There are some arguments that over-qualified people lose out in job hunts in the corporate sector.

One reason I could think of is that hiring managers or HR reps may not want to be outshone by someone who has reached the pinnacle of an educational pursuit. They do not want to rock the organisational boat where everyone else has at most only a basic or professional degree.

Do you think having a PhD/DBA would deny the person a job which he normally would be able to obtain under normal circumstances?

some dont want to hire as gov support these professional to set up own co.

Coaching experts have highlighted few reasons. In general, the overqualified employee is fundamentally less likely to be happy with their position. As a consequence:

(1) They will likely leave at the first opportunity.

(2) If they take the job, it's because they couldn't find anything better. This can lead to a certain resentment of their situation. From the company's point of view, the best employees are the ones that feel grateful for the opportunity to work there.

(3) They will be more likely to get bored with the work.

(4) They are more likely to challenge authority.

(5) At some point they may change their mind about taking the pay-cut and start asking for more money.

(6) Some companies are suspicious of their motivations when they are aiming for a lower position. Why are they applying for this job? Are they trying to learn about the company and possibly steal trade secrets?

(7) Many managers will feel intimidated/threatened by someone who is possibly more qualified than themselves, and will be reluctant to hire someone who might be able to take their job.

Sounds very plausible. Does that mean that these candidates will be confined to consulting jobs or academia (which is not easy to come by nor progress in given the late stage of entry), or drive a cab like Gurmeet Singh (PhD in microbiology) in the movie Taxi Taxi?

I am doing a DBA with a British university, part time. I am planning my next steps too. I think, if you are doing a PHD, first, you should not be going through newspaper for job vacancies. You should have a headhunter, you should have association, you should have lots of network, so that people know what you are doing. Also, if career is important to you, please choose the right Phd topic carefully and make sure that it has bright future instead of personal interest. For example, my thesis is Real Estate Finance - because I think Asia will have a property boom (or bust) and it will have lots of activities (I could of course be wrong...) )

Does your current employer know that you are doing your DBA and would they allow you the numerous time-offs to attend to your course in UK?

For the 3 uni that I applied to,all of them asked the employer to sign off a form. It is a big investment, so the key is why do it?

Beats me on why they need your employer to sign off on a form if it is self-funded. Would one be denied entry if he/she is unemployed, wants to do it full-time, or runs his own business?

If you are full time or self employed, you need to disclose it. The school is very strict. They receive over 1000 applications every year and only take 30-40 people because they need to allocate you to the right supervisors. And 1 professor can only supervise 2 PHD/DBA students. They dont have so many management related professors that suit everyone's interest. Based on past records, the drop out rate is 30-40% a year. So a class of 30 people usually left with less than 10 after 3 years. AND many people choose this school because they are strict.

The reason why they want the employer to sign the acknowledgement form is that if you miss the 1 week residency in UK, they will fail you i.e. you need to repeat the whole year. That is a 11,000 pound punishment. So, they make sure their asxx is covered.

I think many people underestimate the stress of doing a DBA. All of us are working and relatively senior in the company. Over 50% have children. Most of us do DBA because we want to publish or we want to write something new for our industry (I do it because I want people to call me Dr, so that I can lan si). I can assure you that if you are less than 30 years old with say 5-6 years experience, you will get no where with a DBA unless you are in consultancy business. But even if you do, you might as well invest that 5 years in your networking. That day one girl graduated with a PHD in Finance from University of Hong Kong (which is a good school), 28 years old asking for HK$20,000 salary. That is what you get if you dont plan your research degree properly......

Well I respectfully disagree about the phd topic selection. Without personal interest, it is hard to deal with the "onslaught" of papers we have to read through to start our paper. Then, we all know about the difficulties of actually writing the paper (framework, methods, inference omfg...) and the rejections that bound to come sooner or later by our committee.

Of course relevance of topic should be carefully assessed as well but personally, I believe any topic is significant, as long as it can impact the world positively. For that, I chose a topic that has great significance but hardly any career opportunity outside academic world (shadow economy).

This post has been edited by ru40342: Jan 21 2015, 09:38 PM

Whilst I appreciate your candour in revealing your motivation in pursuing your DBA, I kinda find it odd that you know of people doing DBAs solely because they want to publish. Surely there are more cost and time effective ways to publish that to enrol themselves in a programme?

And if I may, why would you say that a 30yo person with a DBA would get nowhere in a corporate career?

Sorry if I appear too inquisitive but I'd love to pick your intelligent mind.

This post has been edited by Starbucki: Jan 22 2015, 12:45 PM

A DBA with MBS will cost you around RM400k. A DBA with other foreign university will cost you around RM200,000. A world class MBA will cost you around RMB300k. If you are 30 years old, its either you just completed a MBA or you dont have an MBA. So it doesnt make sense for one to do a DBA at this age. If you are 30 with an MBA, you should try your very best to build your career, which is the reason or objective to get a MBA. The purpose of doing a MBA is to make money. I know it sounds terrible. But if an MBA does not make you a lot more money or open new doors for you, then the MBA is wasted (which is why you see that a lot of good schools compare their students pay before and after the course). Let me be a bit long winded. Assuming you work for big 4 accounting firms. After 4-5 years working, you realise that it is hard for you to switch into a good big firm (by that I mean, Google, JP Morgan, BCG go down all the way to Capitaland Singapore). You do a MBA with UCLA, that course is supposed to open doors for your investment banking (or consultancy) career or MNCs in Singapore or HK or Dubai or Sao Paolo. This is why you pay RM200-300k for a course. You want to make that money back. So, if you ask me, and I know it sounds harsh, one must not do a MBA with schools that rank outside of Top 50 in the world. Because it is a waste of money.

DBA is different. Assuming you are 30 years old. You tell your boss you want to go UK to study DBA (like me). He might sack you (he might not because Malaysian people are nice. But I might). If you go, who is going to do the work? At the age of 30, you are supposed to do handle a team/task, bring a deal back to the firm, build your network, fight and OT till 2 am etc. This has got nothing to do with whether one is overqualified or something like that. It simply means that you have not given your best in your career till you are so free that you can go do a DBA.

Just my view la...a lot more can be said on this.

This post has been edited by juniortok: Jan 22 2015, 01:17 PM

I understand our differences. I was merely encouraging those people who do a PHD/DBA to plan their career path too. Because I have seen a lot of people, especially those from Malaysia (myself included) being very passive in their career planning. We somehow have this attitude of "I study hard, and good job will come", which I see a lot of talent wasted.

There are of course people like you who prefer to stay on the academic side and focus on research. I respect that too, just that I wont do the same given my personality. I met a guy at a function around last year. He had been doing research into battery for 15 years, and you can imagine someone like me would have thought 'What a stupid topic. you have not got anything to do meh?'. The guy is now so rich because of the electric car boom in Asia......

So, you never know. ))

This post has been edited by juniortok: Jan 22 2015, 01:22 PM

I see your point and fully understand it. I simply cannot convince myself to go through years of researching on topics that I am not interesting in (doctorate and post doctorate). Perhaps our view of phd study is different. Anyway good luck in your research.

No no no, I am very interested in my topic, otherwise, I wont do it. I might have written it in my replies to others etc. Dont know.

If you read it again, you will see that I just said we must plan the career or the publication side of things as well. Not just research.

I must have misread you somewhere. Well of course we need career planning (especially at our age ). I was required to publish my papers during my phd and in my opinion, every phd graduate should too to not only share our finding, but also experience the "deepness" of the sea of knowledge (apologize for the sudden philosophical tone )

That being said, prepare to be rejected (countless times) by journal publishers

This post has been edited by ru40342: Jan 22 2015, 01:59 PM

I think this has oft been repeated and we should know from you by now that your DBA from Manchester is the most expensive in the world. Congratulations for making the choice of spending that money. I would not get started on MBA fees as that is another topic which was well covered in other threads.



Maybe it is me, but I tend to get confused when you keep writing about MBAs when the topic of discussion is on DBA/PhD but let me indulge in this a bit.

There are quite a few assumptions in your assertions there.

Firstly, I do not understand on what basis you use the age of 30 as your age benchmark on one having obtained an MBA or not.

Secondly, whether or not one should build his career at 30 is a matter of individual choice. Do you have any source for saying that a 30yo's objective of getting an MBA should be to build his/her career? Also, did you do a study on motivations where you found that significant respondents sign up for MBA to "make money"? Why would an MBA be deemed wasted if it doesn't result in increments in salary? Have you considered opportunity costs too? I think the last I read, MBAs has ceased to be a passport for accelerated career growth and motivations for doing one has surely changed. Not sure if your study, if at all, has covered that ground or if its just your personal judgement.

Why are you presuming so much on what a boss may or may not do? Every industry is different and to assume that a 30yo should be "bringing deals back...OT till 2am" is just too presumptuous to be taken seriously. So, how did YOU tell your boss about your DBA without getting sacked or accused of being too free?

But I take note that you state that these are all entirely your views, and hence anecdotal and tainted with your personal worldview. But would be great if you can back these up with stronger evidence.

Cheers.

This post has been edited by Starbucki: Jan 22 2015, 05:05 PM

Hahahah starbucki, I don't need to justify. Forum is meant to share personal experience, it's not consultancy. You make the best decision for you. ) u r the one asking, I was merely replying.

IMHO, No such thing.
I earned mine with no prior job experience, and started as low as junior engineer for a SME specialist engineering firm, with another 5 PhDs also in the same department, mixed of experience among them; the owner is a Dr too. After being employed for almost a decade, i'm now my own boss, also hired couple of fresh-grad PhDs, with no prior experience.

possessing the "pinnacle of an educational pursuit" sounds rather self-awareness to me. A young PhD is employed not for him/her being called Dr, let alone the job experience, it's other skills the employer sees.

if still in doubt. Try look for MNCs, they don't normally deter PhD applicants.

good luck

You are absolutely right, of course, if you are referring to STEM phds working in STEM environment.

The context of my question was really for the business/corporate environment.

i am doing my PHD at age 23 now ... and dont know what i am doing ...

Are you doing business related PhD? or something different? BTW, I also have the interest to commence PhD once complete the taught course of MBA. DBA will be out of my choice as I have done enough in MBA.

Anyway, I really like the work from @Juniortok, that saying the study in the top 50 MBA business school in will be the best choice as I really fell the waste of 1.5 years at the current point. Again, money is another crucial point as the limited of fund capital.

So, let's move on...

yup ... phd in marketing research ... i got my MIB from wollongong university ... well .... study so hard dont know for what

My 2 cents here ...

Many years ago, I learnt from the HR manager (multi-national company) that there were 3 candidates with PhD in the group applying for the jobs. I got the job and I asked the HR manager why the PhD candidates were un-successful. Reply was, they did not want thinkers in the office but doers out there getting things done. So ....

No offence to those with PhD. I nearly ended up doing PhD but stopped at Master partly due to my fear in limiting my job area to university and research.

Cheerio.

Probably u r referring to the phd graduates without any working experience. Not those from industry for > 10 years and then back to do PhD/ DBA.

Both have a lot of differences. The former only talk about theory, the latter knows how to blend the theories into the work place.

This post has been edited by cheahcw2003: Jun 7 2015, 11:18 PM

This is another example of shallow HR reps.

If this HR rep already decided that PhDs are only thinkers and not doers, why shortlist the 3 in the first place? Just to have the satisfaction of rejecting PhDs in favour of the lesser qualified?

Corporations both large and small are always in need of innovative minds to work through their clients’ problems, but only the large ones like Accenture, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, and Mckinsey will draw deeply from the supply of business, economics and finance PhDs. The reasons are because these smart people have undergone rigorous research programs and there is an increase in demand from innovative firms for studying the markets to find advantages and inefficiencies.

Blofeld might have some invaluable pieces of advice to offer because he was a salaryman with accounting background who came from the intellectually stimulating corporate world.

In my opinion, I don't think the corporate world (specifically in accounting firms) is intellectually stimulating.

Instead, they value more on efficiency and effectiveness.

So that means they don't appreciate individuals with higher degrees but rather they prefer those with skills and experience (those who can execute the tasks).

However in consultancy firms, I have seen job ads mentioning those with PhDs/DBAs will also be considered. But definitely not in accounting firms.

I concur with your observations.

A little digression: I have heard feedback that the largest consulting firms often give MBA-textbook solutions and jargon-laced commentaries. More like ivy-league MBA stuff rather than PhD. These firms get paid big bucks for these "solutions" though.

I actually notice the reverse. I found that many companies are hiring PHD now due to the Big Data trend. I was just having a drink with the MD of an online hotel booking last week, they hire 6 PHDs just to try different things (marketing experiment, data analysis). I dont know if he was drunk, he said that they pay these geeks US$300k p.a (not fresh grad, after a few years in the company). As long as you have good technical skill and build your network, you will find something interesting. I also know that various developers in China are hiring PHD to run their market analysis. Multi-factor model, elimination of noise and factor analysis seem to be the trend these days. If you read chinese, this is what is on the internet - starting pay is around RMB 400-500k for fresh PHD grads:

碧桂园集团“未来领袖计划”，一个为青年才俊量身定做的高端人才品牌项目，旨在吸引：地产相关专业博士，由碧桂园高管亲自担任导师，通过系统的复合式人才培养模式，将人才在最短时间内培养成企业中高级经理人。现在已有诸多来自哈佛、麻省理工、斯坦福、帝国理工、新加坡国立等海外名校，以及清华、同济、浙大、东南、天大等多所国内高校的优秀人才加入碧桂园。

This post has been edited by juniortok: Jun 16 2015, 12:11 PM

I think there are some missing premises here. To have a meaning discussion on this topic, we should not forget the context in which these arguments / opinions are formed. First off, the answer is subject to which area of expertise one earns his / her PhD from. Yes, what you said may happen to some IT/ programming / software engineering / data analysts but it could rarely apply to say, history graduates. I think you are just this close to telling stories like some Wharton MBA holders earning really lucrative income --- what you say can be true, it is just that this is way too misrepresentative to PhD graduates in general.

Moreover, which school / lab one graduates from can make a huge difference. I for sure would not be surprised if any fresh graduates with excellent track of publication records from MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and the likes get paid of 300k USD annual salary. Certainly, this is no longer news in Silicon Valley or many cities in California. Even Chinese companies, more than often, are biased towards graduates from elite universities.

One more thing, I can read Chinese and I could not help but suspect there is a slight chance you are doing advertisement for this group or corporation you mentioned, purposely or inadvertently

a friend of mine has a phD and two master. he realised that his phD was hindering his hiring chance when he was told he was over qualified or missing out on interviews. after hiding his phD, he got many offers and now he's with Merrill Lynch

While I do understand the reason why your friend do this, I just wonder how he gets away or explains the supposedly 'missing' say, 3++ years in doing PhD? Well, also that puts him in some sort of risk which I think he is willing to take --- for not being honest on education qualification can be a good reason to get fired, if found.

Ha ha ha, there are a lot of weird people on the internet....

understating one's qualification shouldn't be a serious offence i guess if compared to overstating one's qualification

This post has been edited by cedyy: Jun 16 2015, 03:20 PM

I don't see what would be his joy of working if he has to keep concealing his real degree. He might as well also conceal his masters too and probably get the same pay at Merril.

Well, I am not judging... in the end, the seriousness of this issue is up to the company management executives to say, not us. I am just merely pointing out it could be risky... after all, concealing qualification related information during hiring process can be interpreted as dishonest or even violation against certain policies. Just saying. Frankly, I am more leaning towards your friend and understand why he is doing this.

he just likes to study and share his knowledge. he's lecturing part-time on weekends and he's added another master degree....making it 3 in total now. anyhow, he's making big bucks at Merrill. already has 4 condos in Singapore and 2 in district 10 (orchard road area)

whilst i can see the reason why he hide his PhD, but i do not see the reason why his existing employer (or other MNC), will value 2 master more than 2 master + 1 PhD.

Most jobs need 6 months probation period or so, if u can't performs, no matter how many Master Phd can secure you the job. My 2 cents.

whilst i can see the reason why he hide his PhD, but i do not see the reason why his existing employer (or other MNC), will value 2 master more than 2 master + 1 PhD.

Most jobs need 6 months probation period or so, if u can't performs, no matter how many Master Phd can secure you the job. My 2 cents.

To anyone here I need some opinion in PhD regarding Law area. Anyone know which institution in Malaysia provides such course? Is master degree a pre requisite to do PhD? I have seen some people who did Phd straight after degree

Public universities such as UM and UKM do provide that. Check out their websites, everything you need is there.
Yup, you can choose the fast track without having a Masters degree, provided you graduate your bachelors degree first class. (3.7 and above) and additional requirements as needed by some universities (might be in the form of recommendations, interviews etc).