4 years out of undergrad, MA economics, little experience...
[#permalink]
22 May 2012, 15:22
So, I'm sure that this topic has been beaten to death in here, but I would love some thoughts on my personal story. Also, if this is the wrong forum, I apologize.
I'm an American that grew up in the Midwest. BA (3.5) in economics and Latin American studies from a lib-arts school, interned at an investment fund during undergrad, and hoped to do similar 'investment analyst' work upon graduating. However, as I'm sure happened to many others who graduated in May 2008, I was unable to land a position doing that, and ended up working as an IT consultant for a year. Not the work that I wanted to be doing, and I wanted to gain an international experience, so I moved to Mexico for a couple years and did a master's in economics.
I got home about a year and a half ago, and in that time, I've had a handful of interviews for jobs in economics-finance and/or Latin America related. However, despite numerous interviews, I haven't been able to land a position doing that. I consistently have received compliments for how I've done in the interviews, but am almost always told that they chose someone with more specific experience..... In the meantime, I've been working full-time for nine months now (after temping through much of 2011). In my current role, I am creating sales reports for a company. Definitely not what I want to be doing, but grateful for the time being to have steady income.
I'm planning on applying for MBA programs this fall. My hope would be that getting an MBA from a top-30 program would "open more doors" for me, allow me to gain specific internship experience, networking, etc. I would plan on being a full-time student starting in fall 2013.
I realize that it is ideal to have solid work experience before beginning an MBA, and I'm definitely lacking in this regard. My hope is that an MBA from a top30 program would get me on a better track than the path that I'm currently one.
FWIW, I have a 800 Math 580 Verbal GRE (supposedly a 690 GMAT conversion, if that matters), and am planning on taking the GMAT at the end of this summer.
A few questions:
1) Does the master's in econ (from a foreign university) meaningfully help/hurt/neither my application?
2) The fact that my work experience is weak and not "logically related", how much will that hurt my applications? Given my profile, (approx 3.5 GPA, likely 660-700ish GMAT, master's in econ, a few years of random work experience), do I have a reasonable chance at being accepted into a top30 MBA program?
3) If I start in the fall of 2013, post-MBA, I'd be 29 and still have very little traditional work experience. If I had an MBA from a top30 program, how much more success would I have landing "interesting" work? .... Would an MBA from a strong program make up for that? Is it common for "good" companies who take on top MBA grads with little work experience because they trust that, as a result of graduating from top programs, they'll be smart enough to be successful in the job?
Thanks for all your thoughts. I really appreciate them.