"Attribution Error"- Most common mistake in MBA resume/application

­Working with some MBB consultants recently, I realized even those, who have been trained in the first principle approach can make attribution errors when they talk about their work. I bet you too have made an attribution error in your resume or application, at least in the first drafts if not in the final submitted version. Every project you mention on a resume or in a story has two parts: What did you do and what came out of it? You can't write interesting stories without reflecting on and connecting these two parts. However, a lack of understanding often leads to incorrect attributions and faulty causal relationships. In this write-up, I have tried to share some examples that can help you become extra careful and avoid these errors as much as possible in your resumes and essays.

The success of any professional project, e.g. achieving exceptional sales, exceeding quality requirements, increasing the company’s share value, etc., depends on several factors. However, in the rush to quantify the impact, B-school applicants either overestimate their contribution or fail to make a direct correlation between “their contribution” and the company’s results. Both lead to an attribution error.

Here are a few simplified examples that might help you see and recognise the attribution errors you commit so commonly in your Resume

Here is an example taken directly from an MBB consultant’s first resume draft

Event 1 - “Established the very first dedicated pricing cell in ABC Company, the first for a company of this size in the commercial vehicle industry, which will be responsible for pricing all of the company's products.

Event 2 - “Achieved $200 million in sales in the commercial vehicle segment and delivered on our restructuring of after-sales service.”

Can you identify where the gap is?

While a casual reader or an inexperienced admissions coach unfamiliar with business case presentation might let this error pass without feedback, someone who has been through the rigorous scrutiny of an MBA program will immediately recognize the flawed construct.
Consultants are sales-oriented by nature and may even tend to exaggerate in front of their clients. After all, consulting is more or less a sales role. However, from a logical perspective, the two events in this example have little or no causal relationship.

First, setting up a pricing cell does not directly lead to sales.

Second, the $200 million in sales could be the result of something else, perhaps a highly efficient sales force. (This is also why there is a critical thinking section on the GMAT)

Third, our dear MBB applicant is not a sales person at this company, or a sales or marketing guy at all. All he does is turn companies around.

Four, a $200 million in revenue is not the right metric here. Only a sales head in such a company who has grown sales in a new market segment from $ 0 can claim the credit for the entirety of $200 million in sales. There must be another metric that makes more sense for our applicant, which we needed to find after discussion.

Now I can go on and on about other gaps in the tall order claim, but to keep things simple, after the attribution error correction, the content for the connect final resume bullet would look something like this

Event1- Conducted extensive on-ground visits to understand and solve franchise and fleet owners' customer service challenges. Adopted best practices from European models to create and train the first-ever pricing cell with 10 employees, resulting in improved pricing accuracy and efficiency.

Event2- Revitalized the auto giant's commercial vehicle sales  in CountryX resulting in a $30 million increase in sales within 6 months of setting up the new pricing cell and streamlining after-sales operations.

How is this structure better?
1.           Shows how our MBB consultant is a hands on guy who likes to work very closely with the end user to understand the deeper aspects of the problem. (Different from many other consultants who work at a desk in front of excel sheets all the time)
2.           Seeks out and interacts with other players in other countries who have already implemented similar ideas. Has a global reach
3.           Understands impact attribution and has strong business acumen. Gives a conservative estimate of $30Mn sales in additional incremental sales above BAU (Business as Usual) as a goodness from the pricing cell within 6 months (a comparison window). Shows honesty.

Interestingly, contrary to sales-oriented applicants and management consultants, the technology or finance-focused applicants underestimate their contribution altogether. They find it hard to come up with some impact metrics at all, or pigeonhole themselves to a function without simplifying their function or impact.

Here is a real example from an applicant who made the cut to a top 1 yr MBA with fewer years of experience. This person did the attribution exercise during the interview preparation with me and the entries are here in the PAR (Problem Action Result) format.

Problem- Nestle has a business requirement of estimating the amount of strategic inventory to be held to avoid the conditions of stockouts and prevent loss in sales.

How we made it better- In year 2021, Nestle faced frequent stock outs of N product categories (numbers are impactful) in XYZ country and as a result - loss in sales (can quantify). Nestle came to our team to find a solution for their business requirement.

Action- To meet their business requirement, we first classified their materials into buckets of different service levels. For that, we looked at material consumption patterns, demand patterns, demand stability as well as material holding costs, and future forecasts.

How we made it better- I led the data analytics function (show leadership on the project) for designing the solution for Nestle’s OOS problems. I studied material consumption patterns, demand patterns, demand stability as well as material holding costs and future forecasts and suggested safety stock at various service levels. (all are relevant to the problem on hand and show to the adcom the applicant is probably the youngest expert in this domain of business!)

Result- By classifying materials with different service levels, we were able to define safety stock requirements for each material-plant combination as we were able to provide recommended target stock for each material as well as alerts for actions on high-risk materials and its GPS.

How we made it better- I defined new safety stock requirements for each material-warehouse combination and recommended target stocks as well as alerts for actions on high-risk materials and its position(in production, in transit etc). I did this for a 5 warehouse network and the model held strong for 90% Service Levels- Nestle covered 90% of the sales spikes and that equates to $N Mn revenue (if the applicant has an estimate, or else it can be avoided).

A common occurrence of attribution error also happens in the Failure essays where people wrongly attribute failures to vague external circumstances, a bad supervisor, a competitive and jealous colleague, and whatnot. This must not be done as it shows the applicant’s inability to take responsibility. Remember, you can never attribute the outcome in a business setup to an isolated factor such as yourself. In a team environment, there will always be multiple forces at play. So show this understanding in the Business school applications.


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Best wishes
Aanchal Sahni (INSEAD alum, former INSEAD admissions interviewer)
Founder, MBAGuideConsulting
LinkedIn |WEBSITE: https://mbaguideconsulting.com/ | Message: +91 9971200927| email- mbaguideconsulting@gmail.com­
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