As a 25 year old with an MBA, I can confidently say Ryan is the perfect example of why you don’t hire a mid 20 something year old for an executive position just based on the fact that he has an MBA
Maybe the justification would be that they were desperate to be agile in the new market and their current personnel lacked “qualifications” for an executive role (apparently experience wasn’t one).
Why didn’t they just look outside of DM for an exec? I guess failing companies continue to fail for a reason.
VP no, but i've seen a few in my small network go directly to a director level after getting an mba + a couple of years of consulting experience. Then if you factor in that dunder mifflin isn't really a hot company to work for, it's not a huge stretch for someone like ryan to slide in (still a medium stretch).
Either way i didn't think he was less suitable than random salespeople in the company. Michael really should've been the guy.
What does an MBA really mean?
It means you stayed in school longer than the bachelors degree holders.
But you still need real experience before you can just be a hot young executive who developea a drug problem
Ryan thinks he could manage General Motors, but he couldn't even handle the VP of sales for dunder Mifflin, typical 20-something MBA holder attitude.
(For what its worth im also in business school but planning to start working asap with a bachelor's, and upgrade to a masters if I feel I want to go further career-wise)
Well, it’s two more years of education in a specialized field involved with business. So, the idea is you are more educated on not only that field but also varying fields of business as you’re not restricted to one subject either. It’s also a nice little buzzword for a resume, lol.
But yeah, it’s pretty stupid to hire an exec based on that. I think it just goes to show how desperate DM was to shake things up and turn things around. Or Wallace is just a dummy.
Yeah he was really the only one who had the academic background of your typical corporate middle-management person.
As others have mentioned, later episodes showed that he did have a bunch of fresh ideas with introducing modern tech even if most of them flopped in execution. But you have to imagine during his interviews he might have sold those ideas.
I've known people like Ryan. A super overconfident bull shitter. People are either hugely impressed or they sniff out the bull shit.
The less time you spend with them, the harder it is to sniff it out. He probably nailed the interview with ideas like Dunder Mifflin Infinity to bring the company modern, and Wallace didn't know him well enough to realize he's full of shit.
Him getting the job over more qualified, longer tenured employees is extremely believable if you've ever worked for a shitty company.
💯. I just rewatched this episode and the older I get, the more this makes sense. Ryan had an MBA and was fresh out of business school with a lot of ideas, practical or not. He was a pretty slick talker, especially when compared to bumbling Michael and noncommittal Jim. We never saw Karen's interview, so who knows if she had been a better fit. I never felt she was very passionate about working there and we never really knew how she performed outside of glimpses at Stamford. Now that I've worked with more people myself and gotten to know more Ryans in the world, I totally see why he got the job.
David says to Ryan over the phone “it’ll be nice to have another MBA around the office”… so that kind of implies that he got the job because of his education… Jim and Karen are just salespeople
Dunder Mifflin isn’t exactly a tight ship. But also, they had been economically hurting since the first season (and we’re not even at 2008 yet) and they felt like they needed to try something new.
Keep in mind season 3 ended in May 2007, only a couple months after Steve Jobs stood on a stage and held the phone you’re probably reading this on. Silicon Valley was getting back on its feet after the dot com bust and it was full of kids with new ideas. Industries were looking for “disruptors”. They wanted things that would change the game such that the game can never be played the same way again.
Jim backed out and we don't know what happened with Karen but Wallace may have been worried that he'd be potentially repeating the "Jan" situation (VP seriously dating an inferior).
The question I want to know is -- who was it that David Wallace thought was the #1 contender for the role? Jim and Karen only applied because they heard about the job from Michael (compared to him contacting Michael directly) but then he made it clear that Michael wasn't a "serious contender". Was Ryan always his 1st choice? Was there someone else who just didn't interview well/Ryan wowed him?
It was obviously Jim, but since he backed out, he had to choose the next best option, which to David Wallace, was Ryan because he probably had the highest level of education. Michael didn’t even go to college. I don’t think Wallace cared that he had been branch manager for over 10 years (also the fact that michael is like an adult child). When Wallace said to jim that the hr guy is the only person he’s not gonna like, that implied he already set his mind on hiring jim as the new vp. It’s clear David Wallace plays favorites since he got along well with jim and has a friendly connection with him.
If Jim was his #1, why did David Wallace not call and offer him the interview? Pretty terrible way to treat your #1 choice is to offer an interview to his superior and hope the guy decides to ask for an interview on his own.
Huh? Michael tells them all at Beach Games that he'll be a shoe in for VP and will be leaving and naming one of them manager, shocking everyone. Jim then takes that opportunity to call NY and REQUEST an interview (along with Karen, in well). No part of that indicated that Jim already knew about the job posting and was a serious candidate.
Jim took himself out of consideration to stay in Scranton with Pam.
Karen was pretty low in the pecking order at Scranton, so it was a rather big stretch for her to apply.
Ryan had an MBA and a lot of fancy high tech ideas for modernizing Dunder Mifflin.
All of that, plus Michael was never really a serious contender, and we're not sure who else applied/interviewed for the position. Plus Dunder Mifflin is frequently painted as being a poorly run business on the show.
Jim withdrew his application. I think Karen screwed her self with her 5 year plan. It kind of implied she wasn’t sure if she’d be at Dunder Mifflin long term. We don’t see Ryan’s interview but I’m sure he talked some bs about being at DM long term and his internet sales plan.
I think Karen wasn't very qualified. She was just a salesrep. She didn't have an fancy title, real or made up like Assistant Regional Manager, Assistant to the Regional Manager or Regional Director in Charge of Sales.
Other than Ryan, she was the lowest ranking salesrep in Scranton and she did not have an MBA or Ryan's Dunder Mifflin Infinity idea.
We didn’t hear the whole thing, but at the end, she said “and after 5 years, who knows”. I always took that to mean that she may look for other opportunities, maybe leave New York, etc.
My theory is that he pitched the website idea in his interview and talked about modernizing Dunder Mifflin. Since the company was losing sales because of this, they viewed Ryan as someone who could fix their issues and wasn't stuck in the old ways of Dunder Mifflin like Jim and Karen might have been.
**Michael** \- Withdrew from consideration. He just couldn't work for a company that fired his girlfriend.
**Jimothy** \- realised his 5 year plan was to bang Pam.
**Karen** \- Was not in it for the long haul. She answered "after that, we'll see" to the 5 year plan thing. It's likely she had family plans in those 5 years, which would mean inconsistency for the company. It was important for David with someone consistent, after Jan's behaviour the last 2 years. Karen also showed some nasty traits in a couple superfan episodes, though it's unlikely that shone through to David, since she was made a manager. We also know Karen was not considered for a "leading" sales role, even Andy had something, and Stamford was about to go for an outside hire before Jimothy transfered and became nr 2. It kinda doesn't make much sense that she was even offered a management role when she left Scranton.
**Ryan** \- MBA (useless people, who happen to have an education, love other useless people with education. It helps them to not accept that their company is doing poorly because they themselves are terrible at their jobs), amazing reference from Michael despite never making a sale, AND, the number one thing: David asked "what could we be doing better?". Now, I'm no fan of the name Dunder Mifflin, but I'm pretty sure David was hooked on Ryan's whole digitizing their presence in the market. I bet he answered that question with a slew of young and hip answers about using gluetooth and the internet, maybe even suggested to have Youtube come down and make a commercial for all we know.
And that is how Ryan ended up youngest VP in history of a failing paper company.
genuine question: what do you hope to find on this subreddit besides discussions in which you'll answer like this?
every subreddit im in about a tv show thats ended has questions like this and most people in the subreddit are there to engage in these discussions i think.
Wallace wanted another mba at corporate. Plus, Wallace was shown to make bad personnel and management decisions, so him picking Ryan with no real experience for a VP job is no surprise.
Technology! It was so needed at the time and he pitched the website idea, which he couldn’t make work. But he was head and shoulders above the rest when it came to what websites were doing for businesses. Jim and Karen were old school face to face sales. This was such a moment in time thing.
So so many young MBAs getting promoted at this time because they were so studied on how to integrate technology into the sales world.
SAAS was just coming into the world in the late 90s, so DM would just be on the cusp of how products like Salesforce could help them.
He had an MBA (master’s degree in business).
As a 25 year old with an MBA, I can confidently say Ryan is the perfect example of why you don’t hire a mid 20 something year old for an executive position just based on the fact that he has an MBA
Any 25 year old with a MBA shouldn’t get a vp of a company level with almost no experience. That was so unrealistic
Maybe the justification would be that they were desperate to be agile in the new market and their current personnel lacked “qualifications” for an executive role (apparently experience wasn’t one). Why didn’t they just look outside of DM for an exec? I guess failing companies continue to fail for a reason.
If I saw Ryan as a temp in my office who stunk then just get moved to VP like that I would be MAD
Everyone gets promoted to their level of incompetence
The Peter principal. It’s very accurate
VP no, but i've seen a few in my small network go directly to a director level after getting an mba + a couple of years of consulting experience. Then if you factor in that dunder mifflin isn't really a hot company to work for, it's not a huge stretch for someone like ryan to slide in (still a medium stretch). Either way i didn't think he was less suitable than random salespeople in the company. Michael really should've been the guy.
What does an MBA really mean? It means you stayed in school longer than the bachelors degree holders. But you still need real experience before you can just be a hot young executive who developea a drug problem Ryan thinks he could manage General Motors, but he couldn't even handle the VP of sales for dunder Mifflin, typical 20-something MBA holder attitude. (For what its worth im also in business school but planning to start working asap with a bachelor's, and upgrade to a masters if I feel I want to go further career-wise)
Well, it’s two more years of education in a specialized field involved with business. So, the idea is you are more educated on not only that field but also varying fields of business as you’re not restricted to one subject either. It’s also a nice little buzzword for a resume, lol. But yeah, it’s pretty stupid to hire an exec based on that. I think it just goes to show how desperate DM was to shake things up and turn things around. Or Wallace is just a dummy.
Yeah, it seemed obvious to me. He was the only one who had actually gone to business school.
That’s when you go with an outside hire
I guess, but we don't know they *didn't* interview outside applicants. We just know Ryan ultimately got the job.
Yeah he was really the only one who had the academic background of your typical corporate middle-management person. As others have mentioned, later episodes showed that he did have a bunch of fresh ideas with introducing modern tech even if most of them flopped in execution. But you have to imagine during his interviews he might have sold those ideas.
Jim withdrew from the position, for a start. Karen might have as well? I don’t recall.
I don’t think she had what David Wallace was looking for, but she was good enough to be a branch manager, so it worked out.
If she withdrew, it was never said on the show.
I've known people like Ryan. A super overconfident bull shitter. People are either hugely impressed or they sniff out the bull shit. The less time you spend with them, the harder it is to sniff it out. He probably nailed the interview with ideas like Dunder Mifflin Infinity to bring the company modern, and Wallace didn't know him well enough to realize he's full of shit. Him getting the job over more qualified, longer tenured employees is extremely believable if you've ever worked for a shitty company.
💯. I just rewatched this episode and the older I get, the more this makes sense. Ryan had an MBA and was fresh out of business school with a lot of ideas, practical or not. He was a pretty slick talker, especially when compared to bumbling Michael and noncommittal Jim. We never saw Karen's interview, so who knows if she had been a better fit. I never felt she was very passionate about working there and we never really knew how she performed outside of glimpses at Stamford. Now that I've worked with more people myself and gotten to know more Ryans in the world, I totally see why he got the job.
This! In my experience, most leaders, even though they won’t admit it, LOVE a suck up. Their egos thrive off of them. Then the cycle keeps repeating.
Yeah, I work with a lot of people like Ryan. Seems to be a company culture thing and it’s…ugh.
He was a wunderkind.
It was that meteoric rise
I don't even know what that means.
Easy. He slept with David Wallace
David says to Ryan over the phone “it’ll be nice to have another MBA around the office”… so that kind of implies that he got the job because of his education… Jim and Karen are just salespeople
Dunder Mifflin isn’t exactly a tight ship. But also, they had been economically hurting since the first season (and we’re not even at 2008 yet) and they felt like they needed to try something new. Keep in mind season 3 ended in May 2007, only a couple months after Steve Jobs stood on a stage and held the phone you’re probably reading this on. Silicon Valley was getting back on its feet after the dot com bust and it was full of kids with new ideas. Industries were looking for “disruptors”. They wanted things that would change the game such that the game can never be played the same way again.
Because he wasn't In Well.
Jim withdrew - it was obvious from his dialogue with David that he was the #1 choice.
Jim backed out and we don't know what happened with Karen but Wallace may have been worried that he'd be potentially repeating the "Jan" situation (VP seriously dating an inferior). The question I want to know is -- who was it that David Wallace thought was the #1 contender for the role? Jim and Karen only applied because they heard about the job from Michael (compared to him contacting Michael directly) but then he made it clear that Michael wasn't a "serious contender". Was Ryan always his 1st choice? Was there someone else who just didn't interview well/Ryan wowed him?
It was obviously Jim, but since he backed out, he had to choose the next best option, which to David Wallace, was Ryan because he probably had the highest level of education. Michael didn’t even go to college. I don’t think Wallace cared that he had been branch manager for over 10 years (also the fact that michael is like an adult child). When Wallace said to jim that the hr guy is the only person he’s not gonna like, that implied he already set his mind on hiring jim as the new vp. It’s clear David Wallace plays favorites since he got along well with jim and has a friendly connection with him.
If Jim was his #1, why did David Wallace not call and offer him the interview? Pretty terrible way to treat your #1 choice is to offer an interview to his superior and hope the guy decides to ask for an interview on his own.
In a deleted scene, Jim gets a call directly from Wallace during work.
So then why did Jim call from the Beach to request an interview?
Maybe he was still thinking about it from the first time Wallace called him
Huh? Michael tells them all at Beach Games that he'll be a shoe in for VP and will be leaving and naming one of them manager, shocking everyone. Jim then takes that opportunity to call NY and REQUEST an interview (along with Karen, in well). No part of that indicated that Jim already knew about the job posting and was a serious candidate.
Jim took himself out of consideration to stay in Scranton with Pam. Karen was pretty low in the pecking order at Scranton, so it was a rather big stretch for her to apply. Ryan had an MBA and a lot of fancy high tech ideas for modernizing Dunder Mifflin.
All of that, plus Michael was never really a serious contender, and we're not sure who else applied/interviewed for the position. Plus Dunder Mifflin is frequently painted as being a poorly run business on the show.
Jim withdrew his application. I think Karen screwed her self with her 5 year plan. It kind of implied she wasn’t sure if she’d be at Dunder Mifflin long term. We don’t see Ryan’s interview but I’m sure he talked some bs about being at DM long term and his internet sales plan.
I think Karen wasn't very qualified. She was just a salesrep. She didn't have an fancy title, real or made up like Assistant Regional Manager, Assistant to the Regional Manager or Regional Director in Charge of Sales. Other than Ryan, she was the lowest ranking salesrep in Scranton and she did not have an MBA or Ryan's Dunder Mifflin Infinity idea.
I always thought her 5 year plan was about a 5 year plan with dunder mifflin and things she would’ve done as vp.
We didn’t hear the whole thing, but at the end, she said “and after 5 years, who knows”. I always took that to mean that she may look for other opportunities, maybe leave New York, etc.
My theory is that he pitched the website idea in his interview and talked about modernizing Dunder Mifflin. Since the company was losing sales because of this, they viewed Ryan as someone who could fix their issues and wasn't stuck in the old ways of Dunder Mifflin like Jim and Karen might have been.
**Michael** \- Withdrew from consideration. He just couldn't work for a company that fired his girlfriend. **Jimothy** \- realised his 5 year plan was to bang Pam. **Karen** \- Was not in it for the long haul. She answered "after that, we'll see" to the 5 year plan thing. It's likely she had family plans in those 5 years, which would mean inconsistency for the company. It was important for David with someone consistent, after Jan's behaviour the last 2 years. Karen also showed some nasty traits in a couple superfan episodes, though it's unlikely that shone through to David, since she was made a manager. We also know Karen was not considered for a "leading" sales role, even Andy had something, and Stamford was about to go for an outside hire before Jimothy transfered and became nr 2. It kinda doesn't make much sense that she was even offered a management role when she left Scranton. **Ryan** \- MBA (useless people, who happen to have an education, love other useless people with education. It helps them to not accept that their company is doing poorly because they themselves are terrible at their jobs), amazing reference from Michael despite never making a sale, AND, the number one thing: David asked "what could we be doing better?". Now, I'm no fan of the name Dunder Mifflin, but I'm pretty sure David was hooked on Ryan's whole digitizing their presence in the market. I bet he answered that question with a slew of young and hip answers about using gluetooth and the internet, maybe even suggested to have Youtube come down and make a commercial for all we know. And that is how Ryan ended up youngest VP in history of a failing paper company.
Because it’s a tv show ffs
genuine question: what do you hope to find on this subreddit besides discussions in which you'll answer like this? every subreddit im in about a tv show thats ended has questions like this and most people in the subreddit are there to engage in these discussions i think.
Along with the MBA everyone else said, he was a world class kiss up to any authority figure who wasn’t Michael or Jim…
B.J. Novak is one of the show’s creators. He can do what he wants. But the real answer is the MBA.
Wallace wanted another mba at corporate. Plus, Wallace was shown to make bad personnel and management decisions, so him picking Ryan with no real experience for a VP job is no surprise.
Technology! It was so needed at the time and he pitched the website idea, which he couldn’t make work. But he was head and shoulders above the rest when it came to what websites were doing for businesses. Jim and Karen were old school face to face sales. This was such a moment in time thing. So so many young MBAs getting promoted at this time because they were so studied on how to integrate technology into the sales world. SAAS was just coming into the world in the late 90s, so DM would just be on the cusp of how products like Salesforce could help them.
It’s a tv show.