Groundhog Day has come and gone. With the predicted early springs fast approaching, what are you doing at work to enhance your MBA readiness?
We just had the warmest January on record which, when coupled with Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction of an early spring, will hopefully ignite some energetic inspiration in your daily work grind. Whether you have already been accepted to b-school or are just beginning to think about applying, the most important thing you can do right now is to maximize your impact and effectiveness on the job.
Besides your GMAT score, the single most determining factor of b-school readiness is the quality of your work experience.
Admissions committees heavily scrutinize not only what you have done in your career, but where you have done it and how well you have done it. If you can imagine how mundane it must get for the readers of your essays to see the trite and tired usual suspects each year, you will have insight into how difficult it must be to differentiate amongst applicants.
This is what most MBA hopefuls fail to think about: how they truly compare against someone exactly like themselves.
The best way to combat banal work syndrome is to simply do some really impressive things at work. While you may have the same title and similar responsibilities, only you have your unique experience, so you need to put considerable time into making that experience truly special. Avoid describing your responsibilities with industry-specific language and details. Remember that admissions committee members will likely not have any experience in your field, so using layman’s terminology and straightforward but descriptive words vs. jargon will be far better received.
Claiming you have had an impact is one thing, but demonstrating your impact is more effective.
Don’t fall into the trap of just describing what you do, rather write in your essays about how you do it differently and why you even do it in the first place. When you explain how your work affects others it will provide valuable insight into what makes you tick, which is way more interesting to business schools. Once you have some differentiated stories of impact to relate, make sure you remind your recommenders about them. There’s nothing more powerful than third party corroboration and being in sync with those who vouch for you in the application process will make for a consistent narrative that will be memorable. And at the end of the day, being remembered in the MBA application process is a coveted goal.
For information on how we can guide your business school applications, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or go to http://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contactProvide