effect of career goals on application?

Question

Will the admission committe(Adcom) see a student choice as a detterent to his/her application. I mean if I said my short term goal is to get into a product/brand management role in P&G or Unilever, then as a international that choice might not be very possible in a foreign market but I could try for those positions in my home country because companies now offer recruit and offer roles in numerous places around the world.

My question is would the Adcom view such short term choices as negative points or do they understand that the applicant might not be specifying his/her choices only specific to the particular country in which he/she studies?

Thanks.

My question is would the Adcom view such short term choices as negative points or do they understand that the applicant might not be specifying his/her choices only specific to the particular country in which he/she studies?

Thanks.

bryantmichaels · Answer

You are wise to be considering employability in your application. This is and has been a very important topic over the past couple of years. I even know of some b-schools who are having applicants interview with their career support office, who are given the chance to weigh in on admissions decisions. The important thing is to couch your career choices in a light that makes sense. If you have solid plans to return to your home country and good reasons why you think you can get a job there in that industry, then just explain it in a convincing way to the committees. You will be given points for having the maturity to think through post-MBA employement opportunities in a realistic and practical way. Not only will this score you maturity points, it will also score you employability points. Hope this helps. Good luck.

BlueRobin · Answer

Thanks for the clear and concise advice. No wonder you are the application specialist.

So you mean to say, unless I clearly explain that I am targetting roles in my home country, the adcoms will see my choice of education as a negative aspect?

Because i dont want an Adcom to be rejecting me just because my choice of subjects dont happen to be in the career paths where internationals are recruited.

Thanks.

bryantmichaels · Answer

In a nutshell, yes I could see adcoms jumping to conclusions based upon traditional career roles, goals and how they align with the typical profile of an international student. This is why the best strategy is to address such concerns head-on. Not that you would use the following language, but the message should be some version of: I realize there may be concerns about an international student trying to get a traditional job with P&G in marketing, however this is why it's going to work for me....

then you lay out your case for how your approach is different and will not result in any problems landing the job. When you attack concerns head on, you remove the ability of the adcom to make their own assesment and essentially innoculate the concern ("nip it in the bud") so to speak. Now, of course just the fact that you identify their concern will not get you there--your logic and your plan must be believable and achieveable. In other words, you must achieve the classic goal of all applicants: sway the committee into your camp with compelling arguments and interesting evidence for admission. good luck!

effect of career goals on application?

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