News: Looking to enhance their qualifications, employees go back to business school

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Looking to enhance their qualifications, employees go back to business school

Looking to enhance their qualifications, employees go back to business school

By Jeff Zbar

Special Correspondent

June 18, 2007, 7:06 AM EDT

Michelle Gold has significant business experience. As president of a not-for-profit, she helped manage a seven-figure budget, oversaw a multimillion-dollar new building project, and helped negotiate refinancing of an $8 million construction loan.

Even with all that business insight, Gold wanted a boost to her business savvy and resume. So in 2004, at age 43, Gold enrolled in the University of Florida's executive MBA program. The married mother of two studied nightly and attended classes every third weekend. She emerged in December with her MBA.

"I was a stay-at-home mom for 14 years and was looking for a way to build myself up to become a top-notch candidate," said Gold, who stepped down from the volunteer post as president last year and who's now looking for an executive-level job.

`Enhance your career'

Gold is one of many South Florida employees and entrepreneurs who are returning to school to earn their MBA, or master's in business administration. The degree requires widely focused graduate-level work in many areas of business marketing, finance and accounting, operations, law, and even organizational behavior.

Business schools around the country are seeing a rise in applications to traditional and "executive" or weekend MBA programs, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council.

Last year, 69 percent of 147 schools surveyed reported applications were up, vs. 38 percent the year before, said Bob Ludwig, a spokesman for the McLean, Va.-based organization. Half the schools are reporting more applications from women than the year before, 37 percent reported a rise in minority applications, and 58 percent said international student applications were up.

The parchment appears to bring better tidings. Among students in MBA programs as part of the Executive MBA Council, 41 percent were promoted in 2005, compared to 34 percent in 2004, according to the organization.

"The trend used to be that if you had a bachelor's degree in business, that was state of the art," said Vegar Wiik, interim director of executive programs at Florida Atlantic University's college of business in Boca Raton. "Now, to get higher management positions, you need to get an MBA to excel in occupations and go through that glass ceiling in the marketplace."

The `ideal candidate'

Gold was an ideal candidate for the University of Florida's MBA program, said Patrick Foran, the program's director of admissions. She had an undergraduate degree (two, actually) and at least four years of work experience, most recently as president of Temple Dor Dorim in Weston. There, she oversaw 14 staffers, 60 teachers and a six-figure budget. And she was ready to work hard -- up to 20 hours a week in studies, by some estimates.

"The ideal candidate is someone moving into a career who wants to get the skill sets and abilities to understand the whole business," Foran said. "Companies are complicated organisms. This helps them think clearly about operations, what your company does and what else you can do to help the greater good of the company."

Taking the graduate management admission test (or GMAT) at 42 was daunting, Gold admitted. Before starting the program, she discussed the cooperation she'd need from her husband and two children. Her studies began at 9:30 at night and often didn't end until well after midnight.

Gold said she thinks her MBA will boost her prospective starting salary from around $60,000 to more than $110,000; the two-year program cost her about $45,000. FAU's costs around $25,000, Wiik said.

Return on investment (ROI) on an MBA has been shrinking, according to the Executive MBA Council. In 2005, it took 18 months for organizations to experience ROI, compared with 21 months in 2004. Students who paid their own way enjoyed payback in 39 months in 2005, compared with 44 months the year before.

"I believe I bought a better business brain," joked Gold, who put her knowledge to use before graduation when she helped negotiate a loan for the congregation that cut thousands off its payments, launched a study to build the congregation's member base, and restructured departments to improve her budget. She's more confident in interviews.

"Without a business degree, I would be dismissed in job interviews right away," she said.

Better understanding

For seven years, Sundar Phyagarajan has been a senior software engineer at Motorola in Plantation. But when in meetings with business planners, his work and their needs often disconnected.

In 2004, the physics and computer engineering graduate began taking business prerequisites and studying for the GMAT. In 2005, at 42, he had enrolled in Nova Southeastern University's MBA program.

While his wife, Vijayshree, cared for their two children, he attended classes every other weekend and studied well into the evening. He graduates in July with an MBA with an entrepreneurial specialty, with an eye on an eventual career in management consulting.

Phyagarajan lamented his late start, though he credits the wisdom of age as helping his studies. With his MBA, he thinks he's more on par in discussions with his managers.

"As technologist, having a larger understanding of the business model is equally relevant to engineers," he said.

Dave Kustin, 33, also is wrapping up his MBA studies at NSU. The managing director at On the Ball, a Plantation marketing firm, Kustin thinks his MBA is teaching him the language of business.

"This gives me more traction in my clients' boardrooms," he said. "I meet with people every day and now can speak their language and look at their business more objectively than if I did not have a degree." Copyright ? 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel