HR and the Executive MBA
July 23, 2008 – 9:39 pmI have been thinking of pursuing an Executive MBA ever since I took my position as a Seattle Human Resources Manager at Visible Technologies. Last night, I attended the University of Washington’s Executive MBA program’s summer BBQ and informational session. A couple of things were abundantly obvious to me quickly:
1. I was one of the youngest people in the crowd.
2. Start-ups didn’t seem to be strongly represented (it is a very expensive program).
3. There was not another single other HR professional in the room nor were there any in the class of 2008 at the UW EMBA program.
I had the good fortune of eating dinner with the Admissions Director to the program and I asked if they had a lot of HR professionals. He asked somewhat surprised, “You are in HR?” I replied that I was. He said “No. No, they didn’t receive very many applicants in the HR profession.” I told him I had my own theories on why that might be and left it at that.
Why is it that HR is under represented and not well respected? Below are some stats from some of the leading MBA programs in the county:
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) EMBA
Students work in these functional categories:
Consulting: 20 %
Finance/Accounting: 32 %
General Management : 13 %
Marketing/Sales: 8 %
Management Information Systems : 9 %
University of Chicago (The Top MBA program according to Business Week)
Graduating students who accepted jobs in the following functional areas:
Consulting: 26 %
Finance/Accounting: 55 %
General Management: 7.5 %
Human Resources: 0.2 %
Marketing/Sales (Public Relations, Product Management, Market Research, Advertising, etc.): 7.5 %
Management Information Systems (MIS): 0 %
Operations/Logistics (Logistics, Purchasing, Engineering, etc.): 1.0 %
Other: 2.6 %
Apparently not many graduates choose the HR field. This is both a challenge and opportunity to the HR field to grow in the eyes of business leaders everywhere. I, for one, am up to the challenge.
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
One Response to “HR and the Executive MBA”
I too am in HR and am strongly considering an EMBA. I’ve seen the statistics you referenced, but that has not been a deterrent. I think HR folks can benefit from the learning about business from the ground up. This will provide more insight, understanding and knowledge to leverage in and outside of HR. Ultimately, the HR person who pursues an EMBA will add more value to their business with the degree (and experience) than without it; in my opinion.
By J. Williams on Oct 1, 2008