Phd and MBA are different animals, mostly i mean. Why bother compare these two together ? I agree they are deeply different, they are alternative choices, and it is easy to forget how wide open your options are before you finish your education.As someone who does a lot of careers advice I help people decide between disparate choices, and sometimes add in a few suggestions.For instance yesterday evening I explained to one guy that the best way of getting to where he wants to be is to lock himself in a room and read a particular set of books for 3-6 months.That's because there is no course that teaches what he wants to do. Actually that's true for nearly everyone. All courses are compromises between width and depth, and the teaching of general principles vs how to do very specific jobs.The chances of any course fitting your hopes and skills all that well is actually pretty low.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DominicConnorPhd and MBA are different animals, mostly i mean. Why bother compare these two together ? I agree they are deeply different, they are alternative choices, and it is easy to forget how wide open your options are before you finish your education.As someone who does a lot of careers advice I help people decide between disparate choices, and sometimes add in a few suggestions.For instance yesterday evening I explained to one guy that the best way of getting to where he wants to be is to lock himself in a room and read a particular set of books for 3-6 months.That's because there is no course that teaches what he wants to do. Actually that's true for nearly everyone. All courses are compromises between width and depth, and the teaching of general principles vs how to do very specific jobs.The chances of any course fitting your hopes and skills all that well is actually pretty low.true! i can't agree any more!

QuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodlesSince IBankers need to have self-confidence, you are seriously disadvantage if you don't go in with a high opinion of yourself. In fact, the interviewers will see lack of confidence as a deficiency and rule you out.That depends on where you work. The danger you run into is that you end up in an environment were everyone has a high opinion of themselves, everyone is sure about what is going on, and you end up running the ship into the iceberg. There is a very fine line between self-confidence and arrogance, and arrogance can lead to bankruptcy in this game.QuotePart of ibanking is selling to very ambitious and successful clients, who are used to dealing with people of equally lofty confidence levels.Depends. Some very ambitious and successful clients really just want someone to shine their shoes. In any case, I think you have the businessman-client relationship wrong. We are working in a service industry, and the key thing is to serve the interests of the client, whether they are a rich billionaire or an eight year old with a piggy bank full of pennies. People that work in investment banks, are well paid, well dressed bank tellers. The big problem with high confidence levels is that you end up talking and not listening and thinking.QuoteNo bank wants to hire modest middle of the roader any more than bankers want to drink a $10 bottle of wine.First and most important thing is technical skills. Second thing is ability to work with people. Some banks encourage modesty. Also, everyone is good at something and horrible at others, and making an organization work often involves having good processes in which average people can end up doing extraordinary things. QuoteIf you have your self-confidence wrecked by a tough phd program at a state uni, you won't last long in ibank office politics battling against the overconfident MBAs.Unless you work for a place that expects some degree of modesty and humility from MBA's. Right now everyone is too busy trying to work with each other to survive to worry too much about office politics.BTW, I work for a financial firm that survived the crisis. We made a lot of mistakes, but fewer and less serious ones than other firms made, and that's not a cause for celebration or self-congratulation because the moment you get arrogant and don't look for ways that you can do things better, faster, cheaper, that's the moment you are doomed.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DominicConnorPhd and MBA are different animals, mostly i mean. MBA = somebody who know what s/he wants but lacks the technical skills to achieve that.PhD = somebody with ample technical and intellectual skills but doesn't know what s/he wants.

QuoteOriginally posted by: twofishSome very ambitious and successful clients really just want someone to shine their shoes. Dunno about your clients. My clients perfer to have their shoes shined by a spectacularly bright and successful Harvard MBA.

QuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodlesDunno about your clients. My clients perfer to have their shoes shined by a spectacularly bright and successful Harvard MBA. Mine don't.

In response to some of the earlier mba-phd posts:I haven't met many streetsmart PhDs, but I have met a lot that seemed easy to con and possessing sub-par social skills. On the other hand, I don't think I've met a non-street smart MBA. Basically if you're an MBA you love money, while a PhD loves his/her subject. So if I was running a firm, and I wanted to make money, of course it'd make more sense to put the MBAs in charge and the PhDs in a room with no windows so they can do what they love.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ahowQuoteOriginally posted by: NomadeThis is what I observed, having had exposure to the two breeds:PhD: Usually (not always) is a foreigner, coming from poor reasonably educated parents, has very little social skills and tends to hang out with people with similar backgrounds. In most cases has a sense of entitlement because of the PhD and thinks he/she smarter than most people and that he should be running the bank. He has a paltry social network, and is content with relatively very little. He tends to think the world is fair and ability and skill alone is the path to riches. Usually has next to zero extra curricular activity and when asked about it he/she says he's busy and has not time for that. Usually the creature of authoritative and demanding parents. Usually badly groomed and when talking, he/she prefers to look at his shoes. MBA: Usually (not always) comes from middle to upper class domestic family. Has a pragmatic view of the world, and sees education as a means to an end only. He can talk to people, feel comfortable in the presence of authority, has various extracurricular activities. The good ones are probably smart enough to get a PhD but consciously decided not to (some times due to peers, or parents). Tends to have an extensive social network, and intensive social life. He/she thinks he/she is always right and has very little room for self-criticism. He/she is comfortable with ambiguity and on taking decision with limited information (in many cases bad decisions). Well groomed and look you in the eye when talking. He/she has a sense of entitlement that he deserves more than others for whatever reason. He/she understands the world is not fair and is comfortable taking advantage of that. He/she understands skill is one part of the puzzle but not all (sometimes this is born of necessity due to she/he having little useful skills). He thinks of PhDs as technical dudes, similar to the IT guy you just called to fix your bloomberg terminal. Compwise, it's not even close. The MBA comes ahead in almost all possible scenarios. In most cases the following happens: PhD->middle office. MBA->front office. Even if you give the PhD dude 5yrs the MBA will still catch up and come out ahead. Compensation and promotion grow much much faster in the front office (but survival is harder).Do you still see this as the case right now?You don't think things are going to be reversed because of recent events?In terms of comp? The GS chief wrote a piece on the FT arguing that risk (middle office) should be comped on a similar level to FO. In fact, the bank I used to work for on my previous job, some risk managers had a relative higher status than other FO folks (Indeed, many did better than traders YoY). This bank is doing relatively very well and I think that is part of the reason.Hard to predict if things will change dramatically. This talk happened on previous cycles I hear. But once the money is easy again, the risk dudes may go back to their previous life: duly locked in their basement and we only call them to bully them into signing off a trade (and bribing them with drinks, US open tickets, etc, etc). In the short term though, risk dudes will be reigning in and their channel to senior management (read: CRO and CEO) will be a much cleaner and exclusive one.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ahowSo if I was running a firm, and I wanted to make money, of course it'd make more sense to put the MBAs in charge and the PhDs in a room with no windows so they can do what they love. But what do you need the PhDs for? Why not just have a lot of sweet talking MBAs out there making the sales pitch and bringing home more clients? Then you need a few batchelors degree programmers and traders to implement the trades. So what are those esoteric PhDs good for? Nobody understands them anyway.

QuoteOriginally posted by: twofishMine don't. What kind of clients do you have? IT?

QuoteOriginally posted by: ahowMBA thinks of PhDs as technical dudes, similar to the IT guy you just called to fix your bloomberg terminal. PhDs are useful to have around because they are the first people to eliminate when you have to reduce head count with no severance.

QuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodlesQuoteOriginally posted by: ahowMBA thinks of PhDs as technical dudes, similar to the IT guy you just called to fix your bloomberg terminal. PhDs are useful to have around because they are the first people to eliminate when you have to reduce head count with no severance.

QuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodles But what do you need the PhDs for? Why not just have a lot of sweet talking MBAs out there making the sales pitch and bringing home more clients? Then you need a few batchelors degree programmers and traders to implement the trades. So what are those esoteric PhDs good for? Nobody understands them anyway. There is a lot of stuff in banks that is very close to Ph.D-level research. Little-r, big-D. Part of the reason you need Ph.D.'s is precisely to make things simple to understand. If you just dump a whole bunch of equations on someone, it's pretty useless, but you need someone that can go through pages of equations, and say things like "according to this model, loaning money to people that can't pay it back is a very stupid idea and if we do it and the rate of defaults exceeds X%, we are hosed."

QuoteOriginally posted by: NomadeIn terms of comp? The GS chief wrote a piece on the FT arguing that risk (middle office) should be comped on a similar level to FO. In fact, the bank I used to work for on my previous job, some risk managers had a relative higher status than other FO folks (Indeed, many did better than traders YoY). This bank is doing relatively very well and I think that is part of the reason.I think the whole FO/MO/BO structure is going to be rethought and perhaps abolished. The purpose of this structure was to separate functions so that FO would be kept on a tight leash, but it has had the opposite effect. Because people in the FO had more money, power, status, what MO thought was usually dismissed. One thing that I think will speed the process is Darwinism. Firms that didn't have a tight FO/MO separation have simply survived whereas banks in which FO traders ran everything have died.The other thing is that FO might be closer to the money, but risk is much closer to the regulators. I think that is going to dramatically change the balance of power within firms.

QuotetwofishMine don't. What kind of clients do you have? IT?One problem in finance is that you have to keep your mouth shut about what you do, and that tends to be challenging for me since I work on so much cool stuff, and when I read the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, I can see how what I'm doing influences and is influenced by the headlines. They money is decent (not good this year, hopefully much better in the coming years), but what I find really cool about the work is that you really do end up being part of history.There is lots of Darwinism in action, some firms do things that help them to survive. Other firms do things that cause them to self-destruct. A focus on competence rather on confidence helps a firm to survive.