This could include some basic needs like paying bills, getting new tires for the car, homework for a college course you’re taking, meetings you must attend and so on.  This activity can take you several hours to complete.  Notice I didn’t mention any work-related, networking or other career-related activities.  You must write them all down.  Once you complete your list, you’ll find that you normally have a lot on your mind.  Most likely, you have too much on your mind and you’re occupying thought time on things you probably shouldn’t be (but this will be addressed later in another step in David Allen’s process).

Well, I hate to leave you with only the first step in this great process but this post is getting too long.  Stay tuned for our next ebooks to be released where we’ll share the rest of David Allen’s process for removing the clutter from your conscious mind and how you can put your subconscious mind in top performing condition.  You’ve heard the old adage “that life is all about the little things.” Well, it’s those little things that can slow you down in achieving the goals you really want when you spend too much time thinking about them.  Free your mind and let it work the way it was meant to.

Thanks to David Allen for a great interview and advice on how we can improve our mental performance.  You can learn more about David Allen at www.davidco.com. 

As new graduates consider heading into the corporate world, it’s a good idea to begin to read a little about what the real world is really like.  Being successful is going to take a lot more than what you learn in academia.  Technical skills are important but are only part of the success equation.

To help you begin your list, I’ve highlighted a few below that must be on it.

Who’s Holding Your Ladder by Samuel Chand

Radical Leap by Steve Farber

Networking Unplugged by Thom Singer

What got you here won’t get you there by Marshall Goldsmith

Getting things done by David Allen

You don’t need a title to be a leader by Mark Sanborn

Change your thinking Change your life by Brian Tracy

The Secret Handshake by Kathleen Reardon

We all go to college to get those essential skills that will set us on course for a happy and successful career.  We work hard to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities to achieve our goals.  Yet, somehow, this preparation for our career is lacking.  We are all familiar with that feeling we get when we graduate and have to truly embark on that journey to our dreams.  The feeling is captured well by the question “now what?”  So what’s missing here?  Does college actually prepare us for the real world or do we simply fail to prepare ourselves? 

Virginia Tech’s Career Services’ latest Post graduate report highlights a few areas that are overlooked by students.  The report presents results of their survey of VT graduates for the 2010-2011 academic year where they asked students what were their regrets related to planning for life after college.   The major findings are below.

More experience in their major or career goals.  This was identified by over half the respondents.  It’s hard to say where the failure is here.  Could it be the schools for not identifying this need?  Do the students listen to their advice?  The important point to note is that experience is a big key and that students must seek it out, either through the college or on their own.  College is a place for more than just classes.  Find an internship, part time job or become very active in professional organizations to learn from other professionals.

Career Options.  Almost half the respondents said they wish they had learned more about career options.  Decades ago the corporate world didn’t change as quickly as it does today.  Back then, spending four years in a degree program wouldn’t impact your timing into the corporate world because things were fairly steady.  Today, the market seems to try to respond to every demand, resulting in a turbulent environment where industries may change drastically in four years.  As a student of a particular occupation, it is wise to constantly monitor your chosen profession to ensure you are aware of any developments.  If your degree is more generic, then you’ll need to work with career services, your own network and even career coaches to assess your options.

Job Search.  Just less than half of the respondents wished they had started their job search earlier.  This would avoid a long transition period after graduation.  It’s not too unusual to begin searching in your final year but the economic conditions will have an influence on this.  When unemployment is high, the amount of time it will take you to find work will be longer.  Start searching for work your junior year.  If you’re in grad school, start your first semester.

Advice.  About 42% of respondents feel they failed to ask advisors and professors for advice often enough.   This is understandable as many students don’t know what to ask, especially when graduation is a few years away.  This is an area both colleges and students need to improve upon.  Colleges emphasize being successful in the program early on because they want students to graduates.  However, career services could be educating students on market trends, career options, major organization changes, government policies, etc.  (basically, anything that changes the job market).    Students need to set Friday nights aside for internal self-assessment to understand what it is that really motivates them and drives them to succeed so that they can then identify industries and companies that can meet that need.  Just kidding!  We know that won’t happen.  Students should take time to visit their career services’ events, even if they are 2 or 3 years away from graduating.  You must know what the college has to offer and begin using their services as early as possible.  Lastly, students can consult professionals like myself.  We keep track of trends around the globe and work with many students and graduates, so we’ve probably seen your situation before and will be able to provide guidance.

Achieving personal success has never been more challenging than it is today.  Unemployment is high, creating a highly competitive landscape for obtaining a new opportunity for which most seem to be given to those with unparalleled networks.   Somehow, these people know how to reach right into an organization and grab the job, raise or promotion long before it’s ever known to exist. So is networking the key to success? 

One of the biggest challenges to achieving our dreams is that the huge successes we are bombarded with on a daily basis have forced a mindset that big leaps have to be made for us to feel successful.  Social Networking is one of those huge successes.  If we look at Facebook, LinkedIn and other top social networking sites, they seem to do one thing very well; that is, they create a good stage for collaboration.  These sites aren’t successful because they create tons of joy and happiness in people’s lives.  They are successful because they bring access to a lot of people in one single platform which has phenomenal marketing potential.  The collaborative nature itself is extremely valuable, if only because it houses so much potential. 

Compare this to the success of the individual user in one of these sites.  Let’s say you are networking with LinkedIn and spend a lot of time connecting with people you don’t know seeking that next opportunity that will help you to take a step up on the success ladder.  You send out invitation after invitation with minimal results.  That’s because this approach is slightly better than other mass marketing techniques in that the return on these activities is usually a very small single digit percentage. 

I’m not trying to downplay the value of networking or collaboration.  I think we need to tap into the idea more.  Even the individual in the highest political office sees great value in tapping into the support of active groups, like Super PACs.  President Obama seems to be considering the financial support of these outside groups to help get him reelected.  These groups help tout the benefits of Obama and risks associated with bringing someone new in the oval office.  It’s money that gets spent on his campaign that doesn’t come out of his campaign budget.  Achieving success through the efforts of others is such a novel idea.

When you look at how social networks and even politics benefit so greatly from collaboration, why would anyone want to try to achieve success by themselves?  The individual approach to success isn’t likely to achieve big results in a short amount of time.  If we look at what we normally do to get success as an individual, we will realize that we are using up our most valuable resource (time) fairly quick.  Research shows that those who achieve promotions early in their career are more likely to achieve more success later in their career.  So, if we spend four years earning a college, work for four more years and then exert two more years getting a master’s degree, we’ve used up ten years of our working lives.  If you haven’t made great leaps and bounds up the ladder before this, you’ll have to make them in the next five or ten years if you hope to avoid being viewed as a slow performer.  Yeah, it’s not fair but it’s reality.  There's only a limited number of positions at the top and we have to discriminate to fill them.

So how can you tap into faster success?  You can use the power of collaboration and networking.  You can build your own team of supporters who can help you define your career path, build the skills you need,  find the opportunities, network into corporate grapevines to gain access and recognition, and fight off the competition.  The method for building such a career strategy is called the Blitz Approach.  I’ve studied this for years and have even created a map on how to plan out this strategy.   You can find this map and supporting material in our book at www.blitztheladder.com.

How much longer will you fight to achieve your goals all by yourself?  Tap into the power of collaborative groups to save yourself time and effort in making your dreams a reality.  As Brian Tracy said “it will save you years in moving onward and upward.”

Finweek, in conjunction with MBAConnect.net, has just released their first research report on the impact the MBA has on the lives of students and graduates in South Africa.  This survey probed the question on whether or not the MBA was a worthy endeavor and what impact this objective had on the lives of students and graduates.  Over 1500 respondents shared their views on the good and bad of the MBA pursuit.  Here’s a few of the key findings of the survey.

One of the more interesting findings was related to why students pursue the MBA.  Popular opinion suggests that the MBA is sought for career advancement and better pay.  This survey found that professionals obtained the MBA to “be more productive in a business environment.”  However, 77% of respondents indicated they had received a promotion or greater responsibility after earning the MBA.

Is the MBA a positive force on their career?  Over 95% of respondents felt that the MBA improved their decision-making abilities.  Nearly 90% felt the MBA bestowed more credibility on their careers by elevating the perceptions others had of them and improving their ability to interact with others at various levels.  The MBA also made them better leaders, with other 90% of respondents attributing their skills learned in courses, skills learned from group interaction and a heightened self-awareness as the main drivers for this improvement.

Career changers found some benefit from the MBA, as 56% of the respondents changed careers after graduation.  Of these graduates, 65% said the MBA made the difference.

One of the more profound positive impacts identified was the change in their outlook on life.  Over two-thirds felt the MBA opened their eyes to new opportunities, renewed their interest in the business world and improved their level of confidence and self-belief.

As you might expect, the MBA isn’t “all that.”  There were a few downsides to its pursuit.  Most students (68%) stated that the financial requirements forced them to cut back on normal lifestyle expenses.  Negative impacts were noted with regards to diet (48%), sleep (82%), stress (81%) and sex (42%). 

What about beyond the MBA?  This survey found room for improvement within the universities for several key career-related activities for Alumni.  These include access to MBA-level job opportunities and networking events, helping graduates start and grow businesses and building personal brands.

While these are only a few of the results, it’s important to note the overall message from the survey; that is, the MBA is worth the pursuit.  Even though students and graduates felt the universities were failing to meet some expectations, they are still looking to the MBA programs to be a big part of their post-MBA career.

You can find the survey results at MBAConnect.net (http://www.mbaconnect.net/finweeksurvey.aspx).  

How do you become successful with an MBA? Many professionals today are searching for that one key to a highly successful career...the MBA. After they’ve earned it, they struggle with achieving the success they expected. The problem is that they don’t learn to communicate their new value to managers, potential employers and many others. This book will provide considerable insight to what many MBAs have done. Also, you’ll learn how they’ve found the value and shared it with others to achieve the success they sought. Lastly, you’ll get a simple plan to follow to establish your own value proposition.

How do you become successful with an MBA?

No one argues that networking is a vital part of your career.  Brand new college graduates already know that their network is the biggest factor in finding their first job after graduation.  If you’ve been laid off recently, you are fully aware of the power of having friends in other companies.  Career mobility in periods of high unemployment is almost entirely driven by your ability to connect with other professionals.  But what happens when you don’t have a big network?  You’re forced to reach out to people you don’t know personally and ask them for help.  It’s like mass marketing.  You send out tons of emails and get very few responses.  What should you do?

First, it’s not you.  But it could be your approach.  In this post, we’ll look at a few things you should consider including in your networking strategy. 

Authenticity. Your request must feel genuine.  Don’t be afraid to share the truth of your situation.  Hiding the fact that you got fired or laid off will send signals up like roman candles.  If your recipient gets that slightest sense that something isn’t right, they’ll just delete your request.   

Action-oriented.  You must ensure your request defines how you found the person, why you chose them and how they can help.  Make sure they know what you want them to do. The email recipient will assume you’ve taken the time to assess what they do, what their company does and how you will fit in.  Therefore, you should have some idea what you them to help you with.  If you’re just sending it blindly with the hopes that they’ll figure something out, it won’t happen.  Don’t do it.

Reciprocity.  Giving back does work.  However, your initial approach should offer something to the recipient rather than simply asking for help. As a writer, I'm always asking others for advice. I usually find a way to give something beforehand or in return for their support. It’s a sign that I value their time and effort and appreciate them spending it on me.

Likeness. Search for those who are like you.  People who have the same background or upbringing are likely to share the same values as you do.  Try to find some commonalities with those you reach out to as it helps establish a connection and give them a reason to consider helping you.

Validation.  This is the most powerful tool you can use. If you're looking for help from someone at a higher level than you or in an industry you’ve never worked in before, get a referral.  If you’re reaching out to a CEO and another CEO makes a referral for you, you’ve got a good chance that you’ll get a response.  Otherwise, the CEO’s gatekeeper will stop your request from ever crossing their desk. 

Persistance.  Never give up on what you want. People respond to passion.  If you’re trying to get a contact in a particular company, don’t quit until you get one.  Try different methods for contacting people in the company, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or direct email. I once sought a contact for 18 months.  I did get it.  Be persistent. 

Help others. Many roads to success have been paved with this strategy. Offer your support to others without regard for reward or payment of your efforts.  Good things will come to you. This was Oprah’s claim to fame.

Networking is the key to opportunity in today’s economy.  Having all of the other ingredients, such as knowledge, skills, abilities and a college degree, are just part of the admission price to the game.  Networking is a skill that can be learned.  If you don’t have a big network, you’ll have to practice a lot.  But once you find something that works, you can quickly build upon it to find that next great opportunity.