It is great that you are asking questions now before you apply. I came to many of the same conclusions reached above about 6 months ago through a painful game of trial and error.
I come from a family business where I spent 7+ years managing various functions. I'd describe the company as a medium-small business. We have 100+ employees and do roughly 50 million in annual revenues. A little more on me (
https://poetsandquants.com/2013/04/30/ha ... ol-odds/3/). Ironically, I didnt see Sandy's write up until AFTER I applied to schools. Needless to say take my recommendations with a grain of salt since I probably didnt approach the MBA application in the most efficient manner.
Consultants would call us 'nontraditional applicants'. I find that notion kind of strange given that an MBA is a degree designed to supposedly broadens ones managerial perspective thereby helping a graduate manage a company, an opportunity many family business applicants have immediately after school, but I can see how we don't fit into the traditional dog and pony show that I envision as the recruiting cycle.
A couple of comments:
1) Aim high in terms of schools - I didn’t apply to HBS because I ran out of time / didn't want to use three references for a program I prob. had a 10% shot of admissions. In retrospect, I should have at least put my name in the bucket. Crazier things can happen, although I am very excited about where I ended up.
2) As people have mentioned above references can be a bit tricky. I was able to pull two clients, one I was able to sign to a national contract and the other was top 3 MBA grad, and my former boss, who is an MBA and NOT related to me. I actually used many of the schools optional essays to explain how I thought my former boss would be able to objectively evaluate my performance.
3) Work experience is work experience. If you are working at Goldman, Google, Abbott, etc you'll have a leg up on the competition since those are branded companies whereas if you are working for tiny family business or a marginal regional player, you're probably get a check minus or even a question mark as it is hard to compare ABC I.T. corp to Apple. To this point, I made sure that in my application I had quantifiable proof of my successes while also building my companies brand to the adcom. For example, I landed a 15 million dollar 5 year deal with a state government entity. I made sure to give the hyperlink that showed ME as the awardee to the adcom. On my resume, I made sure to mention that I signed exclusive deals with a couple of major league baseball teams that resulted in long term business partnerships. Remember you are selling yourself but also selling the business that you come from. Sales is an emotional game. The stuff my family business does is pretty dang boring, but by attaching sexy names and forward thinking ideas to my company, I was perhaps able to turn that question mark into a check box. In your case, you could go the Infosys route and state that your company refuses to pay bribes and contribute to governmental corruption! [Please note that what you are putting on paper should be true – not that I think you’re paying bribes, but whatever you put down make sure you believe in it].
4) Work experience is only part of the application. Personally, I had far bigger hurdles to overcome than my work experience.