Elite business-school graduates are increasingly heading to work in technology over finance as the lingering aftereffects of the financial crisis – along with Wall Street's long hours and scaled-back pay – sends newly minted M.B.A.s elsewhere. At Harvard Business School, 18% of job-seeking students landed tech-sector spots this year, up from 12% in 2012. A similar shift is under way at the business schools at Yale University and Cornell University, where the share of graduates going into tech more than doubled over the past two years. (The Wall Street Journal)
Learn More...

 

When making big decisions, executives use familiar tools like discounted cash flow analysis far too often. That’s because the more uncertain a business context is, the less likely running some numbers and probabilities through a spreadsheet will be helpful. It’s much more useful to take a different approach: to build multiple qualitative scenarios, for example, or to develop a set of comparative reference cases. (Harvard Business Review)
Learn More...

 

In a global economy, does it make sense to allow workers to move freely? Letting people go where the jobs are would improve the lives of millions around the world, some argue. But others say an influx of labor into the richest countries would devalue workers' worth and actually hurt more in the long run. (NPR)
Learn More...

 

It's tough to think clearly when you're stressed. Or when you're too busy. Or when you're under pressure or dealing with adversity or facing criticism or... You get the point. It's hard enough to make smart decisions and respond logically and rationally to everything that comes our way under the best of circumstances. It's a lot tougher when conditions aren't ideal – and face it, how often are conditions ideal? (Inc.)
Learn More...

 

It's not easy to be a protégé these days. Everybody knows the setup of the classic mentoring relationship: Older workers take junior colleagues under their wing and stay in their lives for years, giving them one-on-one advice and shepherding them through their careers. Nowadays, though, seasoned workers rarely stay in a job long enough to stick close to a protégé for any length of time. And they're often too harried managing their own careers to devote lots of attention to somebody else's. (The Wall Street Journal)
Learn More...

 

At times, over-practicing can stifle music, just like over-training can stifle athletes and over-engineering can create products too complex to use. There is a time to stop rehearsing, stop waiting for perfection, stop waiting for control and just go for it. We need to balance grabbing opportunities as they present themselves – even if we’re not ready and have to ramp up as best and as fast we can – and practicing a lot so that when the opportunity appears, we’re prepared. (Harvard Business Review)
Learn More...

 

Bob Burg, a speaker and author, frequently hears some variation of this question from audience members in his seminars at Fortune 500 companies. "Women tell me they have an especially hard time saying 'no,' but I think it's a problem for men, too," Burg says. "They just don't admit it as much." (Fortune)
Learn More...

 

The labor market is stratified, if not calcified, by race, with whites seeing higher wages and lower unemployment, while blacks and Hispanics clustering in lower-paying jobs. (The Atlantic)
Learn More...

 

Further evidence of the eurozone's fragile economic recovery came on Wednesday in two sets of data. Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency, said retail sales in the 17-nation bloc fell 0.6% in September from August. (BBC News)
Learn More...

 

The ragtag Somali pirates who seize the MV Maersk Alabama in the film Captain Phillips don’t look much like businesspeople. But such hijackings are carried out by highly structured and profitable enterprises, according to a new study that estimates Somali pirates reaped as much as $413 million in ransom payments from 154 hijackings from 2005 to 2012. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
Learn More...

 

The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business is starting a program that acts as a shortcut to the C-suite for entrepreneurial-minded MBAs. The idea behind the program is at least 30 years old. MBAs form "search funds" and find investors willing to fund the acquisition of a business. The students then build the business and sell it at a profit, generating returns for the investors. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
Learn More...

 

This year’s incoming class at the Top 10 MBA programs in the U.S. is an extraordinary bunch, arguably one of the most talented and skilled classes of MBA students to ever enter business school. For one thing, nine out of the ten reported an increase in MBA applications, allowing most of them to be even more selective than usual. The only school where that wasn’t so was the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where applications fell by 5.8% to 6,036 from 6,408 a year earlier. (Poets & Quants)
Learn More...

 

Professionals of color can take advantage of unique scholarship opportunities through NBMBAA university partners such as the University of St. Thomas, the Simmons School of Management and Northeastern University.

University of St. Thomas MBA Outreach Scholarship
The University of St. Thomas offers up to 15 full-tuition, two-year scholarships for talented young professionals of color.

Scholarships are for full-time study at the University of St. Thomas, located at their vibrant downtown Minneapolis campus in close proximity to the corporate headquarters of several of the world's leading employers, including Target, General Mills, Best Buy, and U.S. Bank.
Details

Simmons School of Management/National Black MBA Association Scholarship
In partnership with the Simmons School of Management, this renewable scholarship offers up to full tuition for candidates who are National Black MBA Association members in good standing and admitted to Simmons’ Master of Business Administration program. Awards are made on the basis of academic, professional and/or personal merit.
Details

Northeastern University/National Black MBA Association MBA Scholarship
In partnership with Northeastern University, this merit-based scholarship covers up to full tuition to qualified candidates who are NBMBAA members and admitted to Northeastern’s Full-time MBA program. Awards are made on the basis of academic, professional and/or personal merit. This scholarship may be renewable.
Details

 

Talk about capitalizing on a gimmick. Knock, an app that allows you to unlock your Mac via Bluetooth by double-tapping on the back of your iPhone, certainly sounds gimmicky. But for Knock’s founders, this new form of wireless user authentication is about something much, much bigger. (Fast Company)
Learn More...

 

The name BlackBerry is becoming even more synonymous with disaster. On Monday the company called off its search for a new owner as its largest stockholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings in Toronto, agreed to invest $1 billion instead of buying the whole company for $4.7 billion. BlackBerry Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins is stepping down. John S. Chen, who led database-software maker Sybase’s turnaround and 2010 sale to SAP, will serve as interim CEO while BlackBerry’s board looks for a permanent replacement. Two and a half months after saying it would seek "strategic alternatives" – like a buyout – the company is back at square one. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
Learn More...

 

Steve Jobs had Bill Campbell. Jodie Foster leaned on Robert De Niro. Andy Murray has Ivan Lendl. High performers in any field typically have a coach or mentor. A great coach provides you with the benefit of their experience and asks more questions than they answer. They force you to think about your business in ways that you wouldn’t do on your own. (Inc.)
Learn More...

 

Take a quick glimpse at the faces in your internship program and it should provide you with a look into the future of your startup. And if you’re one of the many businesses putting its best foot forward to establish a workplace that embraces diversity and inclusion, your internship program is the perfect place to mimic the changes you hope to see in your workforce. (Upstart Business Journals)
Learn More...

 

Twitter Inc.'s rise has been a remarkable story. Both because it was beset by chaos (see Nick Bilton's new book for the operatic details) and because, despite the chaos, Twitter has somehow managed to become a legitimate, even straitlaced business, its IPO is a good time to congratulate the firm on its unlikely success. But it isn't a good time to invest in Twitter when it starts trading Thursday. Here are three reasons to sit this one out. (The Wall Street Journal)
Learn More...

 

Poverty is an astonishingly common experience here in the world's richest country. As I wrote this morning, almost 40 percent of American adults experience it for at least a year by age 60. But you know who poverty is especially common among? Young adults. (The Atlantic)
Learn More...

 

Downloading a book, movie or album takes just minutes. But electronically transferring cash to a friend can take the better part of a week. We put Square, Google, Paypal and Popmoney to the test. (MarketWatch)
Learn More...

 

No question, picking up a part-time gig after you walk away from 9-to-5 work will ease the pressure on your finances. And that's the plan for many: Three-quarters of workers believe they will have a job in retirement, a May Gallup poll found. (Money)
Learn More...

 

Getting senior executives to trade in their hardbound textbooks for digital copies is a challenge. But University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business has had 68 of them doing just that as part of a pilot program using a learning platform on school-issued iPads this fall. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
Learn More...

 

Twitter is a young company generating large losses as it competes in a highly uncertain sector of the economy. And that is exactly why investors clamored for a piece of its initial public offering, which closed on Wednesday evening. Twitter’s shares were priced at $26, giving the company an overall value of $18.1 billion, including stock that the company is likely to issue to employees. (The New York Times)
Learn More...

 

Amazon is going to the people who dislike and fear it the most – independent bookstore owners – and offering to work together to fulfill the needs and desires of their customers. The retailer on Wednesday announced a program where stores can sell its popular reading devices. (The New York Times)
Learn More...

 

White House budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell learned her management skills from some of the masters: former President Bill Clinton, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, and onetime Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Shortly after being selected as the new head of the Office of Management and Budget earlier this year, the longtime Washington hand was taught something else: Those Clinton-era lessons may be no match for today’s House Republicans. (Bloomberg)
Learn More...

 

In turbulent times, turnarounds are increasingly a fact of life. Some companies need to be rescued from the brink of extinction (BlackBerry), but that’s not the only kind of turnaround. Others need a course correction while still profitable (Microsoft), or a momentum shift because of disruptive new technologies (newspaper companies). (Harvard Business Review)
Learn More...

 

Mellody Hobson has a slate of corporate board seats that many a star executive would envy: She is a director at Starbucks, Estee Lauder, Groupon and DreamWorks Animation. And while her day job is serving as president of Chicago-based Ariel Investments, Hobson is also non-executive chairman of DreamWorks – as well as one of CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg's most trusted advisors. (Fortune)
Learn More...

 

It sometimes feels as if the "happiness industry" – the self-help books, motivational speakers, corporate consultants and the rest – makes its money by being useless. It's an ingenious business model, when you think about it: promise to help people think positive, then when your techniques fail, conclude that they weren't thinking positively enough – sending them back for more. (Fast Company)
Learn More...