The Chartered management institute is it worth it?

The Chartered Management Institute likes to muscle their way into lots of unaccredited MBA courses in the UK. Are they respected? Well, not in my firm no, it's not right up there with chartered accountants, solicitors, technology professionals etc because without some other discernible skills to back it up, it screams "I don't have a clue what you do, but I want to manage you!"

I'm not saying there isn't a skill involved in management but I'm deeply sceptical that people can learn to manage others in anything more complex than a call centre without work experience. I'm also deeply sceptical of people getting MBA degrees without a decent amount of work experience and in fact if you can get on to a course without work experience, AMBA won't accredit it.

If you want to do an MBA, avoid anything with the CMI sniffing around because it means the serious people aren't interested in the course. What you're looking for in an MBA is accreditation by at least AMBA and Equis and preferably also AACSB. Get that and you'll have something far more worthwhile than a certificate from the CMI.

Alternatively, if you have no work experience and you want to work in business, then for goodness sake don't waste your money on masters degrees now. You'll need that postgraduate study loan later when you know what you want to specialise in. You're far better at this stage of your career getting a professional qualification whether that's as an accountant, a chartered secretary, a solicitor, a technology qualification, a purchaser etc. CIMA might be best for you based on the degrees you're looking at.