{"id":16058,"date":"2012-12-26T15:39:38","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T22:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=16058"},"modified":"2012-12-20T11:46:26","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T18:46:26","slug":"owning-your-career-goals-in-five-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/owning-your-career-goals-in-five-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"Owning your career goals in five steps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/courses\/amerasia-consulting-group-save-via-gmat-club\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-11021\" style=\"border: 0px; margin-left: 9px; margin-right: 9px;\" title=\"Amerasia\" src=\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/amerasia.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"58\" \/><\/a>By Amerasia Consulting Group<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let's talk about Career Goals for a minute.\u00a0 This is always a good topic, honestly, because whatever time of year it is and whatever stage of the application process we are all encountering, the narrative of a candidate's career goals will always be paramount.\u00a0 Therefore, in order to create something we can one day send to our own clients with a simple link, as well as something that will help those of you who do not become our clients, we want to present a crystal clear five-step process for how to handle the Career Goals aspect of your MBA pursuit.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">STEP 1 - HAVE GOALS.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0 Call us naive, but we assumed that everyone applying to a top 10 business school would actually have, you know, goals for the process.\u00a0 Apparently not.\u00a0 The sheer number of people who have come to us this year with no idea what they want to do post-MBA has been staggering.\u00a0 Remember, this is not a degree designed for 22-year old applicants, nor does it punt away the responsibility of asking the question (yes, Law School, we are talking to you).\u00a0 The MBA is a career-focused degree and in almost every instance, the schools ask you what your goals are.\u00a0 To embark on such a life-altering process (to say nothing of expensive and time-consuming) without possessing goals is bizarre.\u00a0 Now, maybe your goals need some refining - particularly in presentation - but if you can't at least decide for yourself what you want to do with your life and why you want to spend $150,000 and two years to get there, you should not be applying to top 10 MBA programs.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">STEP 2 - REFINE YOUR SHORT-TERM GOAL TO MAKE SURE IT CAN BE ACHIEVED.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Okay, now we are talking to the 95% of you who at least know you need to have goals to start the process.\u00a0 We know that just as important as setting goals is the idea of setting realistic goals.\u00a0 If you want to get in shape and you set a goal of running a marathon, great, you are on your way.\u00a0 However, if you set the goal of winning Olympic gold in the marathon, you are probably setting yourself up for failure.\u00a0 Therefore, it's not a good goal.\u00a0 This is especially true when someone else shares in the responsibility for whether you achieve it.\u00a0 Schools share the responsibility for helping you achieve your short-term goal. \u00a0 Nobody bears any responsibility for the achievement of a long-term goal.\u00a0 Nobody is tracking, measuring, or even checking.\u00a0 Too much life is going to happen between now and 10-20 years from now.\u00a0 So when you hear about making goals realistic or having them \"make sense,\" it's almost always about the short-term goal, because that is what shows up on an employment report, what impacts career services, and generally has enough immediacy that everyone feels responsible for outcomes.\u00a0 Some ways to check your short-term goal:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Look at the employment reports of the school to see if they place people into the role and firm of your choice<\/li>\n<li>Consider whether your previous experiences put you in position - with an added MBA - to impress recruiters for this job<\/li>\n<li>Contact someone in career services (usually at your alma mater) to quickly check your path<\/li>\n<li>Ask your admissions consulting to give you a reality check on your goals (important point: don't try to \"brainstorm\" your goals and certainly never ask your consultant to \"give you\" goals - you should have goals in place that this person can look at and either approve or poke holes in)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The main thing is you want to be sure that the following equation checks out:<\/p>\n<p><strong>YOU (and what you have done so far) + MBA (at this school) = ST GOAL.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If it does not, you will get dinged basically every time.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">STEP 3 - SELL YOUR ABILITY TO ACHIEVE THE SHORT-TERM GOAL<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 Normally we talk next about long-term goals, but we are going to stick with short-term goals for a minute.\u00a0 Just because you figure out a short-term goal that can work does not mean your job is done.\u00a0 Here is a quick case study of a client who received an interview at a top 10 school despite aiming for a difficult transition.\u00a0 He was a task-oriented professional with little outside experience and little by way of management responsibilities (this describes a lot of people, so we are not worried about \"outing\" this person).\u00a0 This presents a limited platform from which to work, but that doesn't mean his only short-term goal had to be something connected to his trade.\u00a0 Indeed, if he were to pick a short-term goal in that area, he might fail the \"why do you even need an MBA?\" part of this whole test.\u00a0 Remember, it's not just whether the MBA is enough to get you to your goal, it's also whether the goal is enough to warrant investing in an MBA (rather than just walking down the street for an interview).\u00a0 For this individual, his long-term goals were entrepreneurial, so in the short term, he needed more exposure to business practices and frameworks.\u00a0 He needed to take his upcoming MBA experience and expand on it, in order to continue broadening out and to see what works and what does not in new situations.\u00a0 To gain those 360 degree skills that would enable him to be a successful large-scale entrepreneur down the road, two paths made the most sense: management consulting and brand management.\u00a0 The former would expose him to lots and lots of scenarios in different industries, different geographies, and on different scales.\u00a0 The latter would give him experience with all aspects of bringing something to market.\u00a0 Either would allow him to broaden out the MBA experience of expanding frameworks, widening knowledge basis, and building up his network and pedigree.\u00a0 All good things, to quote the old Martha Stewart Saturday Night Live sketches.\u00a0 So, his work was done, right?\u00a0 Of course not!\u00a0 Just because he thought this was a good idea (or that we think it's a good idea), does not mean a recruiter or - by proxy - an admissions officer will see it the same way.\u00a0 He had to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First, explain the connection.\u00a0 He had to say everything we just wrote above, about continuing to acquire experiences and skills so that he will be in the best position to achieve his eventual goals.<\/li>\n<li>Second, highlight the transferable skills that make him a desirable candidate.\u00a0 We wrote an entire blog post about this once (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amerasiaconsulting.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/16\/the-art-of-transferability\">https:\/\/www.amerasiaconsulting.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/16\/the-art-of-transferability<\/a>), but one of the most common mistakes we see among applicants is that they don't fill in the missing link and explain the skill set that will allow them to 1) get the job, and 2) thrive once they get it.\u00a0 You can't assume the reader will know what someone in your exact job does and see the connection between projects within your trade and being a consultant or a brand manager.\u00a0 You have to identify the skills critical to the ST job and then show that you have them.\u00a0 It's very simple, yet we would wager to guess that 75% of applicants don't do this.\u00a0 They never say \"here is what I will need to be a good brand manager and here is how and when I developed those skills in my current job, through examples A, B, and C.\"\u00a0 You MUST do this, whether you are young or old, American or International, a banker or a beekeeper.\u00a0 You can't assume that the reader will do this extracting and matching for you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">STEP 4 - PUT \"YOU\" INTO YOUR LONG-TERM GOALS<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 Unlike with short-term goals, the challenge with long-term goals is not to map out a perfect plan that everyone can achieve collectively.\u00a0 Here, you want to dream big and put as much of you - your passions, your inspirations, and what you care about - into the answer as possible.\u00a0 Think about goals the way Stanford GSB asks you to think about them: \"What do you REALLY want to do?\"\u00a0 If you say that your ST goal is consulting, you are creating the foundation for just about any long-term goal.\u00a0 You might think it wise to say \"I want to then climb the ranks to become a managing partner\" and feel like that is a smart, safe play.\u00a0 Well, it's boring.\u00a0 Worse, it is impersonal.\u00a0 Literally anyone on earth could write that.\u00a0 What do you want to do?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 If the real answer is to rise through the ranks and become a managing partner, well, why is that?\u00a0 There must be some greater good you want to serve or some burning desire that drives that aim, right?\u00a0 If it is just financial security, is there something in your past that makes that paramount, above all else?\u00a0 There is always a way to make your LT goals about you and that is what you have to do.\u00a0 You do not have to make your long-term goals 100% achievable.\u00a0 You do not have to make your long-term goals about connecting back to previous areas of expertise.\u00a0 You just have to pick goals that are personal and that require this MBA path you are on, at least on some level.\u00a0 There is an incredible amount of freedom in shaping your long-term goals, so be yourself, be interesting, and pick a path that you can truly own.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">STEP 5 - OWN THE GOALS<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 This is the part where perhaps we have come to assume too much over the years and where our case study client seemed to run into trouble.\u00a0 Once he had a path that made sense, ensured that he had achievable short-term goals (complete with highlighted transferable skill sets), had a long-term goal that was interesting and personal, and all of that was wrapped up with a bow in his essays, the mission had been accomplished.\u00a0 When he received an interview invite at a top 10 school, we prepped him for the interview and showed him how to bring that goal narrative through to the interview setting.\u00a0 However, here is where it fell apart.\u00a0 How and why?\u00a0 As best we can tell, he got unlucky with his alumni interviewer.\u00a0 Instead of hosting a friendly interview, this person demeaned the applicant and tried to poke holes in his resume and aspirations.\u00a0 This is a tough break, for sure, but something that future applicants can deal with.\u00a0 First, if this happens, call the school and ask for another interview.\u00a0 The schools know that there is some risk inherent with a heavy reliance on alumni interviewers, so they won't be surprised nor will they likely refuse your request.\u00a0 Second though, you have to ditch that experience and approach the new opportunity with the same level of confidence you had before.\u00a0 This is where our case study client failed.\u00a0 He got rattled by the first interview and lost confidence in his whole narrative.\u00a0 Now, this is partly because he had bad luck but in equal part because he never truly owned his own goals.\u00a0 He was too reliant on his consultant to formulate a plan and he was never strong in what he wanted from an MBA and his life.\u00a0 When you don't own your story (the first piece of advice we give for interview prep, by the way), you can too easily be bowled over by the first raised eyebrow or harsh word.\u00a0 And if you start scrambling to explain yourself or start getting wishy-washy with your goals, it is game over.\u00a0 After all, if you can't sit there proud and strong and say \"this is what I want\" with conviction, what can you stand strong for?\u00a0 So this is Step 5 and one we never realized we needed to hammer home: own your goals.\u00a0 It's your story, not the interviewer's.\u00a0 It's your life, not anyone else's.\u00a0 If you can't get comfortable with the goals in the essay, rethink your goals until you do.<\/p>\n<p>If you follow the above five steps, you will never fall victim to the pitfalls that have taken down thousands before you.\u00a0 You won't be rejected for asking too much (or not enough) of the school in the short term, you won't lose the reader's interest with impersonal long-term goals, and you won't blow your interview by losing conviction in your own path.\u00a0 Remember that if everything makes sense and follows these steps, nobody can tell you what to think about your life and path.<\/p>\n<p><em>If you need help refining your path at any stage of the process, email us at <a href=\"mailto:mba@amerasiaconsulting.com\">mba@amerasiaconsulting.com<\/a> for a free consultation.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Amerasia Consulting Group Let&#8217;s talk about Career Goals for a minute.\u00a0 This is always a good topic, honestly, because whatever time of year it is and whatever stage of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1,795,775],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-uncategorized","category-amerasia","category-admission-consultants","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16058"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16061,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16058\/revisions\/16061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}