The whole of last year my goal was to make sure I spoke to as many MBA aspirants as I can. End of the year I just checked my calendly notifications to check the number of profile evaluations I had discussing their MBA plans and I realized I had almost 365+ notifications!
It has been a great learning experience for me too as this process involved a lot of reading up, research and discussions with my team and the aspirant themselves.
There were some very interesting observations from my learnings. Here are the top 3 worries most aspirants had.
1. How do we leverage your work experience to map them to the post MBA career goals?
One very different profile I spoke to was of a researcher. This candidate worked on research for a company that in turn helped the government to plan funds they would want to allocate for social projects. We spoke at length and realized that at every stage of research there was a problem that needed to be solved. The entire research was data-driven and metric-driven which finally helped solve a major problem. This was exactly the kind of post MBA career goal he wanted to pursue.
We discussed focusing on roles that involved analyzing data/metrics and figuring out the right solution for customers.
This is what consulting is all about right?
Finally, this converted into admission to one of the top Indian schools.
2. Not having any extra-curricular activities on the resume - It's not about adding tons of extracurricular activities to your profile. You can be a rockstar at work. Some of the candidates I spoke to worked 14 hour days. The four years of work had great career progression, lots of initiatives. Now here you really don't need to worry about not having NGO work or no sports!
If you look at it from a B-School perspective what are they looking for? They want candidates who are employable! Yes, they do value diversity and if you have some aspects of you that bring out that wow factor about you, it will for sure add a lot of value! But not having it is not a deterrent! As long as you can highlight your strengths and your post MBA career goals are clear you are good.
3. Worrying about grades - This is a very common question most of the candidates worry about. Is this important? Yes, it is!
Is this the reason for you not to get an admit? No, it is not!
This aspirant I spoke to was the Head of sales for his organization ( a startup). In just 6 years he had worked really hard to get into this role and was responsible for a lot of business growth for the company. The undergrad GPA was 3 point something. From a B-School perspective, the only thing they would want to know is whether the candidate can handle the academic rigor of a B-School. We focused on discussing how he could highlight his aptitude for such a program and GMAT of course.
There are a lot more insights I could share. If any of you are looking at help with understanding your profile - please post your profile on this thread, I would be happy to help! I would also be adding my learnings from specific profiles onto this thread over the next few weeks. Hoping it will help some of you plan your MBA well this year!
Regards,
Shreekala
close
Updated on: 23 Jan 2020, 00:12
