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Stacy Blackman Consulting Representative
Joined: 03 Nov 2010
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
Follow Up with Your MBA Recommenders
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27 Aug 2018, 06:01
27 Aug 2018, 06:01
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| FROM Stacy Blackman Consulting Blog: Follow Up with Your MBA Recommenders |
|
As the majority of Round 1 deadlines are next month, you should plan to reach out to your MBA recommenders soon to ensure they are pacing themselves and won’t be crunched for time once end-of-summer craziness hits. These contacts are doing you a huge favor, and it would be a shame if they had to take time away from their families and friends over the remaining weeks before their kids go back to school (or over Labor Day weekend, for those in the United States) because you hadn’t gently reminded them about their upcoming responsibility. While b-school applications might be consuming your life right now, they’re probably not top-of-mind for your recommenders. Effective, Persuasive MBA Recommendation Letters When you do your check-in, there’s a chance your recommenders may ask you to review what they’ve written so far. Or they may just want to verbally confirm that they’re covering the right points in their letters. This is your opportunity to remind them that the most critical thing they can do is include examples to back up any claims they’ve made about your strengths or personality traits. Many recommenders — especially those who aren’t familiar with the MBA application process — think that if they simply sing your praises and repeat how great you are in various different ways, that will be enough. Others assume their alumni status or their impressive titles will carry enough weight to make up for a generic letter. Unfortunately, they won’t. The best way for your recommenders to help you stand out from thousands of other highly qualified applicants is by painting a clear picture of who you are both professionally and personally. Sharing details of how you contributed to projects or giving specific examples of how you interact with others or went above and beyond (including funny anecdotes or quips that give insight into your personality) — these are the things that make for a great recommendation letter. Having said all that, if your recommenders don’t intend to share what they’ve written, don’t worry! Chances are you asked them to do this very important task because you know they’re competent people who will try their best to set you apart from the pack. But if they do ask for any advice as the deadlines near, just be sure to drive home the importance of going heavy on the examples. And when your recommenders’ letters are in, don’t forget to do something nice to thank them! Think of it this way:  Until next time, The team at Stacy Blackman Consulting ***Do you want to stay on top of the application process with timely tips like these? Please subscribe to our weekly newsletter and you’ll receive our expert advice straight in your mailbox before it appears on the blog, plus special offers, promotions, discounts, invitations to events, and more. |
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Stacy Blackman Consulting Representative
Joined: 03 Nov 2010
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
Tuesday Tips: IU Kelley School of Business Fall 2019 MBA Essay Tips
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28 Aug 2018, 08:01
28 Aug 2018, 08:01
Expert Reply
| FROM Stacy Blackman Consulting Blog: Tuesday Tips: IU Kelley School of Business Fall 2019 MBA Essay Tips |
 Kelley School of Business at Indiana University is a top-tier business school with an innovative program that cultivates strong recruiting relationships with companies. From the moment you decide to attend Kelley you will be focusing on your career and leadership development. For example, even before you start classes, you will be part of an orientation program called Me Inc. to help you refine your career goals. After you start school you will continue to receive personalized coaching, leadership training, and real-world industry projects. This will help you focus on the right career path and job openings for your internship and full-time job search. Kelley’s program is unique and close-knit, so your fit with the program and your desire to participate fully will be important to the admissions committee. Kelly has an academically strong class of students, a large number are from outside the United States, and the class is diverse with a significant number of women in each MBA class. REQUIRED MBA ESSAYS 1. Please discuss your immediate post-MBA professional goals. How will your professional experience, when combined with a Kelley MBA degree, allow you to achieve these goals? Should the short-term goals you have identified not materialize, what alternate career paths might you consider? (500 words) Entering Kelley with a crystallized career vision and an idea of how you will accomplish your goals will help you take full advantage of the program. Kelley’s curriculum is tailored to help you reach your career goals, and students can specialize almost immediately by choosing one of the first-year Academies in your industry area of focus. Think about these opportunities at Kelley when you answer this career goals question, and be specific about how you see yourself using the tools available. When you discuss your career experience, make sure that you are focusing on the most important moments in your career, not reciting your jobs like a resume. Think about the times when you had to stretch to accomplish the goals set out for you, when you had to step up to be a leader, or when you learned more about yourself and your aspirations. Those are the stories that will explain how your professional experience will help you achieve your goals. The second half of this question deals with your flexibility around your career goal and your ability to handle change. Change is constant in most industries, and your ability to recognize opportunity, even outside your anticipated career goals, will be critical to your success. Think about the core elements that are important to you in forming your career goals and how they can be realized in different career opportunities. For example, perhaps you are passionate about the food industry and want to be involved in updating the world of packaged goods, but you could imagine pursing either a strategy role or a finance role within consumer packaged goods. Or perhaps you love marketing but could see yourself either marketing a film or a jewelry line, as long as you are practicing the craft of marketing. Showing that you can pivot while staying true to your core values and interests will position you well in this set of essays. 2. Please respond to one of the following short essay prompts. (300 words) • My greatest memory is… • I’m most afraid of… • My greatest challenge has been… • I’m most proud of… While the prior essay focuses on your career path and goals, this essay seeks to understand your core personal motivations. Beyond career, what have been formative moments in your life? The story you choose to tell in this essay will be revealing to the admissions committee and will show your personality and values. Think about the moments in your life when you have changed or matured. Was there an experience that led you to learn more about yourself? Perhaps you interacted with someone who challenged you, or inspired you. Or you may have traveled outside your comfort zone, either literally outside your home country, or in a transition like leaving home for college. Option b, “I’m most afraid of…” is the one prompt that does not specifically call on a past experience. However, it’s likely that your fear has its roots in a formative moment in your life. Once you have a story to tell, make sure you are explaining why this moment is important to you. You can either narrate your thoughts, reactions and opinions as you retell the story, or take time at the end of the essay to reflect upon what you learned and why it was important to you. 3. Please share with the admissions committee an interesting or surprising fact about you (25 words) The admissions committee has read your career goals, read about a pivotal experience and likely has reviewed your resume and application fact sheet. What you describe here is something that didn’t come up in any of those demographic or background data sheets in your application. It’s also something short and easy to explain in 25 words. Perhaps you were a competitive swimmer in high school, but didn’t pursue it in college. Or your grandmother was from Sweden and taught you traditional cooking techniques that no one else in your life knows. Maybe you are heavily involved in a hobby that has impacted your life. If you are struggling to come up with an interesting or surprising fact, this is a great question to poll friends and family about. You will want to use something that is unique about you, and that most other applicants would not be able to say. Your friends and family likely know the elements of your background and personality that go far deeper than your resume or application fact sheet and would know what is unique about you. OPTIONAL ESSAY Is there anything else you think we should know as we evaluation your application? If you believe your essays and credentials represent you fairly, you shouldn’t feel obligated to answer this question. (300 words) Kelley’s optional question is open-ended, allowing you to add almost any story or additional background data you would like. Before you take full advantage of the extra space, make sure you are truly adding to your application. If you have done the work on a comprehensive resume, excellent recommendations and finely-honed essays you likely don’t need this space. If there is anything to explain in your application, definitely use this space to do so. That may be a poor grade in a quantitative course in college, academic probation, or the lack of a recommendation from a current supervisor. Whatever you need to discuss, make sure you are focused on explanations rather than excuses, and you provide solid, recent evidence that you have done better since the event. Struggling with the Kelley MBA application? Stacy Blackman Consulting can help. Contact us to learn more. |
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Stacy Blackman Consulting Representative
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Professor Profiles: Georgetown McDonough’s Simon Blanchard
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29 Aug 2018, 06:01
29 Aug 2018, 06:01
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| FROM Stacy Blackman Consulting Blog: Professor Profiles: Georgetown McDonough’s Simon Blanchard |
|
Having the opportunity to learn from the best and brightest minds in business is one of the top motivators for many applicants considering an MBA degree at an elite business school. The professors and lecturers you’ll encounter have worked in the trenches, and bring an incredible wealth of real-world experiences into the classroom setting. In our limited series of professor interviews on the SBC blog, readers will get to know a bit more about these brilliant academics, what fields most excite them, the trends they foresee, what they enjoy most about teaching at their respective universities, and how it all comes together with their students.  Meet Simon Blanchard, Associate Professor of Marketing and Keith Barket Faculty Fellow at Georgetown University; Interim Director of the Certificate in Consumer Analytics and Insights Education: Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D. (Marketing) 2006 – 2011 Université de Montréal – HEC Montréal, Canada, M.Sc. (Management Science) 2004 –2005 Université de Sherbrooke, Canada, B.B.A. 2000 – 2003 Courses Taught: Analytical Problem Solving and Digital Advertising What triggered your interest in your subject matter? An area of specific interest to me is helping consumers manage their money better. One of the issues consumers have is that it is easy to spend and easy to rack up debt. Being able to use large amounts of data from credit cards or banks to identify the way that consumers spend and misspend is something that I find interesting. Sometimes managing money is complicated. We spend a lot of time in marketing thinking about how to get people to spend on things that we would like. We should also be able to think about how to help consumers manage that complexity. I enjoy working on problems related to that. What has changed since you entered the field? One of the biggest changes is that you see people use statistical models or tools, which are normally reserved for quantitative studies, to analyze behaviors. Things that you would normally analyze from a focus group, you can now analyze from text, product feedback, and videos and images, rather than just relying on people’s descriptions of their own behaviors. How do you leverage technology in your classroom? We designed the MBA Certificate in Consumer Analytics and Insights so that students can choose a combination of courses from operations and statistics and from marketing depending on their interests. Some of the courses, especially the foundation courses such as Marketing Analytics, typically use Excel. Where that seems kind of old school, we’re trying to maintain skills in Excel, or open source tools that are easily accessible, so that students can go straight to their internships or jobs and be successful right away without having to convince their employers to buy an expensive license in new software. However, most electives have some kind of other hands-on, tool-based component, whether it is learning to gather primary data using platforms like Qualtrics, or whether it is learning and understanding how to utilize Adwords (including taking the Adwords Fundamental Exam that Google administers). Further, we have been collaborating with the student-led HoyAlytics organization, which provides additional workshops in a variety of data analytics tools and competitions to engage students further. We can address a wide range of topics in the classroom and HoyAlytics can provide greater practical experiences. What can you do in the classroom to best prepare students for the real world? There many different applications for identifying a consumer and the kind of analysis one can do depending on their industries. The course Data and Society puts a high emphasis on bringing in guest speakers that could be relevant for students, getting them to understand for instance that marketing for nonprofits is going to be a bit different than marketing for a for-profit fast, casual restaurant company. Guests present their challenges with data and understanding insights depending on their focus, whether that is policy or government oriented, corporate, or consumer focus. Can you speak to interesting trends in your field? One of the trends that has been happening over the last few years involves companies running more experiments in the field to assess the effectiveness of their marketing strategies. More specifically, they are looking at the incremental impact of these campaigns. For example, most people think of experiments in the form of an A/B test. These experiments may tell you A is better than B, but they do not tell you whether A or B is better than doing nothing at all. This new focus is incrementality. When thinking about effectiveness, you only want to pay for the clients, traffic, or sales that are incremental to what would have been achieved if you had done no marketing at all. Part of this trend is managerial. It is not just that the data model needs to be able to identify it, but one has to take the decision to and be able to collect data the right away. What role, if any, does ethics play in your curriculum, and how has that evolved over time? Focus on ethics and responsibility is a big component of our MBA program at Georgetown McDonough. We emphasize the proper management of data in the projects we do. There is also a discussion in my Digital Advertising class concerning how people are tracked (and misconceptions about how people are tracked) and what happens to the data. We have built ethical discussions into the certificate program, most specifically in the course Data and Society. This course brings in the perspective of consumers, companies, and society as a whole, reminding students that these interests are often in conflict. By bringing in practitioners from a variety of organizations, we can consider ethical issues. For example, companies often want to have as much data as they can, but that creates risks that society needs to understand. Consumers too may not be aware companies are keeping that data. Others, like the European Union, are changing the rules on data, making it important that we become aware of the changes and the issues we need to deal with in global marketing. What are you most excited about in your classroom? What is interesting especially is the many different backgrounds of students that participate. We have had statisticians and bankers. We have also had people who are completely creative by training and have barely any idea of how to run any analysis, and both of them can get something out of the certificate. For those that are interested in pushing their quantitative skills forward, we can help them with that. For the students that just want exposure so they can speak to the people that deal with the data, we can also help them with that. Trying to make both types of student happy with the material is the part that is challenging and interesting. While certain aspects of consumer analytics can be complicated, there are intuitive and logical aspects that you do not need incredibly high math skills to understand. The fun part is making data analytics accessible. Best advice for an aspiring business mogul? First, I would say it is important to make sure that you get data. At minimum, start thinking about the data that you would need and identify the scenarios where you might gather that data. The second thing is to have the reflex for looking for alternative explanations. It is easy to find relationship between variables or any point of data that supports a conclusion. For example, if one is arguing that X causes Y, perhaps it is not because of those to two things but it is something else that explains both. Looking for alternative explanations is really a managerial decision. Many of the MBAs that are taking the certificate may do some analysis for their own companies, but we are not training them to be data scientists. We are training them to deal with people who are data scientists and to be comfortable with the tools scientists use so they can ask the right questions. Part of that is asking what else could have caused the outcome I am exploring. That may or may not be in the data. There is a danger, when you have large amounts of data, to stop considering what is outside of the data. What’s the impact you want to leave on your students? With the MBA Certificate in Consumer Analytics and Insights, our aim is to make sure that students feel comfortable with various types of data sources that they may encounter in their companies or that their competitors may be using. When someone brings to them the results of a big data project, they are going to know and understand the terms that people using, be able to ask the relevant questions, and to identify if the analysis was done correctly. They should not be afraid of data. They should be embracing the amount of uncertainty that having a ton of data can bring and the different types of tools that people are using to analyze that data. That is the biggest impact. They are not going to be scared of all of the data and analytics. What do you like about teaching at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business? We have access to many constituents, not only internationally but also even locally, such as companies that study the way that consumers make decisions and to policymakers that deal with consumer welfare, which is important. We have numerous large hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriott, and Choice Hotels that are located right here. Nestle is across the bridge. We have several analytics companies and marketing companies for nonprofits – all of that is right here. If you are interested in any of these areas, there is no better place. Many of these companies have hired from campus over the years; and we, of course, have a fair amount of consulting companies that work for clients in the area. We are also recruiting companies/clients for the capstone project for the certificate. There also is an emphasis at McDonough in understanding how to do things the right way – in a principled way. I think that is reflected in the way students think and act, and in the way that we teach. Thank you so much Professor Blanchard for sharing your insights and experiences with our readers! |
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