Profile Evaluation - Female/Mexican

Question

Female/Mexican, 27 years old, 28 in May

1) Brief description of your full-time work experience. What do you do?
At top Public Relations agency in Los Angeles: 
International Film Full-Time Intern, January - June 2012 (6 months)

At top Marketing, Sponsorship and Talent representation Agency in Los Angeles:
Full-Time Intern September – December 2012 (3 months)
Administrative Assistant January – September 2013 (9 months)
Entertainment Support Specialist September 2013 – Interrupted due to H1B visa denial

I'll be starting at a non for profit as a Community Sponsorships Coordinator in June.

The gap is due to the denial of the visa, I spent the last 6 months waiting on the company's lawyer to try to get it approved who was ultimately unable to, went on set for productions and travelled on-and-off during that time.
I interned for such a long time because I wasn't authorized for any other type of work.

2) Your GMAT: 700

3) College info: Tec de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico City, Marketing major, May 2011 graduation, 84/100 average
UCLA Extension, Business and Management of Entertainment Certificate, June 2012 graduation, 3.5 GPA

4) Significant college and post-college extra-curricular activities or community service, especially leadership experience.
Child mentor for charitable organization, organizes an art program at public schools in the LA area (once a week)
Founder of Tennis Club within Interpublic agencies
Online English Tutor for underprivileged children in margenilized communities while in college

5) Important certifications like CFA, CPA, FSA, or CA. None

6) Your target programs. UCLA Anderson, Duke Fuqua, UNC Chapel Hill, USC Marshall

7) When you plan to apply? Round 1 - Oct 2014

8) Your post-MBA goal. Would like to go into consulting to get experience (Bain & Co's Marketing & Brand Strategy) and would ultimately like to start a company connecting brands and personalities to charitable foundations.

If it matters: TOEFL is 109. I'm most concerned about my work experience, I have solid measurable accomplishments and strong recommendations but I feel it is intermitent and not as straight forward as others' and I know they look down on internships even if I have accomplishments.

Admissionado · Answer

Hello there,

So first of all, congrats on that Super nice GMAT and great TOEFL. Both will be veeeeery helpful when it comes time for you to apply. Those test scores plus your background (female and Mexican) are your strong points.

As far as profile weaknesses, you definitely hit the nail on the head. Your work experience is going to be your main challenge. First of all, not just the work experience in of itself, but I feel like I am missing a few years. You graduated in 2011, right? Which means at 26. But then what did you do between high school and college? I feel like I am first of all missing some years for you. That, plus the 1.5 years work at different jobs are going to make a hard sell for the schools.

First challenge is the brevity of the work experience, and second is the choppiness of it. The main questions will be: How well can you explain this? How much sense can you make out of your goals? How clear a story can you tell? And how convincing can you be about your future success, when they will not necessarily have a big enough picture about your past to draw this conclusion? These are the main things you will need to deal with. With your grades and test scores, the schools know you are clever, but at the same time they also know that if they take you on, they are taking a risk… a risk because you don't have the long proof of employability in a top job behind you. so the question is: How can you CONVINCE them to take this risk?

That is your secret into getting in. That, and covering yourself by adding another three to four schools to your target list (and schools outside the top 10-15). do those two things, and tell a passionate story, and you will have done the best you can!

Hope you find this helpful!

Best,
Jon

carolinanmd · Answer

Thank you very much for the response Jon. This is very helpful. I'm trying to find the best angle to present the work experience for it to make the most sense.

Admissionado · Answer

Great! Happy it was helpful. If there's anything else, just drop me a line,

carolinanmd · Answer

One more thing about the work experience. I actually have some great measurable accomplishments in my division, and strong recommendations that can attest to my leadership potential. I am exploring other job offer, one is as a Director of New Business with a Digital Marketing start-up in Mexico City, an Account Executive position with one of the top worldwide Digital Marketing agencies in their Mexico City office and my company, Octagon, is exploring opportunities with their Brazil office. I decided to work abroad for the next year, thinking the experience would help me grow much more during the next year and the international experience would strenghthen my candidacy. I was thinking about going Round 1, wondering if I should wait for Round 2 instead, but that would only be 2 months of more accomplishments. I want to apply for Fall 2015 entry.

Let me know your thoughts, Carolina.

At Octagon: 
• Developed ideas for creation and content of Television projects; working on bilingual talk-show aimed at Latin American audiences, project resulted in pilot order from NBCUniversal
• Proposed Social Media Marketing initiative for premiere of production project The Arsenio Hall Show; connecting with social media agency TheAudience and fostering a relationship with CBS Social Media Manager, initiative raised client’s Facebook followers by 25% and increased engagement by 50% within 72 hours of initial post
• Explored corporate speaking engagements for clients; taking the initiative to research corporate events in Latin America, located $200,000 event opportunity for client Michael Phelps in Mexico City
• Suggested alternative gifting practice; highlighting corporate brand and reducing costs by 60%, implementation resulted in nearly $25,000 in annual savings
• Strengthened value of internship program; liaising with Human Resources Department and Career Centers at top local universities, established interview guidelines, developed structured day-to-day activities and introduced an end-of-program presentation project

At Rogers & Cowan: 
• Engaged Latin American media in coverage of Aruba International Film Festival; secured top outlets such as E! Entertainment Latin America
• Managed reports of client press coverage in domestic and international media; trained and oversaw work of four other interns based in France during Cannes International Film Festival
• Researched key projects and identified Public Relations needs of potential client Amazon Studios; division ultimately signed as one of their top accounts
• Supported team in coordination of international press junkets in Paris, Los Angeles, London and Cannes, as well as tours and phoners for promotion in international outlets of various major studio films

Admissionado · Answer

Hey there,
I have two pieces of advice for you here: 
1. Go for the job that really matches what you really want to do int he future. You are making a choice now. And a lot of your future choices will stem from this one.
2. Go for the one that is the most stable (i.e. not project-based/part-time). If I were on the AdCom and I looked at your profile, my biggest concern would be with this choppiness of your resume - going from thing to thing, from project to project, and I feel that if you added something that was a permanent full-time job and that promised to be one until matriculation, I would feel comforted about your profile.

I hope this helps further!
JF

Profile Evaluation - Female/Mexican

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards