What a wonderful idea - great thread! Let me add a few more profiles without revealing too much about the candidates.
On my side, I feel however, happiness at work and a career/job fit are challenging items and MBA is not going to fix them, like it won't fix being disorganized, having poor speaking skills, or character flaws. However, MBA can definitely help in many cases to get out of a dead-end job, particular geography, or industry - it did it for me....
Top 20 to Gaming: a candidate with a strong resume with a unique background from a small town USA. While his pre-mba job was interesting, it was remote and probably in a dead-end trajectory without much growth prospects. He was smart and hard-working. Got into a top 20/10 school with a scholarship. Worked his tail off to join tech such as Microsoft/Amazon/Google but did not get through the last round of interviews and switched his focus. Ended up doing an internship with a Gaming coming and joined as a team lead after graduation. Classic MBA transition. Several promotions within the last 5 years and a recent job shift/switch gave him substantial responsibility with another gaming company. In the career growth process, I am hearing he has been able to amass a small fortune through company stock plans but not without a cost. He seems to have split/separated with his long time fiance whom he met while in BSchool... Happiness level - definitely happier than pre-MBA. Gets to play games for a living
Top 10 to Silicon Valley: a candidate with a pretty standard F500 pre-mba profile. Got into a top 10 school. Ended up recruiting in Silicon Valley with a Tech company (one of the big ones) but into a dead-end position and it appears, without much mobility. At first was pretty happy as the job provided a good life/work balance with work from home opportunities to spend more time with the family and kids. However, at the price of anemic salary growth, no promotion opportunities, and eventually motivation. Happiness level - probably low. Looking to get energized and switch jobs due to an issue/disagreement with the current supervisor but the lack of upward momentum and substantial accomplishments in the current job is hurting his recruiting chances for the good positions.
Top 30 back to India: Great candidate with strong work experience and network in India (slightly older). Got a full ride into a Top30 school (no admits into a top 20 but a few higher ranked Top 30's but without a scholarship). The 2 years flew by and internship and jobs were scarce. He got a good number of interview requests but did not make it past the interview stage (my guess is his slightly heavier accent was part of the reason). After staying in the US for a year and doing some short-term consulting jobs, he decided to go back to India as he did not see any reason to stay in the States. The last straw was not getting the H1B lottery two years in a row. In India, found a great job right away with strong pay (probably saving more than he would have in the US). Happiness level - content for now. However, still a bit not thrilled about spending 2 years on the MBA and 1 year on consulting jobs US only to leave at the end. But then he did not pay for the MBA either, so not too much of a regret.
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