Profile Eval.: Petroleum Engineer/Brazil/4,5 yrs exp.

Question

Dears,

I am 28, brazilian. My Bachelor degree is in Mechanical Engineering and I am specialist in Petroleum Engineering. I´ve been working for Petrobras since september/2008. In may/2009 I started working on offshore drilling operations (drilling supervisor / superintendent), managing teams of up to 40 engineers on oil rigs. Prior to Petrobras, I was intern at AmBev (AB-InBev) and participated in a Work and Travel program during college vacation (cottage contruction in Knosville, TN from december 2006 until february 2007)

My school of choice is HBS, followed by MIT and Stanford. To make the story short, I want to make a career shift. I will apply in 2013 first round (admission August 2014 - first GMAT attempt: 700 Q47 / V39 Nov/2012).

I have two issues so far:

1) I know I need to improve my English a little and I believe I this will lift my GMAT score.  Should I take a second test (my actual score is a little below the median)?. 
2) I have the opportunity to open a small business (media on paper bags, no employees in first 6 motnhs) and I see it as an exciting challenge. This will certainly contribute to broad the experience I will share during the MBA. Since I will have to quit my job to do so (taking this risk is not a problem for me), I am quite concern over how this enterpreunership will impact my "history".  Will B-Schools agree with my shot or will they think that I am lost in my track (quiting a job, opening a business and applying for and MBA at the same year)?

Thank you for your attention.

Regards,

Oswaldo Garcia

bryantmichaels · Answer

Oswaldo--these are good questions. B-schools like a good story, so my opinion is that it depends on what your post MBA vision is. You say you want to make a career shift, so if this shift is becoming an entrepreneur, then it could help substantiate that claim if you have started a business. Now realize for schools like HBS and STandford, they are not going to be too impressed with a small business with no growth, so the risk you run is making it look like you have started a "cottage business" if you don't have time to post some pretty impressive progress. I think this risk will outweigh any brownie points you would get for rolling the dice and taking a risk. Your engineering career is impressive and I think a memorable story can indeed be built around your achievements, particularly since working on oil derricks sounds exciting and definitley different from the average applicant. Coupled with your Brazillian citizenry, your story has real potential to grab the interest of the top schools. I would focus on those stories and think twice about potentially appearing to be unsure of exactly what you want to do by quitting it all and starting up a small business. Much of this, again, depends on your post MBA vision and how compelling a story you can build around what you want to achieve with the MBA. Hope this helps.

oswaldogarcia · Answer

Bryant,

I really appreciate your comments. They reached the point I wanted. I do have good stories to tell and I believe I have learned some lessons that deserve to be shared. To make the story short, My post-MBA goal is to work for a Consulting company for lets say 5 years to get a lot of exposure quickly. Then I wish to contribute to my country's development by structuring small/medium companies in Brazil. To do so I plan to join private equity / seed capital firms.

Thank you for your attention.

bryantmichaels · Answer

Consulting is a great target industry for b-school clearly, since 30% or more of freshly minted MBAs go into that field. I would suggest you weave your story around your engineering and petro experience, tying in a consulting goal in that area. This is a very easy story to swallow. The exception as I mentioned, would be if you can talk very passionately about an alternate area that you want to switch into. This could be just as compelling, so long as you can speak to how your past experience has helped prepare to to make the switch and would be attractive to employers in the new area.

Profile Eval.: Petroleum Engineer/Brazil/4,5 yrs exp.

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