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Businesses don't want your business degree, apparently

BY Alyssa Kleven  on April 5, 2012 @ 12:07 pm (Updated: 6:22 am - 4/11/12 )

UW

Young college students have been making moves to get degrees that would make them more marketable once they hit the job market, and doesn't business sound like a sensible degree? (AP Photo/File)

The recession has led to a slew of problems, particularly for young college graduates, trying to get their first, career -defining job. Some college-aged kids have even opted to not go to college, to make self-made men or women out of themselves.

That approach has been particularly popular in the tech industry, where giants like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs were college dropouts with ideas too big for colleges to handle.

But, young students have also been making moves to get degrees that would make them more marketable once they hit the job market, and doesn't business sound like a sensible degree?

Yet more and more recruiters that hire recent grads are shying away from business degree-holders, according to the Wall Street Journal. Apparently, those students don't have the critical thinking skills that are developed when studying liberal arts.

Business degrees offer the "nuts and bolts" of the white collar trade. Recruiters have been saying, however, that it's the nuts and bolts that are easiest to include in on- the-job training. What's not as easy is developing the analytic, debating, idea-spawning skills that come from classrooms varied in subjects like those offered at liberal arts colleges.

It's great news for English or philosophy majors. Often the butt of jokes in the job world, (you know, as a great way to get a job in the food-service industry) these well read and eager to debate-types are proving their own job market value. They do more than just read.

That doesn't mean recent high school grads should bank on a liberal arts education. One of the most in demand fields is still tech. Companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook continue to grow, which means they'll continue to wade through piles of resumes to fill new positions. The seemingly continuous growth in tech will be good for the Seattle area, one of our city's most popular career fields.

Alyssa Kleven, MyNorthwest.com Editor
Alyssa Kleven is an editor and content producer at MyNorthwest.com. She enjoys doting over her adorable dachshund Winnie - named for Arcade Fire front-man Win Butler.
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Comments (10)


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  • CH wrote...
    They spend all that money on a degree and can't find a job? . . . . .
    April 11, 2012 6:03 am
    thats to funny.
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  • vsekvsek wrote...
    hystercial
    April 11, 2012 6:09 am
    hysterical...business majors dont have critical thinking skills so employers want people who can do true and false questions well. You people coming up with this dreck really need to go out and experience the real world. Its no wonder so many new news websites are poping up everywhere and traditional news sights are faltering.
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  • MG345 wrote...
    To funny CH?
    April 11, 2012 6:20 am
    You must be an English major.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • HPD 5-0 wrote...
    Indeed.
    April 11, 2012 12:55 pm
    CH wrote; It's TWO funny?" Maybe..."It's 2 funny"...
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Ted Bundi wrote...
    Regarding the tech companies
    April 11, 2012 7:48 am
    "...they'll continue to wade through piles of resumes to fill new positions..." Yep, a few hundred resumes for a few positions...
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • clevesside wrote...
    Good to know and also confirm....
    April 11, 2012 8:03 am
    ....that business degrees aren't a guarantee except only for a business specialty, like accounting or marketing. You still need a broader and more diverse view of things in life in order to grow with an entity, assuming you do want to grow. Some things, thankfully, never change generation after generation. On the job experience pays for itself, and pretty much rearranges what you know academically. Try that at Microsoft or Boeing or or your Uncle Ted's shop.
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  • kata wrote...
    Ugh.
    April 11, 2012 8:11 am
    I would have rather read the raw interviews with the employers.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Skykomish2 wrote...
    Business Degrees
    April 11, 2012 8:59 am
    We have a slew of young business degree types here where I work. They're hired at good wages because they graduated with that degree. They know all the buzzwords; they know all the business theory. What they don't know is real-world interaction and how the bottom line isn't the whole picture. They can figure out new ways to get dollars out of customers by nickel-and-dimeing them to death. But they forget that future dollars are at stake, and those nickels and dimes worth of give can mean multiple dollars of future capitol growth. Its instant money vs. long-term assets, and the new crop of business grads don't understand that. And that is why so many businesses fall by the wayside these days....
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  • Pete in Seattle wrote...
    MBA myths
    April 11, 2012 9:46 am
    As a young engineer I was bombarded by propaganda that I would be out of date within 20 years, that the MBA was a degree designed for engineers and scientists to move up into management once their tech skills become outdated. The programs were 3-5 years, consistent with a lot of Masters level degrees at the time, and assumed little to no business or accounting classwork prior to entry. Then the scene exploded with business majors taking an extra year or less to get a Masters level degree and companies couldn't hire them fast enough. But the trouble was they had no idea how an engineering or technical project usually proceeds, and the leverage points where money needs to be spent in order to reduce overall program costs. This probably did more to drive many entrepreneurial dropouts from established companies than it did to enhance those same companies bottom lines. For example I was taught that on average it is one out of ten possible alternatives that results in a viable project, and without the failures the ones that work out might contain fatal flaws. The business major MBAs would head straight to the 90% and see what they could do to eliminate it rather than seeing it as a contribution to the success of the 10%.
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  • Skykomish2 wrote...
    Pete
    April 11, 2012 9:52 am
    You are so right. I, too, work in the Technical field of a major medical company. There is too much finger-pointing toward the 90% that fail and too little learning FROM that 90%.
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