We want our careers to be fulfilling, sustainable, and enriching in several ways. Beyond obtaining desirable compensation other paths involve intrinsic satisfaction with an important one being a belief we are contributing to making the world a better place. When reflecting on how effectively our careers are performing toward achieving such a lofty but worthwhile goal it may be beneficial to determine if value is being created as a result of all the hard work we do. 

A way to begin this career assessment is by asking ourselves if our professional pursuits add prosperity to society as a whole or detract from it. Simply put, we are either creating wealth or we are just transferring it from one party to another. By wealth I am not restricting myself to capital alone but refer more broadly to a wide range of functional and emotional life improving gains. Creating value powerfully addresses the needs of many consumers and by extension the greater society, whereas orchestrated wealth shifts benefit a relatively small segment of society. 

Economists identify rent seeking as a concept pertaining to the practice of acquiring shares of wealth created by others. Visualize the ubiquitous economic pie. Value creators are best at growing the pie’s size. Rent seekers in contrast are adept in figuring out ways to grab more slices of the existing pie. Rent seeking is expressed in various forms, for example corporate monopolization, opaque government subsidies, reduction of competitiveness, and exclusive resource ownership. 

In short ask yourself, does my career serve the greater population by expanding the pie or is it designed to assist relatively few, generally wealthy people, by shifting more slices their way? 

Diving more deeply into defining value creation we can look at the elements that comprise value. A few years ago, several marketing strategists from Bain & Company, the management consultancy, comprehensively identified four kinds of consumer needs that can be met with combinations of thirty different “elements of value”. They arrange these four domains and corresponding elements into a pyramid for easy comprehension. Their rationale is that by appealing to the right amount and configuration of consumer needs business will grow and customers will be retained. 

I suggest applying the same model to our careers. If we can assert that our work enhances people’s lives by producing value elements, we should be able to feel confident we are creating value. 

To summarize this model, recall another pyramid, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You may have run across this visual in one college class or another. That pyramid is structured to display a progressive arrangement of psychological needs ranging from base requirements such as food, water, and warmth to an optimal state of self-actualization. 

The Elements of Value Pyramid, on the other hand, presents the four fundamental clusters of consumer needs: Functional, Emotional, Life Changing, and Social Impact. Within each category are the elements that describe the nuanced values of products and services as perceived by the consumer. For example, Functional needs include value elements such as reduced effort, time saving, improved organization, and cost reduction. Emotional needs include items like anxiety reduction, therapeutic value, attractiveness, and fun. Life Changing needs contain motivation, providing hope, and affiliation. The Social Impact need is solely comprised by self-transcendence, which means a paradigm shift in vastly improved personal growth. 

We do not have to match in scale the impact realized by such power value creators like Steve Jobs, or Kia Silverbrook, inventor of high-speed color printing technology, or Sally Fox who developed a means of mitigating pollution found to be inherent in the bleaching and dying of cotton. Rather we can distinguish those discreet and profound ways we do make lives better every day by adding beneficial features to people’s lives like enhanced speed, quality, convenience, customer service, etc. 

Careers that create value are what make this a better world. 

Trying to recruit and retain talented workers who can assist in producing and delivering high quality products and services, leading to business growth and enhanced profits, has always been a formidable challenge. Typically, hiring teams seek individuals who not only most closely match the letter of the job description, but who also are predicted to be a good fit for the organization. In other words, companies want employees who can execute at what has been determined over time to be an optimal level that is consistent with the firm’s performance culture. 

Let us set aside for the purpose of this piece an admittedly huge hiring consideration, talent and ability, and ask might there be an inherent and unforeseen flaw in settling for only those candidates who appear during the hiring process to be consistent with traditional workforce practices and operational structures? By limiting a hiring search to simply those foreshadowed to be team players, could organizations be potentially restricting their chances of introducing and benefiting from innovative thinkers and value-added achievers? An increasing number of talent managers and human resource departments say this conventional thinking may indeed be a liability. 

There is a largely untapped element in the general candidate pool that may deserve a closer look. This cohort is becoming known as the neurodiverse. Neurodiversity refers to those workers possessing conditions frequently labeled as disorders, including autism, dyslexia, attention deficit, and social anxiety. You might be inclined to think that these types of job candidates should be weeded out of the search process due to their disruptive potential, but others are taking a chance at reframing the common perceptions of the neurodiverse and noticing positive traits where others see possible burdens. 

So, what might be favorable attributes of co-workers who may be seen by many as idiosyncratic, standoffish, ambiguous, or just plain different? Consider for a moment an organization comprised of workers who think largely in terms of doing things the way they have always been done. Change is minimal because it is seen as disorderly and therefore unnecessary. Risk aversion and homogeneity are commonplace. Company culture and individual behaviors are driven by such values and will perform accordingly. 

Sounds like a possible recipe for competitive disaster given current market requirements for innovation and agility. Neurodiverse employees could bring fresh perspectives and abilities not typically present to the work site. 

Neurodiverse skill sets can include high levels of intelligence, pattern recognition, systemic approaches to problem solving, exacting attention, comfort with repetition, deep-dive analysis, and even customer facing. Numerous industries can use resources with these skills, particularly technical and data-oriented ones. 

Another advantage can come from workers who are not motivated by office politics and the phrasing of opinions and conclusions in a group-think manner. As hard as it may be to hear, sometimes the straightforward truth is the best information to be communicated to colleagues and management. Neurodiverse employees may be best at delivering such news. 

Of course, recruiting and positioning neurodiverse talent can present difficulties, perhaps novel ones, for human resources and other department managers. Rather than using traditional interviewing it may be useful to set up teamwork simulations, case studies, or actual problem-solving sessions to see how productively all candidates function.  

Strategically integrating personnel who may provide unique services, but also potential breaches of protocol, could require careful planning, diplomacy, and tact. Flexibility and nimbleness, characteristics in short supply in many established organizations, may need to be adopted by company culture. 

We have reached a historic point where differences among people are more accepted than in the past. In fact, this seems to be a desirable attribute of the millennial generation. Developing such an ethic could aid businesses while also fostering more humane treatment of all people. 

As has been frequently reported, the nature of work is undergoing profound changes due largely to automation, technology, artificial intelligence, and globalization. This exacerbates fears among students and workers of how to succeed in an ever-transformative economy and contributes to the current and expanding situation of a workforce not possessing the skills required by modern and future-oriented employers. 

To keep up with groundbreaking changes in employment requires an educational approach to training and learning that is flexible, relevant, and targeted to the capricious and volatile state of the economy. At present, traditional education institutions of high school and customary higher ed bachelor’s degrees appear to be lagging behind innovative industry methodologies like short-term credentialing and user-responsive professional development. Businesses recognize the value in foresight and pliable learning strategies necessary to uphold a workforce prepared for unpredictability. 

Education systems are not known for their elasticity and capacity to adjust to change. Take a typical public high school curriculum, the stage through which most American workers first pass on their way to employability. Has there been much reorganization in the basic course load or method of earning a diploma since the mid-twentieth century? I think not. This is an area where increased pressure to innovate is warranted. 

Beside a reassessment of curriculum relevance, another key concept we can hope for from high schools is that the message is getting through loud and clear to students that education does not stop with a diploma. The modern world is one in which continuous learning needs to be embraced if there is any hope for enjoying the fruits of professional mastery and robust compensation. Linking the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of learning is a valuable lifelong lesson. 

To this end, workers will benefit from a more accommodating and welcoming world of pathways designed to prepare entry-level professionals, upskill existing workers, and assist career changers in a manner consistent with the metamorphosing economy of work. In addition to an acceptance of the importance of career-long learning is to realize credentials matter. 

From a college degree to a professional license to an industry-specific certification, possessing evidence from a reputable instructional source, in which a worker can demonstrate training and education within an area of expertise is critical to advancing one’s career. The challenge becomes how to best earn pertinent credentials in a time effective and affordable manner. 

Career, employment specialists, and economists are suggesting several practices to ease credential acquisition. Kelsey Berkowitz is a Policy Advisor for Third Way’s Economic Program and has looked closely into this issue. Among the suggestions she makes is to: 

• Increase the amount of credential stacking that is available. In other words, design short-term credential modules that can be combined into larger certifications or degrees. This could provide highly relevant on-demand training while also providing a means for adult workers to achieve higher education goals in more easily managed steps. 
• Develop more apprenticeship programs. Evidence exists, particularly in Europe, of the effectiveness of industry-based programs that onboard entry-level workers and within a year or two produce trained and credentialed employees committed to the profession. 
• Recognize prior experiences related to work by offering credit. It is not unusual for individuals to gain skills and insights applicable to their current jobs from events that occurred before being hired. Examples include acquired knowledge from the military, school programs, previous jobs, or other situations where pertinent learning took place. 
• Streamline onerous licensing mobility. Twenty-five percent of all workers today are in fields requiring a professional license. However, in too many instances licenses are not reciprocal across state lines, creating burdens to reacquire licenses for those pros relocating to a new state. 

The need for instructional and training flexibility will become increasingly necessary in order to keep a nimble and ready workforce. Let us reform learning to better address this imperative. 

Rebecca Bryant, the president and CEO of Lakes Region Community Services, a New Hampshire social services organization, penned an impressive opinion piece in the March 1-14 issue of the New Hampshire Business Review that concretely highlighted the plight of direct support professionals, those who care for the elderly and disabled. To this cohort I would also add childcare workers. 

As a whole, this segment of the New Hampshire workforce is underpaid, under-appreciated, disrespected, and lacking in the placement of esteem they deserve as employees tasked with providing key services to needy populations. 

Why is this? Unfortunately, social services have historically been viewed as somehow less urgent or worthwhile than economic pursuits resulting in manufactured goods and services supporting commercial viability. The money has not flowed to caregivers. Since money appears to be a solid metric of worth and value the unmistakable conclusion drawn is that giving care to young children, old citizens, and the disabled just does not carry that much weight. 

Interesting. Economics is all about the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services to improve lives. How is it that the life improving work of caregivers is different? 

Many would say that the individuals who make up the direct care workforce are generally under-educated with many also coming from low income backgrounds. Thus, the thinking goes they are not meritorious or qualified enough to receive living wage compensation. The time has come for us to stop assuming there is a causal relationship between low valued work and low paid workers in the direct care context. 

We are faced with a contrarian situation of low paid workers toiling through high valued work. Even though low paid direct care services continue to attract, albeit at inadequate levels, those willing to work for low pay in order to do something they like and are good at doing is no reason to continue the practice. It is time right a wrong. 

Let us first look at the root of the problem. Direct care services are historically performed by women. Presumably, they have been drawn to this work, because of the longstanding social and cultural expectations for women to nurture others. It is fair to say that women have performed laudably with direct care services for many years. The benefit to society is immeasurable. 

However, as we know, compensatory equity has been and continues to be elusive for women. “Women’s work” has rarely if ever received reparation on par with what men make. Let’s be honest. Traditional views regarding remuneration says that an occupation primarily composed of women will not be seen as worth paying much for. 

It took men becoming teachers and nurses to spur the evolution of living wages in those fields. Regardless, it should not take a replay of that model to boost the earnings of competent and hardworking direct care service providers, whether female or male. 

There are two reasons for a balancing of resources to occur. Firstly, we should recognize that high quality care directed to those among us who are not or can no longer be high producers is virtuous and enriches lives. This alone should diminish any resistance to fair pay. That said, there is another factor to consider: unequivocal changes already underway to reshape the nature of employment are ushering in a reevaluation of what it means to “work”. 

Many jobs will be refashioned and eliminated as automation and artificial intelligence increasingly impact the economy. Labor directed to personal care may emerge as progressively appreciated employment. A paradigm shift recognition of the value added to society by direct care givers may finally remediate this excessive pay disparity. This transformation in attitude is needed. 

In a state ranked third for the percentage of the population growing old you would think New Hampshire would be intentionally reaching out to strengthen its direct care workforce. We have a chance now to show the country how fair pay for our direct care providers can be accomplished. 

Entrepreneurism has a strong and positive brand…and it should. Its contribution to the growth of the economy and by extension to the betterment of lives is immeasurable. Counting the total costs of national goods and services only begins to calculate the value of entrepreneurial activity. 

A harder metric to identify, but no less important, is the qualitative significance of longer, healthier, and happier lives we collectively enjoy due to the innovation, risk taking, and intelligence of successful entrepreneurs. 

It could be said that the popular image of the entrepreneur is the self-confident driven performer productively balancing inspiration and perspiration, flawlessly timing the market, persevering with a laser-like focus, and venturing forward willingly into uncertainty, all leading to the realization of sweet success and generous profits as a just reward. We value that illustration. It is reassuring. It goes a long way to shaping our national and cultural identity. 

It is known too that start-ups with an eye toward growth furnish boosts in hiring, strengthened competition, and improved productivity by injecting fresh products, services, and business designs into new markets. 

Given the near universal gains we receive from entrepreneurism what possible improvements can be expected from the practice? Well, I can suggest one. A quarter in which we desperately need entrepreneurs’ creative problem solving is in the promotion of shared prosperity. The time is right for an entrepreneurism that cares less about concentrated wealth and more about dispersing capital, particularly to key stakeholders such as employees and citizens of communities in which businesses operate. 

We do not need corporate social responsibility manifestos to get there, just energetic, aware, and engaged business owners who choose to direct their talents toward providing a greater degree of distributed benefits over the more common asset consolidation we more typically associate with entrepreneurs. An alternative form of enthusiasm and sense of reward can be derived from constructing enterprises that intentionally advance expanded economic growth and strong job creation among the greatest number possible. 

The political pressure to confront wealth inequality is growing and looks to be a key issue in the upcoming election season. If the current trajectory of wealth amassing does not change, then the call for government intervention will only increase. Some or most governmental intercessions will undoubtedly be seen as interference and obstruction among many in business. Encouraging executives both young and old to integrate into a shared prosperity ethic may mitigate policy making coercion. 

It is not as if entrepreneurs and business leaders have not practiced this approach before. It has been widely reported that the period from the end of World War II until the 1970s was more economically stable due largely in part to the relative lack of discrepancy between management and rank & file. Granted this was a time of strong unions and more widespread political endorsement of income flattening approaches by government. However, one cannot help but wonder if the shared sacrifice evident during the war spurred a nationwide value system whereby wealth distribution was more easily realized. Can we care for each other similarly now? 

Perhaps the most endearing gift entrepreneurs give us is tangible creativity. They model and encourage thinking, which develops into options from which consumers can select the most solution-oriented or life augmenting potentialities. This has historically sparked human progress. It continues to do so.  

Given the current and ever-present range of problems in the world calling for answers and resources we look to the influencers, thought leaders, and groundbreakers to develop and implement transformative strategies, services, and products. 

Purposely including and addressing those Americans being left behind by a shifting and segregating economy could turn out to not only be nationally unifying, but also good business. 

Albert Einstein elegantly once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting different results. This adage comes to mind when we see that yet again work requirements are being used as a bludgeon to combat Americans who live in poverty and who need safety-net programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), HUD housing assistance, and if President Trump has his way, even Medicaid. 

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has recommended work requirements for the most extensive welfare programs and the current administration has mandated that federal agencies alter their presumably lax welfare program standards. These moves are premised on the continuing notion that the poor are a drain on federal resources due to their laziness, recklessness, and lack of ambition. So here we go again, concluding that the poor are so, solely because of their own deficient behavior and must be made to work harder to receive assistance from this government. 

It is not that simple. 

Is this work requirement approach fair that those recipients of aid (excluding children, elderly and disabled) should be made to show an attempt to earn their government supports, which allegedly incentives people to not be poor, or is this a kick to the poor and disenfranchised when they are already down? 

It is worth examining a few of points about welfare work requirements: 

1. According to the US Census Bureau the 2017 poverty rate was 12.3%, a 0.4% decrease from the year before. Since 2014 the poverty rate has fallen 2.5%. So, if the current trend line is a declining poverty rate why is a harsh condition like work requirements for the poor necessary currently?
2. This effort was last tried under Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich with their 1996 welfare reform legislation. We have had a couple decades to see how that has gone and studies like those from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and in the book Making Ends Meet (Edin and Lein) show that despite short term marginal improvements in employment they were not sustainable, mostly due to necessary and increased living expenses, absorbing any work generated financial gains.
3. Where are these jobs that the poor are supposed to get? If you have spent most of your life in poverty, chances are quite low you can pick up a knowledge-economy job quickly. We have all heard how the traditional manual labor jobs are drying up, so what is left? Lousy-waged part-time jobs with unpredictable and changeable hours is what’s left.
4. If the government feels the need to pick on somebody shouldn’t it be the employers of vast numbers of unskilled and low-skilled who pay their workers, including the working poor, insufficient wages that in turn need to be underwritten by the American taxpayers?

Now one place where there could be political agreement is in the government providing subsidized high quality work training requirements targeted to helping the poor get the knowledge and skills needed for a globalized and digitized economy. Currently, training requirements can be in lieu of work requirements, but their effectiveness remains questionable. 

The causes and cures for poverty are varied, complex, and far beyond the scope of this piece. But if we as a society are truly interested in ameliorating the condition of poverty (as we should be!) we need to be looking for demonstrably beneficial interventions that measurably make positive differences. Requiring the poor to get a low-end job that increases their childcare and transportation costs just to prove they are not milking the system or making them pay unreasonably for a hand-up from those of us with tax paying means is not a humane way to go about it. 

In rural 19th century Sutton, New Hampshire population declined following the sheep boom in the late 1840s as farmers abandoned their farms in search of better land in places like Ohio and Indiana. Sutton was not alone. Rural living was proving to be too difficult for many New Hampshire residents of small towns. Young women, if they could, were among those who traveled to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in textile mills and live in boarding houses. This was seen as a step up and better than a life of struggle on desolate unproductive farms. 

At America’s Credit Union Museum on the west side of Manchester is a turn of the last century photograph of hardscrabble young boys posing not in front of their school, but rather beside one of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company’s mills in which they worked. Injuries, death, and child labor among both boys and girls, were common then. The closing of the mills in 1935 hit the Manchester economy hard as did the closing of the Nashua Manufacturing Company in Nashua and the Brown Company paper mill in Berlin, both of which occurred in the 1940s. 

During the summer of 1987 Allied Leather Corp. of Penacook, NH announced it was closing, putting 300 out of work. The New York owners referred to the “tight labor market” and “continuing problems” treating the tannery’s waste. The company had been fined the year before for moving chemicals without a permit. Most of the employees were on their summer vacation when the news of their job losses broke. Plans were made for combining the tannery’s operations with other plants in New York and Pennsylvania. 

New Hampshire has many such economic hardship tales from its 230 years of statehood. When I was young in the 1960s and 1970s, and from Massachusetts, we would hear of the poor people in New Hampshire or “Cow Hampshire” as it was disparagingly called. The people were known as tough, conservative, and independent, but hardly prosperous. 

So, it caught my eye when U.S. News and World Report released its rankings of the Best States for Opportunity this fall. And guess who came out on top, Numero Uno, King of the Hill, #1 out of 50…you guessed it, New Hampshire! To quote them, “New Hampshire, which enjoys among the highest median household incomes in the nation, stood out as No. 1 for opportunity.” 

Let us take a moment to soak this in. Yes, we are surrounded by rancor, political polarization, culture wars, stagnant wages, opioids, automation, globalization, white nationalism, and on and on, but here on this rocky, thinned soiled, forested, mountainous, tick infested, small patch of America we are in the estimation of one journalistic source, with a methodology to back up their claim, the best state in the nation for opportunity. Wow! 

What happened? Some fun facts may help to explain why New Hampshire is now enjoying the most prosperous time in its history. Advanced manufacturing, technology, professional services, healthcare, and of course tourism are strong economic sectors here. Median household income in 2016 was $70,936. Given that the national average that year was $57, 617, we are not doing too badly. 

No personal income or sales tax probably helps, but that has been the case for a long time. Lots of retirees like it here. In fact, we are among the top 3 states with lots of old people. During the Great Recession and its aftermath 246,000 people moved away, but another 247,000 moved in. 

I cannot say exactly what has been New Hampshire’s secret success sauce, but one obvious observation is that modernity is being kind to the state. Somehow, we seem to be converting economic, social, and demographic changes into prosperity. Despite all the bad sky-is-falling news we are bombarded with daily this is a cause for all 1.3 million of us in NH to celebrate. 

Human contact, whether through professional networking, social connections, or by earned reputation still matters significantly and should in no way be minimized when describing the recruitment and hiring process. If anything, it is paramount. However, another very important track to cover when developing one’s career is the one driven by existing and emerging technologies meant to streamline and optimize the employment process. 

Today this ranges from online job boards advertising positions to Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that parse resumes for HR and recruiters. Also, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools, designed to assess the employability of candidates, are now present.  

How to advantageously position yourself for these digital aides and gatekeepers needs to be a key component of a well-planned career growth strategy. Let us take a current look at each of these technical features. 

Online job boards are not very new, in short supply, or complicated. They are little more than interactive web sites that post job descriptions from employers. More recent are job search engines like Indeed and Simply Hired that rummage the internet aggregating job postings from a variety of sources. 

These sites are seductive in that they give the appearance of a job store with profuse amounts of positions just ready for you to pick up while shopping. A common and ineffective ploy is to spend hours responding to jobs on the boards with the only thing generated being recruiters trying to lure you to high turnover 100% commission sales jobs.  

Nonetheless, working with job boards is not a complete waste of time and decent jobs can be yielded. Recommended is to spend about 10% to 20% of your job search time utilizing the boards while being careful and discriminating about what you respond to. 

ATS software allows recruiters to organize vast lists of applicants and their pertinent criteria such as qualifications, employment history, degrees earned, etc., which are most useful to hiring managers when determining who to contact for interviews. For those of us trying to secure an interview we need to be mindful of preparing resumes (and LinkedIn Profiles) that are keyword-rich with contextually used terms aligning our skills and knowledge with responsibilities and deliverables mentioned in job descriptions. 

Therefore, given the need for an ATS-friendly resume that simultaneously is attractive for human readers the challenge is to strike a visually appealing format that won’t confuse the ATS. This can be tricky. If you want a designer resume that looks like those on Pinterest, then forget about passing ATS muster. And with so many companies employing ATS the best strategy may be to pay homage to the many conditions needed to not be digitally rejected in a millisecond, while adding enough optics, and of course solid content, to not have your resume look like just another slice of white bread. Achieving this level of resume optimization is a necessary goal. 

The latest trend, which is expected to proliferate in use and sophistication, involves the impact of AI in hiring decision making. There is a growing perception that relying on a candidate’s skills alone is not consistently producing better employees. The evolving thought is to assess personality more with the goal of finding a well-rounded and compatible colleague.  

To this end, AI is being deployed to identify personality traits gleaned from resumes, online profiles, social media presences, video appearances, you name it. Apparently, this is seen as less biased than human observers. We shall see. (Cannot algorithms be biased too?) 

At any rate, developing a consistent brand and value proposition that includes both your technical talents and your work style/interpersonal characteristics across all platforms may be wise for presenting to human and technological appraisers alike. 

Being prepared for the changes and encroachment of technology into hiring decisions, and by extension career development, has become imperative in today’s employment world. 

Earning a Master’s in Business Administration or MBA has long been considered both a difficult challenge to confront, but also a career boosting achievement. An MBA has been shown to increase promotion and employment opportunities and to jump start compensation. However, by the time most business professionals consider returning to school to earn the degree chances are good there is a family with children in place needing considerable attention and a mountain of bills to juggle, including a mortgage. Not to mention, MBAs can cost from $25K up to $100K in tuition, fees, and transportation costs. 

The inevitable question business managers ask themselves is, “Is this worth it?”. Don’t you hate it when someone answers such a question with, “Well, it depends.” So here goes, the answer to whether an MBA is worth pursuing or not is, “Well, it depends”. 

The value of an MBA should depend on more than compensation and promotions as alluring as those are. To obtain the most benefit from the work and expense of earning the degree largely comes down to if you think it is in your career’s interest to develop your talent in several key areas. And it turns out, these are the same attributes many executive managers look for when considering whether to hire a candidate who holds an MBA. 

You probably think I’m talking about astuteness in topics like organizational behavior, finance, accounting, supply chain management, enterprise IT systems, and economics. Of course, these and other subjects comprising an MBA curriculum are important, but what really sells the executive hiring managers are competencies like leadership, communication ability, strategical thinking, interpersonal relationships, and entrepreneurial spirit. These traits can be thought of as the building blocks to managerial excellence. Therefore, it is important to select an MBA program that assists you in developing these strengths. 

Some other useful facts about MBA programs can assist one in their decision making about whether to take the plunge or not. MBA programs most often occur over 18-month to 2-year time periods with students typically earning approximately 40−60 credits representing about 500−600 class hours of graduate-level work. Some programs allow up to 6 years to complete the program. 

A full time student must be dedicated to a concentrated approach but given that many mature MBA students are full time employees there are several alternatives. These include: 

Accelerated: Fast-tracked program with a greater course load and more condensed class and examination schedule over one year. 

Part-Time: Taking three or more years students attend classes after usual working hours, including weekday evenings and/or weekends. 

Modular: A tightly prescribed approach involving a progressive curriculum of class components presented in one to three-week segments. These programs seemed most often to be aligned with EMBA degree programs (see below) or Accelerated programs and are most often to be completed within one to two years. Also, modular often means on-site residency for the length of the given module. 

Executive MBA (EMBA): Designed for working professionals with 10 or more years of management or executive experience. These programs allow earning the degree in two years or less while working full time. 

Distance Learning: Involves classes held off-site from a campus and can include courses held via correspondence, broadcasts, videos, teleconferences, videoconferences, and online formats. 

Hybrid: Also known as blended programs these are a fusion of distance learning with traditionally styled face to face classroom instruction. 

Mini-MBA: This method combines on the job training regimens and requirements that can also be counted as credit-earning coursework toward a university MBA program. Typically, this requires a partnership between a work setting’s training program and a university MBA program. 

Finally, it is important to make sure the program you select is reputable within your industry. Not all MBA programs are of the same caliber, and you do not want to work hard only to find out later that your degree is not enthusiastically embraced by your superiors. 

It is a lot to consider but seeking this level of mastery may just lead to the breakthrough your management career needs. 

Much is made of the dearth of economic opportunity and income equality across the U.S. workforce. Though a perennial issue, the conventional wisdom these days more than most appears to be that there are segments of the American population for whom high paying jobs are elusive or non-existent. This belief persists despite the lowest unemployment rate we have seen in nearly twenty years. 

The primary reason, we are told, for this situation boils down to the fact that an automated, globalized, and corporate-led economy produces winners and losers — a somewhat different set of winners and losers apparently than the more nationally-based economy of yesteryear. 

Inequality, or even the perception of it, tends to raise the hackles of key constituencies such as left-leaning individuals and nowadays working class folks who find that many low to mid-skilled jobs are evaporating. These groups agree there is a fundamental unfairness to inequality, and they are inspired to fight against it, sometimes in dramatically different ways, whenever possible. 

One element of inequality that I do not see getting too much attention however pertains to the number of people with a college education vs. those without one. As we look over the last half century or so we can see that this is a significant economic phenomenon. Indeed, the discrepancy between those with and without higher education impacts a variety of inequality factors, including not just income, but housing, community makeups, cultural upbringing, socioeconomics, and social status. 

The number of working-aged Americans with college degrees is steadily rising and now is at or slightly above 40% according to the Lumina Foundation. That is ten times the number compared to a hundred plus years ago when Andrew Carnegie, of all people, claimed college was irrelevant and even damaging. Despite the high cost of college, projections are that attendance will continue to grow another 15% by 2025 (Inside Higher Ed). 

Bruce Cain, a Stanford University political scientist, points out that people with knowledge-based characteristics attributed to being college educated, such as professionally oriented behaviors, digital familiarity, an understanding of financial services, and innovative inclinations, tend to congregate residentially and in employment. In today’s world the “Haves” are most often the ones with a college education, and they like to stick with and hire others of their own kind. It is easy to see how this can appear unequal. 

Many Baby Boomers were raised with the notion that getting a college education would lead to greater economic gain. Although the message is more nuanced these days the central point remains the same. One unintended consequence of this virtue is that it also leads to economic inequality and resentment among those not sharing in the bounty. This acrimony can sometimes be heard among those who have taken an anti-intellectual / anti-education stance, such as when expressing skepticism (to put it politely) regarding the viewpoints of the “elites” and the “establishment”. 

Addressing this imbalance requires initially a level of respect and acknowledgement that we all have something of value to offer. Working toward an economic system that honors and tries to achieve an opportunity-for-all ethic could arise from such a belief. Those who benefit from the hard work and commitment of pursuing higher education can assist those for whom college has not been a viable option through assistance measures designed to encourage greater and more affordable college attendance. 

And for those not choosing to pursue higher ed? The means of providing employment training, entrepreneurial support, and apprenticeship alternatives, along with other opportunity options, could be made more available. Full employment across all socioeconomic groups should always be our collective objective. 

Sharing prosperity across all segments of a pluralistic society is a great challenge. Perhaps we need to see more committed action from those who have succeeded, many of whom profess liberal leanings, to drive opportunity-for-all programs so that no one’s economic prospects are left behind.