Global Recruiters Are Warming To OMBA Grads. U.S. Employers Are Getting Colder. Why?

Markus Perkmann, academic director of the MBA at Imperial College Business School

Markus Perkmann, academic director of the MBA at Imperial College Business School in London, says he’s intrigued by the question whether the online MBA has achieved a greater acceptance in Europe than it has in the United States.

“One theory is that we have seen a growing acceptance of online MBAs on the part of the students,” Perkmann tells P&Q. “The pandemic increased that interest, but I think there’s a structural development, a structural trend, and that sort of tells us that there is a very significant segment of potential MBA candidates out there who are interested in doing an online MBA because they feel that is the best way in which they can do their MBA. And it’s specific type of profile that is usually quite senior. And we see a lot of them working in multinational corporations around the world.”

These students have high opportunity costs, Perkmann says, with about 11 years’ professional experience. “They don’t want to leave their work. They also don’t want to fly around constantly to do a part-time MBA.

“And they want to do an MBA and go to a university of their choice, with the highest amount of spacial temporal flexibility. And so we see a lot of these really high-profile people, high-spec people doing an MBA, and it may be that the labor market realizes those who do online MBA are actually really, really good people.”

BIAS TOWARD SCHOOLS WITH HIGH-RANKED FT PROGRAMS?

Imperial’s recent OMBA intakes included 62 nationalities across about 200 students, leading the school to offer significant class-based activities “which they really appreciate,” Perkmann says. For example, students can take electives together with residential students. “So either they’re in the UK anyhow, so they can come on campus, or they fly from wherever they are for specific electives, to London, and there’s also a few other things they have to do in the classroom. So perhaps that is also a quality signal that employers may appreciate.”

European and global employers may also have a bias toward schools with highly ranked full-time MBAs that also have online programs, he says.

“There is Imperial, there’s Warwick. There are a few other well-known MBA schools who also have an online MBA and there may well be a cross-effect between the reputations,” Perkmann says.

EXPANSION NOT REPLACEMENT

Perkmann says the downturn in acceptance of OMBAs by U.S. recruiters may amount to no more than “a statistical blip.”

“We don’t know, but in general, and the way I see it is, the online MBA is not a program that will replace residential programs, totally,” he says. “It will always stay a specific type of offering that appeals very strongly to a specific type of student — a specific type of MBA candidate. And I believe that that is a market segment that is probably growing and here to stay.”

OMBAs are an expansion of the MBA market, not a replacement, and recruiters are gradually coming to appreciate that, he says.

“Especially in the sense that it allows more people to do an MBA, and structurally speaking, I am certainly convinced that this is here to stay,” Perkmann says. “In our numbers we don’t see any downturn. On the contrary, we see a sort of a stabilization on post-pandemic levels, of the interest in the online MBA.”

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