Failing at Life

Question

Hey Everyone,

Not sure if anyone's going to reply to this...I have a 720 GMAT and a 3.7 GPA undergrad. So those obstacles to getting into the top 10 grad schools have been overcome. But, I've had some career failures post college and I'm concerned that it's going to affect my Application to the top 10 grad schools. I didn't get fired, but I got coached out of 2 jobs and I'm currently looking for my third. I'm not exactly sure what to do with my life right now. I still want to go to Grad School and see what kind of doors it opens because I'm currently not finding anything I'm doing with my undergraduate degree of particular interest to me.

Right now, I'm thinking about just joining a small company and hoping to develop and eventually get promoted there.

In your experience, have any of you faced failures in your careers that you eventually overcame and was able to get into Grad school? Let me know... I need some encouragement badly right now.

ENGRTOMBA2018 · Answer

Do post yor query at admission-consultants-124/?fl=menu as this is a thread visited by admission consultants and will thus be able to guide you properly. As for my thoughts on your question, failures should always be looked at stepping stones to success. Not everyone going into bschool has lived perfect lives. We all have had our fair share of failures but the good thing is that bschools look favourably if a candidate is able to show that he/she has learnt form all the experiences in life, whether good or bad! So go ahead with confidence and apply to schools that you are looking to apply to without the fear of your failures. You have really good GMAT and GPA which should also help your case. All the best.

PersonalMBACoach · Answer

Thanks for your note. I'm sorry you have had some initial career bumps in the road, but don't be discouraged! Plenty of people take some time to find their ideal path. Being coached out of a job doesn't necessarily mean anything bad about you, it just means those were not the right fits. If you would like to work together in a career advising standpoint, send me an email. I help out a lot of folks before grad school find their best path. Sometimes it leads to a masters in finance or management, sometimes an MBA and sometimes no degree at all. scott@personalmbacoach.com Keep your head up! Best, Scott

la123456789la · Answer

Thanks guys, I'll post this in the admissions consultant site.

VeritasPrepMike · Answer

Don't be worried, everyone has had a few bumps in their career at some point or another. You didn't mention how many years of work experience you had. If you had three jobs in six years, that's no big deal to me at all. If it's three jobs in three years, then you'll definitely have some question marks on your resume that you will have to address. Of course, that can be accomplished with some careful planning and preparation on how to handle the issue. Nothing that can't be overcome!

la123456789la · Answer

I have 3.5 years of experience. 
2 years at 1 big 4 audit
and 1.5 years in another big 4 audit No Promotions.

I think about my situation and I feel extremely discouraged. I need to get on an upward trend but every accounting job post big 4 doesn't look like anything that would impress the adcom. I'm not exactly sure what my next career move should be....

VeritasPrepMike · Answer

Have you thought about leaving the accounting field? Accountants are in demand in many areas including general finance and advisory services. You could even go corporate accounting for a few years and then move inside of a company to any number of different roles.

la123456789la · Answer

Yeah, I'm working on leaving Audit. In fact, I don't really want to do anything Accounting related based on my past experiences. That was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Business School. To basically reset my career.

But it's been hard to transition into General Finance and Advisory services in my opinion. For example, a lot of FP&A roles at well known companies won't hire me because my skill sets won't overlap. I wanted to apply for an Investment Banking position that a recruiting agency was hiring for. But the recruiting agency told me that generally they don't hire auditors unless 1) they mis-hired and need more people and 2) the auditor is a high performer evidenced by strong ratings.

My game plan right now is to just work for a small business and then work my way up from there.

VeritasPrepMike · Answer

Sounds like a good idea. Smaller companies offer opportunities that you often can't find at bigger firms. Plus you can often get more responsibility out of the gate and have more impact at a small company. You can then use the opportunity to network with people in your field and find yourself with even more career opportunities. Good luck!

pinecrest515 · Answer

All the best! It's ok to fail, and pick yourself up again, and fail again, and pick yourself up again. When I do alumni interview with someone for admissions, I give more points to the person who failed and learned from that experience, more than the candidate who was fed with the "silver spoon" and promoted with little pressure. It's ok to admit that you have not figured out everything out in life. No one is perfect. Quite honestly, most of us post-MBA alumni are still figuring it out too.

Business schools want to see candidates demonstrate some level of successful track record in order to gauge a candidate's potential and leadership qualities. However, promotion is not the only way to demonstrate that. Showing admissions that you have withstood adversity, picked yourself back up, and gained maturity/learning is more powerful than simply dotting your resume with promotion points.

Failing at Life

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