Is Real Estate To Healthcare Consulting Too Big of Transition?

Question

I keep coming across two seemingly conflicting forms of advice:

1. MBA is a great way to facilitate a career change
2. You need to show a connection between Pre-MBA work ex and Post-MBA goals

I'm currently in real estate and I want to transition to healthcare consulting with little to no prior experience in that realm. Advice #1 tells me to use the MBA to bridge the gap. Advice #2 tells me my pre-MBA ex would be insufficient. Is it too wishful of thinking to pursue a healthcare concentration MBA in order to make this jump? I have a great story as for WHY I'd pursue healthcare but I don't have any experience in the field.

MBAPrepCoach · Answer

KyleM125  Career services wants to feel safe taking you on as an applicant, knowing that they will be able to offload you within 3 months of graduation. They don't want to have you compete in a field where you just have zero experience. That said there's nothing saying you can't strive for that when you get into the program but to be honest unless you have any data points or have done extensive research you might want to take on a different goal that 1) requires an MBA but also 2) has some relatedness to your background. Another option is to have a short term goal and a medium term goal making a stepwise approach to HC consulting. Like change industry first and then role later.

Maybe you're in real estate but then is there some client that's health related is there any adjacency at all with regards to your current work? See if that's a possibility but if not then yes I think it might seem a bit risky to state that you want to do something that is a complete and total departure from what you've done in the past. Even community service and stuff like that would be a way to connect the dots but you need to demonstrate HC interest in some way. If you are applying next year (actually, no matter when)

I would recommend that you do a lot of informational interviews to gain more insight on how to lay the groundwork for this goal, whether or not you state this in your essays. This is a highly critical and overlooked step that saves people a lot of time and effort “exploring” ie recruiting for a bunch of different jobs instead of spending their time more fruitfully in b-school.

I'm not sure what your situation is but Kellogg would definitely be a great school for both of these . I would recommend that you choose a school that has strengths in the stated goal and also your actual goal.

KyleM125 · Answer

Thank you for your reply.

Could you help me with an example of this?

I'm currently an analyst doing real estate development. Are you saying to  (before MBA or after MBA?)   try to find a role as an analyst within healthcare? As an analyst at a consulting firm?

I'm reading it as "Go find an analyst job that is healthcare or consulting related and leverage it to go after your MBA" But that seems redundant to me. If I'm already in healthcare or consulting, why would I not just go do a part-time MBA program or simply work my way toward healthcare consulting? Would a full-time MBA really be necessary to go from working in healthcare admin to healthcare consulting? I really can't imagine that being the case.

My thoughts are: Current role (Real estate/finance/strategy) -- MBA --> Strategy/Finance (IB/Management Consulting) --> Healthcare (PE or Consulting)

Is that more realistic?

ssxdots · Answer

Both are true, but from what I hear, #2 is probably more important for admission into MBA.

I understand schools want to hear that you have a plan on how to get from X to Y so that they (and your potential interviewers) have some assurance that you can meet your career goals and are not entering MBA with an unrealistic expectation. MBA isn't a magic pill you can take to do a 180 degree career switch. I am saying these because my interviewers assessed me rigorously on how feasible my post-MBAs goals were.

Hence, to show that you can make the switch, unless your story is very compelling, it may be beneficial to get some healthcare or consulting experience under your belt (internship maybe?).

Is Real Estate To Healthcare Consulting Too Big of Transition?

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