{"id":10774,"date":"2012-03-28T18:25:30","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T01:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=10774"},"modified":"2012-03-27T16:10:28","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T23:10:28","slug":"younger-mba-pool-and-predicting-job-performance-with-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/younger-mba-pool-and-predicting-job-performance-with-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Younger MBA Pool and Predicting Job Performance with Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> By Lucas Weingarten<\/p>\n

WSJ got me reading, sure, but is it better to have an irritated reader than none at all?\u00a0 I suppose so.\u00a0 Admittedly, I am doing exactly the same thing both the Journal and the researchers at Northern Illinois University are doing:\u00a0using Facebook in a shameless attempt to capture your attention<\/a>.\u00a0 It worked on me and now it has worked on you.\u00a0 Maybe after you\u2019re done here you can go read\u00a0People<\/em> or watch\u00a0Fox News<\/em><\/a> for some more pandering.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written before about the\u00a0GMAT<\/a> as a selection tool (here<\/a> and\u00a0here<\/a>), and it is a conversation I have with all my students.\u00a0 It is important to understand\u00a0why<\/em> we have to take the GMAT<\/a> and\u00a0what<\/em> the GMAT really is.\u00a0 The more you understand about the test, the more power you have over it (and the less it has over you).\u00a0 The basic idea is that the GMAT is built and validated to predict only one thing: your future academic performance in the first year of graduate school.\u00a0 That\u2019s it.\u00a0 What the GMAT\u00a0doesn\u2019t<\/em> <\/em>predict is how smart you are or how successful you will be in your post-MBA career.\u00a0 Although, to that last point,\u00a0some are sadly using it to do just that<\/a>, which is what prompted this post.<\/p>\n

The article is more of a snippet and it is formatted as a series of Facebook status updates (though I believe the irony of this is lost on them).\u00a0 An aside: the trend of online articles presented in sentences-as-paragraphs form is frustrating to me, and this one exemplifies the issue.\u00a0 Anyway, it did spark my memory of other invalid ways of predicting job performance so I figured I share it with you.<\/p>\n

Scroll down to the third snippet in the stream of three and you\u2019ll find some interesting statistics derived from GMAT data regarding the decreasing average age of MBA applicants.\u00a0 Of course, we can only conclude the MBA applicant is getting younger\u00a0if we assume<\/a> that those taking the GMAT are submitting\u00a0b-school applications<\/a> soon after taking the exam rather than waiting until closer to the end of the five-year\u00a0test score<\/a> expiration date.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, 44% of GMAT test takers worldwide are 24 and younger, which is a 7% increase over five years.\u00a0 Speculation of a tough job market caused by a struggling US economy that is forcing undergraduates to apply to grad school earlier than planned is presented.\u00a0 We then learn that 77% of Chinese GMAT test takers are 24 and under\u2014finally some hard numbers that don\u2019t rely on assumptions!<\/p>\n

I could not help but tenuously link the bit about Facebook and a younger\u00a0MBA<\/a> applicant pool, then land squarely on the side of grumpy-old-man cynicism.\u00a0 I respect people with drive and ambition and who recognize the value of graduate business education.\u00a0 However, solid time out of school including a muddy trudge through life before heading back to academia makes for a stronger applicant and a more meaningful grad school experience.\u00a0 My hope is that\u00a0business schools<\/a> continue to value highly years of work experience in their applicants and that they keep the number of 24-and-younger\u00a0MBA degree<\/a> seekers to a minimum in their admitted cohorts.\u00a0 Above all, I hope they don\u2019t start using Facebook to predict academic performance.\u00a0 Let\u2019s let the GMAT have that one, OK?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lucas Weingarten WSJ got me reading, sure, but is it better to have an irritated reader than none at all?\u00a0 I suppose so.\u00a0 Admittedly, I am doing exactly the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,558,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-kaplan-blog","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10774"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10777,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10774\/revisions\/10777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}