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The mbaMission Blog

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In Other News… Case Study Podcasts and the Role of Lying in Leadership [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   11 Oct 2015, 12:00
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FROM mbaMission Blog: In Other News… Case Study Podcasts and the Role of Lying in Leadership
The business school world is constantly buzzing with change and innovation. Each week, in addition to our regular news posts, we briefly touch on a few notable stories from this dynamic field in one roundup. Here is what caught our eye this week:



  • Harvard Business School (HBS) is taking its famous case study method beyond the classroom—this time, in podcast form. The recently launched weekly podcast series Cold Call—featuring the school’s chief marketing and communications officer, Brian Kenny, as the host—welcomes case study authors to discuss the development and details of their cases.
  • Do liars make good leaders? Definitely, according to a Stanford Graduate School of Business professor. Jeffrey Pfeffer, who teaches organizational behavior at the school, recently released a book titled Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time, in which he challenges traditional leadership norms. “Leaders don’t need to be true to themselves; in fact, being authentic is the opposite of what they should do,” Pfeffer writes, adding that lying could, in fact, be helpful to leaders.
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Monday Morning Essay Tip: Show That Your Long-Term Goals Are Attainabl [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   12 Oct 2015, 07:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: Show That Your Long-Term Goals Are Attainable
Many MBA candidates struggle to define their long-term goals. Although your short-term goals should be relatively specific, your long-term goals can be broad and ambitious. Regardless of what your short- and long-term aspirations actually are, what is most important is presenting a clear “cause and effect” relationship between them. The admissions committee will have difficulty buying into a long-term goal that lacks grounding. However, do not interpret this to mean that you must declare your interest in an industry and then assert that you will stay in it for your entire career. You can present any career path that excites you—again, as long as you also demonstrate a logical path to achieving your goals.



For example, many candidates discuss having ambitions in the field of management consulting. Could an individual with such aspirations justify any of the following long-term goals?

A) Climbing the ladder and becoming a partner in a consulting firm

B) Launching a boutique consulting firm

C) Leaving consulting to manage a nonprofit

D) Leaving consulting to buy a failing manufacturing firm and forge a “turnaround”

E) Entering the management ranks of a major corporation

The answer is yes! This candidate could justify any of these long-term goals (along with many others), as long as he/she connects them to experiences gained via his/her career as a consultant. With regard to your goals, do not feel constrained—just be sure to emphasize and illustrate that your career objectives are logical, achievable, and ambitious.

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MBA News: MBA Applications See the Most Drastic Increase Since 2009 [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   12 Oct 2015, 12:02
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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: MBA Applications See the Most Drastic Increase Since 2009
An MBA has been a hot commodity in the past, but a recent spike in applications suggests the degree is even more sought after now. In fact, a survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council reveals that two-year, full-time programs across the world have seen more applicants in 2015 than since 2009, the height of the economic crisis. The spike in applications could reflect the fact that those who graduated from college during the recession are now prime business school candidates, mbaMission Founder and President Jeremy Shinewald commented to the Wall Street Journal. Those graduates may be seeking out MBA degrees as a form of both financial and psychological insurance, Shinewald suggests in the article.

Indeed, many admissions committees at top-ranked business schools have plowed through more applications recently than usual. The Yale School of Management, for example, received 25% more applications for its incoming class in 2015 compared to 2014. The growth was more modest at some schools—Harvard Business School saw an increase of 1.5%—but the nearly 16% growth at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business was not uncommon.

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Mission Admission: What to Expect from Your MBA Interview [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   13 Oct 2015, 07:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Mission Admission: What to Expect from Your MBA Interview
Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.

With MBA interview invitations continuing to arrive at this time of year, we thought it would be appropriate to discuss some challenging interview situations. Most business school interviews are straightforward opportunities for an interviewer to learn more about a candidate’s personal and professional backgrounds, goals, reasons for selecting a specific school, and leadership/team experiences, yet interviews can vary dramatically from school to school and sometimes include a few peculiarities. So, what constitutes a “tough” interview, and how can you best navigate one?

Stoic interviewer: Some interviewers can be unemotional, refusing to give you any indication as to whether you are making a positive impression or not. And amid the intense pressure of an interview, you may perceive this lack of clear positive response as a sign of actual disapproval. The key to managing such a situation is to tune out the interviewer’s lack of emotion. Focus on your answers and do your best to not be distracted by anything about the interviewer, ignoring everything except the questions he/she is posing. “Reading” the interviewer in real time can be challenging, so you should instead concentrate on showcasing your strengths.



Philosophical questions: Most candidates are ready to discuss their experiences and accomplishments, but many are not prepared to discuss their values and philosophy on life. Harvard Business School in particular likes to understand applicants’ motivations and will ask questions like “What is your motivation to succeed?,” “What drives you?,” and “What gives you purpose in life?” The key to answering these sorts of questions is pretty simple: expect and prepare for them in advance (after all, you are being warned right now). You cannot assume that all the questions you will receive during your interview will be experiential.

Persistent questioning: Sometimes a tough interviewer will continuously delve deeper into a subject, such as by repeatedly asking “Can you be more specific about [the topic under discussion]?” after posing an initial question. These kinds of unusual pressure tactics can be disconcerting, but the key is to simply stay on topic. No matter how persistent he/she is, the interviewer is always essentially asking you about a subject that you know quite well—you! So again, by avoiding the distraction of the tactic and sticking to your agenda, you should be fine.

mbaMission offers even more interview advice in our Interview Primers, which are available for 15 top-ranked schools.

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MBA Career Advice: Your Resume is a Map [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   13 Oct 2015, 12:00
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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Career Advice: Your Resume is a Map

In this weekly series, our friends at MBA Career Coaches will be dispensing invaluable advice to help you actively manage your career. Topics include building your network, learning from mistakes and setbacks, perfecting your written communication, and mastering even the toughest interviews. For more information or to sign up for a free career consultation, visit www.mbacareercoaches.com.

As we have noted in a past post that your resume is a map. So, we ask, what are the qualities of a good map? You probably have not given it much thought, because most maps are designed to be so easy to use that you do not need to give it any thought! But that is our point –just like you don’t want to fumble with the format of a map, you don’t want anyone getting tripped up by the format of your resume. Both should be easy to use and thus the first rule of map/resume creation is… consistency of format.

Indeed, a map is a kind of formula, with countless visual cues reinforcing it. For example, countries are listed in larger type and cities are listed in smaller type; scale is set and maintained; a star might denote a capital city, whereas a large dot might denote a large non-capital city and a small dot might denote a smaller non-capital city. Of course, there may be some differentiation from map to map, depending on what the map is designed to convey. However, some general rules apply to virtually all purely geographical maps, because otherwise the map itself would become useless. Imagine if the proportions shifted from country to country or different fonts and font sizes were used from city to city. Your map wouldn’t help anyone find their way or digest the desired information.

So, when you construct your resume, make sure that you develop and maintain a consistent format:

  • Choose a specific font size and type for each kind of information and apply it consistently: Headings, company names, job titles, and bullets should all have their own consistent style
  • Use consistent spacing from section to section
  • Put similar information in the same place throughout – cities and dates, for example, might be aligned to the right margin
  • Bullets are indented similarly across job entries
  • Margins are maintained throughout
We could go on and on. There are lots of decisions to be made, large and small. As you make these decisions though, just ensure that you maintain the integrity of your format and you should be well on your way to creating a usable map for your employer.  Your employer will read your map and quickly and easily understand the path you have taken and you will have thus fulfilled your objective.

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Professor Profiles: Jeffrey Carr, NYU Stern School of Business [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   14 Oct 2015, 07:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Professor Profiles: Jeffrey Carr, NYU Stern School of Business
Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose an MBA program, but the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we profile Jeffrey Carr from New York University’s (NYU’s) Leonard N. Stern School of Business.



Having taught at Stern for more than a decade as an adjunct associate professor (earning him the 1996 Stern/Citibank Teacher of the Year Award), Jeffrey Carr joined Stern’s full-time faculty in 2007 and is now a clinical professor of marketing and entrepreneurship. He served formerly as the executive director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and has garnered a reputation as one of the school’s most respected marketing experts, featured by such major news outlets as NBC and the New York Times. Carr is president of Marketing Foundations Inc. and has worked on projects for such companies as Booz Allen Hamilton, IBM, General Electric, Pfizer, Kodak, Time Inc., and Unilever. As one first year we interviewed said of his experience at Stern, “So far, the most impressive class has been ‘Marketing’ with Jeff Carr,” adding, “He’s super engaging and makes you think more about the consequences of your actions in marketing than simply teaching you the tools. The class structure is very informal, but all of the students are learning a ton.”

For more information about NYU Stern and 15 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

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MBA News: mbaMission Introduces New YouTube Channel [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   14 Oct 2015, 11:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: mbaMission Introduces New YouTube Channel
In need of a quick break from written MBA admissions tips and guides? Look no further—mbaMission is proud to offer admissions tips in video form on our new YouTube channel! mbaMission senior consultants—and, of course, founder Jeremy Shinewald—offer analyses of such topics as traditional and non-traditional sources of funding for an MBA degree, the most important parts of a business school application, the necessity of a campus visit, and more. Check back weekly to be among the first to catch the newest tips!

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Beyond the MBA Classroom: Winter Fun at Chicago Booth [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   15 Oct 2015, 07:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Beyond the MBA Classroom: Winter Fun at Chicago Booth
When you select an MBA program, you are not just choosing your learning environment but are also committing to becoming part of a community. Each Thursday, we offer a window into life “beyond the MBA classroom” at a top business school.



Business school candidates who decide to attend Chicago Booth can look forward—with approximately 500 of their closest friends in the community (partners are invited as well)—to the school’s annual ski trip, which takes place over winter break. The trip is held in a different location each year; at the end of the 2014 fall quarter, more than 330 Chicago Booth students and partners traveled to Vail, Colorado. After a full first day of skiing and snowboarding, trip attendees enjoyed back-to-back themed parties—donning bathing suits and Hawaiian shirts for a “Summertime Fun”–inspired celebration. Other theme parties that took place during the 2014 trip included Ugly Holiday, Choose Your Decade, and Broomball Costume. Members of the Chicago Booth Ski and Snowboard Club also participate in the annual Tuck Winter Carnival (at Dartmouth), for which many of the country’s top business schools send teams to compete in a ski race—though we learned the event tends to be more about beer than competition.

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Chicago Booth and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

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Diamonds in the Rough: Rice University Jones Graduate School of Busine [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   15 Oct 2015, 12:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Diamonds in the Rough: Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business
MBA applicants can get carried away with rankings. In this series, we profile amazing programs at business schools that are typically ranked outside the top 15.



As home to six of the world’s “supermajor” energy companies, Houston, Texas, is perhaps an obvious choice for prospective MBA students looking to break into the energy sector, and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University is arguably the leader in energy curriculum and recruiting. Offering 11 courses, including “Managing in a Carbon Constrained World,” “Geopolitics of Energy,” and “International Energy Development,” the school’s energy concentration “develops a student’s perspective and understanding of management issues in the energy industry,” explains the school. As a result of strong recruiting ties to such companies as ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips, well over one-third of Rice’s MBAs have found jobs in the petroleum/energy sector in recent years. The school also has an active Energy Club that hosts various opportunities to connect with recruiters and alumni, including an Energy Speaker series, networking events, and Energy Treks that give students firsthand exposure to trading floors, drilling rigs, and manufacturing facilities.

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Friday Factoid: Chicago Booth for Marketing [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   16 Oct 2015, 08:00
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: Chicago Booth for Marketing

You may be surprised to know that Chicago Booth is making inroads into an area that its crosstown rival (Kellogg) is known to dominate: marketing. Through the James M. Kilts Center for Marketing—named for the Chicago Booth alumnus who was formerly CEO of Gillette and Nabisco (and is now a partner at Centerview Partners)—Chicago Booth offers students roughly a dozen marketing electives. In particular, the school is growing its experiential opportunities in the marketing field, with students recently taking part in marketing management labs (semester-long consulting projects) at Abbott, Barclays, and Honeywell. Further, professors in the department saw opportunities for increased practical involvement and created “hybrid” classes that involve a lecture component but also allow students to work on shorter-term consulting projects.

Students can also sign up to be paired with an alumni marketing mentor or participate in “day-at” visits to major marketing firms and companies such as PepsiCo, Wrigley, and Kraft. Although Kellogg’s reputation for excellence in marketing is firmly intact, we have to assume that the folks in Evanston are occasionally glancing over their shoulders to see if Chicago Booth is gaining any more ground.

For a thorough exploration of what Chicago Booth and 15 other top business schools have to offer, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

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mbaMission Consultant Spotlight: Susan Kaplan [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   16 Oct 2015, 12:00
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FROM mbaMission Blog: mbaMission Consultant Spotlight: Susan Kaplan
At mbaMission, our consultants are more than just graduates of the world’s top MBA programs—we are also expert communicators who possess an unparalleled knowledge of the business school admissions process. Each week, we highlight one member of our team who has committed his/her professional life to helping you get into business school.


Susan Kaplan earned her MBA in marketing and strategy from the Yale School of Management and after graduating, focused on marketing major national brands. She started as a marketing consultant, implementing integrated marketing campaigns for clients in the financial and health care industries. She was later director of corporate marketing for the National Hockey League, where she collaborated with national sponsors and oversaw multi-million dollar marketing programs. Most recently, Susan was the brand manager for GMAT and GRE programs at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, where she managed all aspects of the product lines, including product development and marketing, in addition to writing materials on the admissions process. In this role, she also counseled thousands of MBA candidates on the admissions process and eventually became a consultant, working one-on-one with clients. Susan has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Michigan and before attending business school worked as a policy analyst at the Department of Labor in Washington, DC, where she wrote policy papers for senior leadership and developed external communications for the public on department initiatives.

Quick Facts:
Received MBA from: Yale School of Management

Undergraduate field of study: Psychology

Fields worked in before mbaMission: Marketing, consulting, education, sports

Working style: “I really enjoy digging into clients’ experiences to develop their full story and identify the interesting “nuggets” they did not realize would make their application stand out.  I also develop a strong relationship with my clients and motivate them to create the best applications they can.  I truly see our working relationship as a partnership.”

What past clients are saying:
“Susan was simply incredible: She really put her vast experience to profit by helping me transform my essays, with a turnaround time for her comments that was more than I could ask for. I could not have done it without her.”

“Long story short, the brainstorming process, outlining, drafting and pulling together all of the other little things that make up an application was a lot easier and less painful with Susan. I actually learned a great deal about myself and my goals by going through the process.”

“Working with Susan made me understand exactly where my weaknesses were and how to address them properly. It also helped me understand my strengths, how to talk about them through simple but effective stories and how to demonstrate how my strengths added value to the particular school I was applying to.”

See more testimonials for Susan Kaplan

Watch Susan’s video:

Want a free consultation with Susan? Sign up here. 

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MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: But the Guy Beside Me Is Applying! [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   17 Oct 2015, 07:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: But the Guy Beside Me Is Applying!

You look around your office and think to yourself: “I wish my coworker were not applying to the same school as I am. They can’t take two people who sit at the same desk. Also, his GPA is 0.15 higher.” On the surface, this reasoning seems logical, and it can thus be the cause of anxiety for some candidates—especially for those who are in positions for which an MBA is virtually a “must have” to move forward, such as in consulting and banking.

However—not to worry—this thinking has two significant flaws:

  • You are not the same candidate as the person at the desk beside you. He/she may have similar work experience, but you have had different interactions with team members and clients and have worked on different projects. So, you have different perspectives on your experiences and so do your recommenders. Furthermore, your work experience is only one piece of the puzzle that is your application. Even if your coworker does have a slightly higher GPA or GMAT score, you are still quite different in terms of your personal/life experiences, community/leadership activities, ability to perform during interviews, and more. Instead of worrying that the admissions committee will make an apples-to-apples comparison and cast you out, you must focus on what makes you distinct and present your best self.
  • The top schools have room for two great candidates. When we asked Harvard Business School’s (HBS’s) director of MBA admissions and financial aid, Dee Leopold, whether she would accept two candidates who had worked at the same company, she quipped, “We have room for Larry and Sergei (referencing the two founders of Google).” An mbaMission consultant recalled that when she was at HBS, she had two classmates who worked on the same desk at the same private equity firm. At HBS, they ended up in the same section. Top MBA programs do not have quotas for certain firms, towns, ethnicities, etc. They just want the best candidates out there.
So, in short, as you eye that individual across the desk, try to avoid simplified comparisons. Focus on that which makes you distinct, and expect that the admissions committees will not fulfill quotas, but rather identify talent.

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GMAT Impact: Exercise Makes You Smarter [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   18 Oct 2015, 07:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: GMAT Impact: Exercise Makes You Smarter
With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this blog series, Manhattan Prep’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

A couple of years ago, the New York Times’ Well blog featured a fascinating post. Exercise has a whole host of good benefits, including benefits associated with memory. Two studies delved even deeper into how this works.



How does exercise help memory?

In the blog post, New York Times journalist Gretchen Reynolds details two studies—one conducted on humans and the other conducted on rats.

In the human study, elderly women who already had some mild cognitive impairment were split into three groups. One group lifted weights, the second group engaged in moderate aerobic exercise, and the third group did yoga-like activities.

The participants were tested at the beginning and end of the six-month exercise period, and the results were striking. First, bear in mind that, in general, we would expect elderly people who are already experiencing mental decline to continue down that path over time. Indeed, after six months, the yoga group (the “control” group) showed a mild decline in several aspects of verbal memory.

The weight-training and aerobic groups, by contrast, actually improved their performance on several tests (remember, this was six months later!). The women were better at both making new memories and remembering/retrieving old ones!

Another group of researchers conducted a similar study, only this time, rats were getting some cardio in or lifting weights. (The rats ran on wheels for the cardio exercise and, get this, for the weight lifting, the researchers tied little weights to the rats’ tails and had them climb tiny ladders!)

At the end of six weeks, the running rats showed increased levels of a brain protein that helps create new brain cells. The tail-weight-trainers had higher levels of a different protein that helps new neurons survive.

How can I use this? Get up and MOVE!

Reading this study has made me want to exercise more—and not even for the GMAT! I would like to stave off mental decline in my old age.

The women in the study were performing fairly mild exercises only twice a week (remember, they were elderly), so we do not suddenly have to become fitness fiends. We do not know, of course, exactly how the study results might translate to younger people, but the general trend is clear: exercise can help us make and retain memories. That is crucially important when studying for the GMAT—every last bit will help!

Get a little bit of both weight training and cardio in every week. You do not have to become a gym rat (pun intended). Engaging in some moderate activity every few days is probably enough. Look for ways to incorporate mild exercise into your daily routine. For example, when I go to the grocery store, I carry a basket around on my arm rather than push a cart (unless I really have to buy a lot). I will fill that basket right up to the brim—often, I end up having to use both hands to continue carrying the thing. I figure that every time I do that, it has to be worth at least 10 to 15 minutes of pumping iron!

Studying for the GMAT is tiring, so use this news as an excuse to take a brain break. Get up and walk around the block for 15 minutes, or turn on some music and dance or run the vacuum cleaner (vigorously!). Then sit back down and enjoy the brain fruits of your physical labors.

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Monday Morning Essay Tip: How Far Back Is Too Far Back? [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   19 Oct 2015, 08:00
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: How Far Back Is Too Far Back?

Because business school candidates must share examples of a variety of experiences with admissions committees, we encourage applicants to truly reflect on their lives and consider all potential stories, including academic, professional, community, extracurricular, athletic, international, and personal. However, candidates inevitably have questions about which anecdotes are truly appropriate and effective. “Can I use stories from high school and college?” “Can I use a story from four years ago?” “How far in the past is too far in the past?” Although no definitive rule exists, with the exception of questions that specifically ask about personal history or family background, schools generally want to learn about the mature you—the individual you are today. So we ask you, “How long have you been the you that you are today?”

When considering experiences that occurred long ago, ask yourself, “Would this impress an MBA admissions committee today?” If you ran a few successful bake sales six years ago when you were in college, this clearly would not stand the test of time and impress a stranger today. However, if, while you were still a student, you started a small business that grew and was ultimately sold to a local firm when you graduated, you would have a story to tell that would likely impress an admissions reader.

Inevitably, judgment is always involved in these decisions. Nonetheless, we offer this simple example as a starting point to help you decide which stories to share.

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Mission Admission: What Makes a Good Thank You Note? [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   20 Oct 2015, 08:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Mission Admission: What Makes a Good Thank You Note?
Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.


After visiting campus or interviewing, many business school candidates choose to write thank you letters to their respective hosts. But what makes a good thank you note?

Personalization: When writing to your host/interviewer, show sincerity by personalizing your letter. By handwriting your letter and mentioning specifics about your conversation and experiences, you will continue to foster your connection with your interviewer and show that your interaction truly made an impression.

Brevity: Your letter should be no more than a few sentences long. If you write several paragraphs, you run the risk of creating the negative impression that you are trying too hard or do not respect limits (possibly even suggesting that you might carry on too long in class). By being brief and sincere, you will instead make a powerful impression that will yield results.

Speed: Ideally, send your letter within 24 hours of your visit and within 48 hours at the most. Most interviewers must submit their reports very soon after the interview, and your thank you note will have a better chance of positively influencing this report if it is received before the report is submitted. Also, after too long, your interest may logically fall into question, or your host may simply forget some of the details of your conversation that you are trying to reinforce. By writing your letter immediately, you will give the impression that you have been energized by the experience and are eager to maintain your connection.

Thank you notes are generally not a “make or break” aspect of your candidacy, but they can establish continuity and demonstrate your continued interest to your target school’s representatives. We encourage candidates to follow up with such notes because they are a low-cost way of reinforcing a positive impression and relationship.

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MBA Career Advice: The Written Word: Don’t Get Too Cute With Your Resu [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   20 Oct 2015, 12:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Career Advice: The Written Word: Don’t Get Too Cute With Your Resume Design
In this weekly series, our friends at MBA Career Coaches will be dispensing invaluable advice to help you actively manage your career. Topics include building your network, learning from mistakes and setbacks, perfecting your written communication, and mastering even the toughest interviews. For more information or to sign up for a free career consultation, visit www.mbacareercoaches.com.

Being in the coaching business, we have naturally received the link to this post on Buzzfeed a few times in the past few weeks – “27 Beautiful Resume Designs You’ll Want to Steal.”


from behance.net via buzzfeed

Many of these resumes are aesthetically interesting and eye-catching. Many are colorful, fun, engaging and different. Many are suitable for positions in the design field, where they will want to know that you can… design! Many are appropriate for creative fields like advertising. But… Virtually all are inappropriate to send to typical post-MBA employers – namely consulting firms and investment banks. We are not trying to say that these resumes are “bad,” but we are trying to say that you should know your audience and understand what they expect from you.

When you are applying for a job in what can generally be regarded as a traditional or conservative environment, you will probably want to send in a traditional/conservative resume. You won’t get any points at JP Morgan if you write, “Sara Duncan wants to work with you” (Buzzfeed resume 1) in large bolded font, nor will you get any points at McKinsey for attaching a candid shot of yourself (Buzzfeed Resume 5). The reason why these firms demand straightforward resumes is because they are accustomed to receiving large volumes of resumes in a fairly consistent manner so that they can consume the information rather easily. They also expect your accomplishments to speak for themselves. These firms want a standard resume because they want to know that their staff will understand a professional audience – they don’t want any mavericks trying anything unorthodox in a professional presentation, for example.

So, there is room to deviate from the standard resume design, if you are certain that it will be welcomed by your employer. But, if it is not, we would advise that you avoid risks and stick with the traditional approach. In the meantime, you can admire the designs that Buzzfeed provides. Some are a lot of fun!

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Professor Profiles: Barry Nalebuff, Yale School of Management [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   21 Oct 2015, 08:00
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Professor Profiles: Barry Nalebuff, Yale School of Management
Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose an MBA program, but the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we profile Barry Nalebuff from the Yale School of Management (SOM).



Perhaps best known as one of the founders of Honest Tea, Barry Nalebuff is the Milton Steinbach Professor of Management at the Yale SOM. An expert in game theory and strategy, Nalebuff has been a professor at the SOM since 1989. A second year told mbaMission that in the classroom, Nalebuff “is a favorite for his sharp wit and insights.” Nalebuff is also an accomplished author with more than 300,000 copies in print. His book The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist’s Guide to Success in Business and Life (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008), for example, explores how almost all interactions—business and personal alike—have a game theory component.

Nalebuff and Adam Brandenburger, a professor of business economics and strategy at NYU’s Stern School of Business, developed the concept of a new business strategy called co-opetition, which they write about in a book of the same name: Co-Opetition: A Revolutionary Mindset That Combines Competition and Cooperation: The Game Theory Strategy That’s Changing the Game of Business (Crown Business, 1997). The book’s Web site describes co-opetition as “a method that goes beyond the old rules of competition and cooperation to combine the advantages of both. Co-opetition means cooperating to create a bigger business ‘pie,’ while competing to divide it up.” A first year noted in a Yale SOM Community Blog post, “Prof. Nalebuff never misses an opportunity to illustrate the ways in which companies can cooperate to grow the PIE (potential industry earnings). Of course, he then always reminds us that these same companies should compete aggressively to secure the biggest piece of that newly expanded PIE.”

For more information about the Yale SOM and 15 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

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Cookie DŌ Innovator Kristen Tomlan Shares the Secrets of Her Success [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   21 Oct 2015, 12:00
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Cookie DŌ Innovator Kristen Tomlan Shares the Secrets of Her Success

via cookiedonyc.com

Today, many aspiring MBAs and MBA graduates want to join start-ups or launch such companies themselves. Is entrepreneurship as exciting as it seems? Is it really for you? mbaMission Founder Jeremy Shinewald has teamed up with Venture for America and CBS Interactive to launch Smart People Should Build Things: The Venture for America Podcast. Each week, Shinewald interviews another entrepreneur so you can hear the gritty stories of their ups and downs on the road to success.

The seventeenth podcast episode welcomes another food expert and innovator to share her entrepreneurial story: Kristen Tomlan, founder and CEO of boutique confectionary DŌ, Cookie Dough Confections. Tomlan’s New York City–based company specializes in edible and customizable cookie dough and has created quite a buzz both in the media and on social media. Follow DŌ on Instagram for a peek at the company’s tempting products, and tune in to the podcast to hear these inside stories and more:

  • How Tomlan’s business began from a simple light bulb moment—“Why aren’t there specialty stores selling safe-to-eat cookie dough?”—while, of course, eating cookie dough!
  • Having zero competitors as the DŌ concept formed in her tiny Brooklyn kitchen
  • The whirlwind of testing countless recipes—complete with tasting panels!
Subscribe to the podcast series to be among the first to hear the success stories of entrepreneurs from numerous industries!

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Beyond the MBA Classroom: 37 Years of Wharton Follies [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   22 Oct 2015, 07:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Beyond the MBA Classroom: 37 Years of Wharton Follies
When you select an MBA program, you are not just choosing your learning environment but are also committing to becoming part of a community. Each Thursday, we offer a window into life “beyond the MBA classroom” at a top business school.



The Wharton Follies is both an annual musical comedy production that pokes fun at MBA life at Wharton and one of the school’s largest clubs, and it affords students the opportunity to shine in both creative and business roles. Entirely written, produced, and performed by students and boasting a six-figure budget, it is one of the largest and longest-running such productions at any graduate program. Follies has run at Wharton for 38 years and typically features prominent members of the administration (including the dean, vice dean, and director of admissions) and popular faculty members in cameo appearances.

The specific theme changes every year. The theme in 2015 was “The Huntsman Hangover”; in 2014, it was “The Book of Wharton,” and in 2013, it was “It’s a Whartonful Life.” In addition to a live component, the Follies typically involve a number of video sketches, such as 2015’s “Business School Stereotypes” and 2014’s “Lord of the GSR,” a play on Lord of the Flies wherein a group of students become trapped in a graduate study room. The 2013 sketch “MBAs Assemble a Malm Bed from IKEA,” which depicts students from various top-ranked business schools proposing different strategies for furniture assembly, is especially notable, with more than 90,000 views as of this posting. A second year with whom we spoke explained that part of the appeal of Follies is that it “show[s] off student talent that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to witness.”

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Wharton and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

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Diamonds in the Rough: Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson Coll [#permalink] The mbaMission Blog   22 Oct 2015, 12:01
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FROM mbaMission Blog: Diamonds in the Rough: Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College
MBA applicants can get carried away with rankings. In this series, we profile amazing programs at business schools that are typically ranked outside the top 15.



Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, may be small, with more than 2,000 undergraduates and approximately 400 full-time MBA students at its F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, but it has built an outstanding reputation for entrepreneurship that far exceeds its size. Babson has been ranked number one in entrepreneurial education for more than 20 consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report and as one of the top business schools for MBA pay by Bloomberg Businessweek, in addition to being described as an “entrepreneurial powerhouse” by Forbes. The school is home to the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, named in honor of the co-founder of Home Depot who is also a Babson alumnus. The center offers various resources for students looking to start their own businesses, including the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices Project, and the John E. and Alice L. Butler Venture Accelerator Program. As part of their hiring requirements, each member of Babson’s faculty must have firsthand entrepreneurial experience, offering students a cross-disciplinary curriculum based on real-world business decision making. Babson’s Signature Learning Experiences, for example, give students the opportunity to develop hands-on entrepreneurial skills by testing ideas and formulating business models.

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