Mayberry 2005: Question 1 Career Path

Speaker: My name is Daniel Brown. I am a Tennessee Tech under graduate with major in finance. This is my first semester in MBA program here in Tennessee Tech and my question for the board is what are the effective career strategies in today's business environment and what does panel think about the specialist vs. generalist career paths?

Steven Hoisington: I spoke with an accounting class before I came up here. Daniel , you know what important is the degree because it opens the doors. Where you get the degree is less relevant in some regards. It may be one selection criteria. I can tell that a MBA from Stanford I mean they may look much more capable than MBA from Wynona State , only Joe knows where that is at. But the degree opened the door and after that it is really up to you to improve yourself in terms of what you do. So I think early in our life, some of us decide a certain career path that we would like to follow, say I want to be an accountant, I want to be a CPA, something like that. And then you focus your education on that, then you come into the company and after a short, some period of time, you may decide you want to take a different path. So I think the specialist opens the door and the degree opens the door, but after that you have to prove yourself. You know what you want, you want to adjust your career as time goes on based upon your skills and talents. The other important thing is that education, I know you hear a lot often time, education doesn't end on you get you degree and walk out of the door because I am sure all these folks will attest. So that additional education experience and training over time is just because when you exam one year and go back again training in the following year. So continue enhancing your skills and abilities to make ayourself valuable part of your organization. So that when you get acquired or something like that, your skills transferable to a new company.

Joe Dehler: I got one. One of my observation has been the whole issue of specialist and generalist can be attitude as well as knowledge what I mean by that is the focus I see get their in trouble is when they try to organization and they say I am capable of this knowledge so I am not be on that project. I am a finance person and not going to involve with this marketing folks. And this is no longer acceptable, so attitude is as well as knowledge. So, what I would suggest is that to be willing to have the altitude. Well your job is to solve business problems no matter what's your discipline is.

Jack Swaim: There is a point of emphasis I am emphasizing something Joe said earlier. Is about finding your passion and what really turns you on. I don't think it is a universal answer about a career path. You know specialist analyst, in other dimension can be the real key to it all is finding out what turns you on and what get you excited you jump in and lose track of time during the day or the time to go home or whatever. And you can find that and you stay with the change. And my experience has been changing all the time. So what I want to do when I was in your age I just shifted and evolved. But you can find that and go for that, that was just kicking all kinds of acceleration for you career and by the same token, if you don't find the match keep working until you do because you will be a lot happier when you do

Dr. Curt Reimann: Any other comments on that? Is there any question?