Schooled

Really, what do they teach them in business schools these days?

I have just wasted one whole evening going through various MBA-droid resumes that Jimmy the Kid has seen fit to inflict upon me, as part of his ridiculous scheme to ‘professionalize’ the company. That’s four hours of my life that I will never get back.

The general-management resumes are bad enough. These are dudes with no clue about assets, markets or asset markets; but they have plenty to say about proactively incenting stakeholders to architect transformative strategies which will then harness holistic synergies across our business regime. Or regimen, as the case may be.

At least the general-management resumes are easy to identify and toss into the trashcan. Ah, for the good old days when all MBA resumes were of that ilk! But no. Thanks to the recent bubble in everybody’s favorite industry, an increasing number of B-school weenies have decided to specialize in finance. Heaven help us all.

This new breed of jobseeker doesn’t talk about integrated tactical paradigms. Instead, they’re all about hidden Markov models and affine curves and Gaussian copulas and other strange beasts. But the basic idea is the same: hide your lack of expertise or experience in a flood of jargon.

It never works. Here’s why.

Either your prospective employer understands the jargon himself, or he doesn’t.

If he does understand the jargon, then he also understands the fact that most models are junk. Affine curves are not so fine in practice. Markov isn’t hiding; he’s dead. Gauss too.

If on the other hand he doesn’t understand the jargon, then do you think he’s going to hire you? Why would any manager risk putting himself out of a job by hiring a better-qualified subordinate?

You would think business schools would do a better job of teaching their graduates this elementary political calculation.

Oh, and the saddest part of the whole business? I have gone through over fifty resumes this evening and not one of them – not one! – has mentioned the one technical skill which is truly essential in our industry. I am talking, of course, about Microsoft Excel.

Really, what do they teach them in business schools these days?