Does your MBA programme have a personal development backbone? 2005-08-19 12:11:42

Career Development for MBAs in China

If your MBA doesn’t have a personal development backbone, you are not getting value for money.

Out of the Dark Ages

Although you will find a career development center in almost every business school in China, if you look closely you will discover that many of them are operating in the Dark Ages. The promise is to help individual students find the career that is right for them. But the reality may boil down to statistics on the job market and a workshop on how to do a job interview. The promise is that during the MBA experience, students learn more about themselves and their potential. But the reality may be a psychology questionnaire. No human resources manager would base a company career system on a psychology test. But that is what many business schools actually deliver for the thousands of dollars you pay for your education.

For example, the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) is the most widely used questionnaire in the world and many career workshops use it. But it is based on a psychology typology that has been considered unscientific and unverifiable for more than fifty years. The Harvard CareerLeader is based on eight job content areas that may help establish work preferences, but it excludes creative work and entrepreneurship. Such questionnaires are not useless, but they are only rudimentary career development tools and when used to make major career decisions they are not much better than horoscopes, palm reading or feng shui.

Does it have a Backbone?

Career development must start with personal development which includes  the deeper issues of identity and lifestyle in order to make choices for working and living that will have an impact for more than thirty years of activity. The key word is development: creating a personal development strategy is necessarily a process something that takes time and thought. A backbone is a way of organizing information, advice and services along the length of time a student is in the school.  Without a backbone, there is no support and no follow up of a student’s progress.

Personal Development Certificate

Personal development is now part of the European quality standard for business schools called EQUIS. So far, most business schools in China would not pass an EQUIS audit because they have no personal development backbone for students. Higher standards are being created by government education ministries. Many European business schools are going beyond these standards because students have learned that personal development is a key choice criterion when looking for a business school. 

The most advanced program among European business schools was created in 2002 by Euromed Marseille in France, which has partnerships in China with Tsinghua, Shanghai Jiaotong, Tongji and Renmin universities. In 2002, Euromed Marseille asked Metizo to create and manage the world’s first personal development certificate and made it obligatory for all students following general education programs. The standards are very high:

    Personal development is not be limited to job search and career development: questions of identity, long-term life goals and lifestyle are dealt with prior to career orientation.

    Personal Development will span the entire learning experience. Rather than being series of modules placed here and there during a student’s studies, an integrated system of support from all of the people responsible was set in place.

    Personal development methods and tools are based on best practice in companies. The concepts and techniques are validated in the workplace.

The value of certification concerns not only the quality of the education backbone. Backed up by the Metizo brand that provides career development programs for global companies like Nokia Greater China, the certificate is a plus for the student who completes the requirements when it comes to hiring.

When will Things Change in China?

The best Chinese universities are confident that they can compete internationally and so pay close attention to standards and rankings. Moreover the Chinese Ministry of Education is also keenly aware of the gap between what business schools teach and what the talent market is looking for. So personal development is a hot subject in MBA programs. In fact, the situation in China is already changing.  Some of China’s best business schools are setting up a personal development backbone in their MBA programs, and Renmin University has started with backbone for undergraduate students.

For today’s students the choice is: either go abroad with the risk that your overseas MBA may have little to do with China’s labor market, or ask your preferred Chinese B-school what they can deliver now in terms of career and personal development.

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