Dear Lindsey,

How important is getting your MBA from a top graduate school verses a middle of the road or maybe online school make? What difference does it make regarding future pay and opportunities?

Thanks,
Marie

Dear Marie,

Educational decisions are personal and the right answers are different for everyone. What I can do is provide you with the right questions to ask to make the right move for you.

Here are three questions to help you make the best decision for you:

1. Why are you getting an MBA?
Education is a wonderful, valuable endeavor and a worthy goal in itself, but in my opinion, you should always have an end goal in mind. That desired result can help you make the decision about the best school for you. For instance, if you are getting an MBA to help you make a career change, your top priority should be finding an institution that is known for guiding people into careers in the new field you want to join. If your goal is to increase your technical knowledge of accounting, financial management, etc. (for instance, to gain a higher position or salary bracket in your current organization), then the school name may not be as important as simply gaining the knowledge you need. If your number one goal is high-level networking, then a “brand name” school might be the choice for you. If post-grad school salary is the key factor for you, then ask schools for the average starting salaries of their graduates.

Read the rest of my response to Marie’s question on Excelle.com…

TAGS: business school, Career transition, Education, MBA, Women and Careers

Dear Lindsey,

I’m an engineer at a leading tech company, and for the most part I love my job. At 29, I’m one of the younger people in the office. One of the most frustrating things for me is working with much older people who are a lot slower with new technologies — even my superiors who are in technical roles can’t work as quickly as the younger crew can.

And I don’t blame them — I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up in such a rapidly-changing field when I’m in my 60s. Still, it’s hard to watch (or wait for) them to figure something out that I could have done myself in half the time.

How do I show respect to my older, less tech-savvy coworkers without losing my mind?

Thanks,
Young and Speedy

Read my answer to this question on my new “Ask the Gen Y Expert” column at Excelle.com…

TAGS: Generation Y, managing generational differences, technology

How do you handle rejection, disappointment or failure? When should you solider on and when should you surrender?

That’s the topic we’re discussing on my 30/20 Vision podcast this week. Listen now and share your comments on this important topic!

TAGS: career advice, handling disappointment, life advice

We are delighted to share this guest post from Cleo Thompson, based in London and founder of The Gender Blog.

Last week saw women around the world celebrating the 100^th anniversary of International Women’s Day – a day marked on 8^th March every year to commemorate the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

If, however,  you are a gay woman in Pakistan, Algeria or Uganda, then you probably have somewhat less to celebrate,  as it’s still illegal to be gay in those countries – and several others.  And if you’re a gay woman and fortunate enough to live elsewhere such as the US or the UK,  a country where you are,  in the recent words of Ulrike Lunacek, an Austrian Member of the European Parliament who co-chairs that entity’s LGBTI group, “… able to be open in your workplace; able to be free to be who you really are …”  but you travel overseas, then here’s a website that you may wish to check out. In addition to serving as a useful resource, it will help to raise your awareness of the other countries out there where the LGBTI community don’t enjoy the same level of personal and professional freedom.

Ulrike Lunacek was speaking at the recent launch of ILGA’s interactive website– a newly available resource for both employers and employees. Designed, hosted and supported by British Telecom , it’s an innovative tool, (accessible in French, Spanish and Portuguese as well as English) which informs people of their rights and their risks when travelling – and as such serves as a wonderful – and timely – resource for both employers and individuals.

ILGA is the International Lesbian, Gay, Trans & Intersex Association which was born in 1978 out of a grass roots movement aimed at creating global change and awareness of the issues facing the LGBTI community. They campaign on the two main pillars of homophobia – law and culture – and it is their hope that the new interactive website will support this vital work.

One of the senior BT developers who worked on the site asked the launch audience to imagine how it might feel to be a gay or lesbian member of staff who wasn’t “out” to their manager and who was asked by their employer to go to a country on assignment or on a business trip where their sexuality could put them at risk – how do you, as a gay employee, have that conversation if you don’t have the information to hand which informs both you and your employer of exactly what you could be facing? And how can a manager make appropriate resourcing and deployment issues about their staff without having an up to date awareness of the risks (both potential and actual) in the countries in which the company has a presence?

Thus, on ILGA’s home page you can see a map of the world, into which you can drill via a variety of datasets (such as female to female relationships, or age of consent laws) and then see how the map changes colour based on the legal status of that situation: so we can see that it’s illegal to be a lesbian in Angola and Botswana for example,  legal in many other countries and “legal only in some areas” in Nigeria.  You can also click on (or search for) a specific country of interest and see what the story is with regard to the law there; follow the links and read about the legal background, anti-discrimination laws, asylum and immigration issues and social climate.  There’s also an interactive section,  aimed at mimicking the social networking component of sites such as Trip Advisor,  where users are encouraged to post their stories of life in and/or visits to various countries,  to enable others to gauge the mood and “gay friendliness” (or otherwise) of hotels, bars, restaurants and the country and people in general.

This is a hugely impressive site and should be well used and added to by both travellers and those in the corporate space who are responsible for staff deployment overseas – HR and global mobility teams,  travel offices and so on.  Although a lot of corporate support in the diversity space often is about providing funding for a cause or a group, it does BT great credit that they’ve done so much more than that in this instance – they’ve put their massive technical and intellectual expertise to work to support this great cause and provided a genuinely useful tool which could really make a difference to both their own staff and to LGBTI people worldwide.  The site is very easy to use and there’s a wealth of information available;  it’s clearly been an enormous project and hopefully will have an even more significant impact both as an information source for women and men but also as a risk awareness and a consciousness raising tool.

TAGS: business travel, Cleo Thompson, LGBTI, The Gender Blog, travel

It’s been a memorable decade. And certainly, the last year has been interesting.

We’ve gone from worrying that Y2K would cause our computers to melt down to wishing that something, anything, would cause our blackberries to stop delivering incoming messages at dizzying speed.

As much as some things have changed, others stay the same; we still take time at the end of the year to make resolutions for the year ahead.

As a chronic resolution maker ─ and breaker, this year, I’m going to take a different approach.

You may be familiar with the acronym S.M.A.R.T. as it relates to setting business goals? I think the process works equally well with personal goals, which is exactly what resolutions are.

1. Specific: Clear goals about what you want to change, learn, do differently, etc. makes it more likely that you will be able to accomplish it.
2. Measurable: How will you know when you have been successful?If your goal is to lose 20 pounds, the scale is a good way to measure success.  If, however, your objective is to build a better relationship with your significant other, think about how you will access your progress.  Perhaps you can institute regular checkpoints where you discuss how things are going.  Or perhaps you keep a journal to track how many times you disagree with one another and rate yourself regarding how well you handle these difficult situations.
3. Achievable: Goals should be stretch but not completely out of reach.  If you set your sights too high, you will be setting yourself up for failure. Too low and it’s not worth worrying about.Another issue is that if you can’t control the progress toward the goal yourself, then revise the goal to one that you can control.  For example, if your resolution is to pay down your credit card debt but your husband keeps charging, then perhaps you need to decide how much of your current, collective debt each of you will be responsible for and then negotiate with one another how to manage making the payments.
4. Results- Oriented: It’s the result that counts, not the intent.  This will keep you from making excuses to yourself about why keeping your resolution was too difficult and to award yourself points just for effort.
5. Timebound: There has to be an end in sight.  Be realistic about the right time frame to assign to any resolution

My plan is to use S.M.A.R.T. criteria to evaluate any of my resolutions. If the resolution doesn’t pass muster with each,  I’m moving on.

Hope this process helps you too; please let me know if you use it.

All the best in 2010.

TAGS: achieving goals, LinkedIn, resolutions

A reader writes:

I am a woman working with a big male-dominated team (30+ members) in an IT company. Only four in the entire team are women. The male colleagues often hang out together, have Friday parties and often short picnics. When any new male member joins the team, he is invited to the parties immediately. Once, a female colleague tried joining them, but she was immensely discouraged.

I understand that they discuss team politics and issues in these parties, and often make comments about the female colleagues. Often, they share their opinions about others in the team and “office news” too. This leads to a huge informal information flow between the males from which the females have been kept out.

This has led to a situation where I and my female colleagues are feeling quite left out. The male colleagues feel like they are buddies, and I am fairly sure their interaction is influencing some important decisions within the team on work sharing, appraisals and promotions.

I would like to hear your advice on how to deal with such a situation.

You sound frustrated and I can certainly empathize. The men in your office certainly do seem to be excluding women from their informal gatherings and, if that is the case, it is insensitive at best and potentially illegal at worst.  So, what to do?

Because I don’t know enough about the company culture, the personalities or the history about how and why this situation evolved, I can offer only some general advice:

1. Don’t over-exaggerate the value of these “boys’ nights”. They may be a lot less worth attending than they seem and it’s hard to know what really goes on since you’re not there. The true impact may only be a hang-over.
2. It’s hard to be comfortable in a group when you know you’re not wanted so don’t push too hard to be invited to the informal gatherings the guys organize. Imagine how you and the women with whom you work will feel even if you do get invited ─ just because you are in the room doesn’t mean you’ll be welcome. Nor does it mean that your male colleagues will share information with you. In fact, trying to push your way in (even if you were successful somehow, which is highly unlikely) could result in increased tension.
3. For the reason explained in #2, a sincere invitation is the only one worth anything. If you are convinced that you and the women with whom you work are missing out on important information, how can you wrangle a sincere invitation? Is there one man who is the leader, either officially or unofficially? If so, perhaps you or one of your female colleagues who has a good relationship with him could have a conversation with him about the situation to better understand what’s going on, why and what to do about it. Perhaps other women can also reach out to other men they think they can influence.
4. If you are convinced you will be retired before you receive a sincere invitation to “boys’ night”, why not organize your own gathering but invite your male colleagues? Be sure to approach your male colleagues as individuals, leaning on existing relationships to improve the chances that they’ll attend.
5. I’m not sure how their interaction is influencing appraisals and promotions unless management is also attending these gatherings; in that case, you and your female colleagues may want to have a conversation with the boss to apprise him of your collective concerns. If things continue as they are after that conversation, you may want to alert your HR department.

Readers, any other ideas?

TAGS: excluded, inclusion, LinkedIn, tough situation

I am enamored by the concept and the term of “paying it forward“.  It was popularized by Robert A. Heinlein in his book Between Planets, published in 1951.  The expression is used to describe the idea of asking that a good deed be repaid by having it done to others instead of you.  When it comes to money – the expression specifically means the creditor offers the debtor the option of  “paying” the debt (forward) by lending the amount to a third person instead of paying it (back) to the original creditor.

So, in the spirit of this concept, I invite you to share your financial knowledge, what worked and didn’t work for you, and how you’ve successfully managed your personal finances in order to provide some money management principles to which younger women can aspire.  And as you do this – remember the person who gave you an early loan in the spirit of providing financial guidelines. 

Since 90% of all women – married or single - will be responsible for their own financial future, young women must get the education needed to take control of personal money management reins for whatever reason. The reasons are far reaching, they’re global and almost always accompanied by daunting – if not massive – financial dilemmas (divorce, downsizing, stepfamilies, birth, death, aging or frail parents, career changes, children, career ceilings) that compromise women attaining and maintaining their lifestyle.

I have a serious commitment to teaching financial independence to young women.  My husband and I have four daughters – his two and my two – between the ages of 31 to 36.  We’re working to change their psychological approach and attitudes about money – from the traditional and loving but misguided idea that they don’t really need to know – to encouraging them and impressing upon them the importance of becoming educated about how to take care of themselves financially independently.

Their financial plans and ours share some vital components that go into the paying it forward category.  Women should:

• Show proactive leadership in early investing through such vehicles as investment clubs and scheduled gatherings in order to share information (and build momentum for understanding) about wealth building.
• Make a commitment to identify and partner women and wealth as a means of fostering entrepreneurship.
• Understand that financial independence and romance can peacefully co-exist.
• Use extreme care regarding co-mingling money, assess your own risk tolerance and know the risk tolerance of your spouse or partner.
• Actively support and continue building wealth while integrating work and family life – remembering that time away from work (as women bear children or take leaves of absence to care for elderly parents) means an interruption in the accumulation of pension funds.
• Give the children in our lives an early lesson about investing and the magic of compounding by giving them stock as gifts (a share in a company whose products they use and know gives them a real sense of ownership early) and/or a 529 Plan that pays for continuing education in the future at today’s prices.
• Work toward improving the sad equation of lower salaries for women for comparable work.

We’re living longer and will be able to afford it if we make a plan, get educated, stay educated and truly know that it’s never too late (and certainly never too early) to get started securing a financial future.  We can do this. 

My generation got used to the idea of being “superwomen”.  We raised children while simultaneously nurturing a career and keeping romance alive with a long-time or second chance spouse or partner.  We even began accepting the fact that it was okay to be good to ourselves!  That concept was – and still is – a tough one.  Most of us then and now were/are conditioned to just keep going and going and going.  We need to believe and pass along to younger women as Emerson wrote:  “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

Within each of you is the ability to create wealth for our financial futures.  We have successfully run the home and workplace infrastructures simultaneously. We function in chaos sometimes but tend to finish in style.  Being persistent on behalf of our families (while still being good to ourselves) is key.  It will help you get a plan, get a financial life and make long term contingencies.  The ability to be pro-active instead of reactive is the foundation for financial staying power.

Pay forward the idea of getting an authentic financial life.  Find other women with similar needs and the desire to secure their financial future and pool the resources of your collective wealth of knowledge.  Make that commitment today.

Here’s to your health and wealth!

TAGS: creating wealth, daughters, entrepreneurship, financial dilemmas, financial independence, financial knowledge, Paying it forward, risk tolerance, superwomen, work and life integration

Knowing the score – my credit score that is – has always been important to me.  It was one of the silver linings I found many years ago in the dark cloud of post divorce in a community property state.  Having been a young married woman in the early 70s, my idea of good money habits was:  “What’s mine is his.  What’s his is mine.  And we and our money would live happily ever after.”

Boy did I get a reality wake up call.  When I initiated divorce proceedings nearly 18 years later – figuring out the mine and the his of our money – came down to attitude.  As the obvious breadwinner (a calculation reached by an angry female judge who was herself the product of a divorced family and still dealing with her own issues of abandonment) – I got nailed.  I was to be responsible for paying all the outstanding bills, providing all the education expenses for my children and writing the checks for any other family matters yet to be named or known.

I had two choices:  I could get mad or I could get even.  I chose the latter – and I don’t mean getting even by retaliation.  Even though my ex said he didn’t care about the bills or lines of credit in our name and would do nothing to pay them off – I did.  I cared very much.  In fact, I cared so much about what creditors would say about my name that I set my sites, goals and checkbook on paying off all the family debt.  Month by month.  Chunk by chunk.  And when that I was done, I regaled in the satisfaction of never having to see his name and mine together on any bill or document that represented my new life. 

It took a few years of deliberate, consistent, always on time payments.  But finally I was at a place where I understood the importance of and the need to know the score – my very own, just me, individual, earned it myself, pristine credit score.  There is big bold numbers was my answer:  793.   I love the number.  I guard the number.  I’ve kept it there even though I’ve had to handle my share of disappointments in this crazy money time called a recession.

The new (I)deal when it comes to credit worthiness isn’t about how much money you have, it’s about how you handle what you have.

The recession is touching everyone.  What can you do to make the best out of these troublesome financial times?

First and foremost – don’t panic.  It’s true that many people have chosen to pull their money out of the market.  But strategists like Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com says – unless you absolutely need cash in the short term – meaning between right now and the next couple of years – remember that historically the market has recouped all of its losses.

Tip number two:  Don’t put all of your money in one place.  It’s never a good idea – even during the best of times.  If you don’t diversify your portfolio, you leave yourself open to owning too much of one kind of asset and too little of another kind.

Tip number three:  I know this may sound contrary to what you feel like doing right now in the midst of the market’s gyrations – but don’t let the state of the economy drive your investing.  Market declines offer many opportunities.  So now is the time to look for strong companies whose shares are down.  There are a lot of them.  Buy them if you can.  Add them to your long term portfolio.  Money specialists say people in their 20s and 30s should have roughly 80-90% of their assets in stocks.  People in their 60s – approaching retirement – may keep up to 50% of their assets in stocks.

Finally, Bankrate.com’s McBride says:  “Recessions are a time to build an emergency fund – a savings account that will cover three to six months of basic living expenses.”  Make this a goal.  Even now when money is – for most people – extremely tight, starting a modest but dedicated emergency fund can be the silver lining in this and future financial storms.

The current economic crisis and its fallout’s going to be with us for years.  How each person prepares to take a more active role in managing their personal money needs is critical to our collective recovery.  There must be a consistency of thought that every one of us will have - from cradle to grave meaning lifelong -  a solid, basic money knowledge and the skills to manage it.  

Spending less than you earn is the way to accumulate wealth.  Education increases your earning potential.  Saving during good times and bad is a huge accomplishment and should be your “look what I can do” goal.  Talk about debt with your spouse and know where you both stand when it comes to being responsible for managing it.  Set goals because they’re key to your financial success and they’re habit forming.  Nothing like meeting one money goal successfully to make you want to set another one.  

Here’s to your health and wealth.

TAGS: buying opportunities, diversification, emergency fund, long-term portfolio goals, Recession tips

Women are more vulnerable financially as we age.  Why?  Because we have very unique money issues:

• lower earnings
• work patterns
• health status
• life expectancy
• marital status

We have lower earnings because we work in different and often less lucrative occupations and sectors.  Two-thirds of us earn less than $30,000 a year – a number that has been diminished even more by the ongoing downturn in the overall economy.  U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis says the recession is especially hard on women because we earn less money than men for the same work.  Women earn from 78-cents to 52-cents for every dollar men receive.  (Source: The Womens’ Data Center, Institute for Women’s Policy Research,  http://www.iwpr.org/femstats/wocdata.htm - Asian 78-cents, White 73-cents, African-American 63-cents, Native American almost 60-cents and Latinas 52-cents).  The average 25-year old woman with a college degree earns $500,000 less in her lifetime than a man.  While women are in the workforce in greater numbers, we are often part-time or work for an employer offering few or no benefits. 

Women’s work patterns are different.   Women on average work 13 years less than men.  During our time away – most often to care for children or frail parents or other family members – we’re not increasing our earning power, not vesting in pensions and our lifetime earnings for Social Security income is lower.   Most defined pension plans vest at 5 years.  Women average 4.7 years in a job while men average 5.1 years.  Half of working women have no pension. 

Women spend more on out-of-pocket health care expenses than men.  The system sees our health status differently.  Men have more acute illnesses and die sooner but  their medical needs are covered under insurance and Medicare.  Women at midlife have more chronic illnesses, require specialists and leading edge medicine.  Our illnesses frequently result in the need for long term care – and other needs often not covered by many insurances or Medicare.

We live longer than men – on average about 5 years longer but a woman’s income at age 65 is half that of men.  Women must factor in longer life expectancy as they plan for retirement and should work with a  financial specialist to accurately figure out the rate at which they spend their retirement savings.

90% of women will live alone – by choice or circumstances – at some point in their life.  29% of single, older women are poor or near poor.  Widowed and divorced women are three to four times more likely to be poor than women in couples.  For many older women, Social Security is their only source of income in retirement.

Women deserve economic security.  In order to attain it, we must not allow ourselves to become the victims of this recession.  See and seize the opportunity to become better stewards of our personal money.

Here’s to your health and wealth.

TAGS: benefits, caregiving, chronic illness, earnings, health status, life expectancy, Lower earnings, marital status, pension plans, widowed and divorced women, work patterns