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How to Answer the Cambridge post-MBA Career Plans Essay

Please provide details of your post-MBA career plans? (500 Words)

• What are your short and long term career objectives? How will the Cambridge MBA equip you to achieve these?
• Looking at your short-term career goal, describe the research you have done to understand how this industry/role/location recruits MBA talent and what they are looking for in a candidate?
• How do you meet the requirements of your short-term career goal? What preparation are you doing now?

Before you start writing the essay, address all the sub-questions that the admissions team has clearly mentioned:

a) Short-term and long-term career goals – how Cambridge MBA will help

For this sub-question you must clearly articulate the motivation for an MBA, preferably with a narrative articulating what is lacking in your current career path, the attempts at pivoting (without an MBA if you are a career switcher), and the specifics of the curriculum that will help you accelerate skill acquisition.

Cambridge Judge MBA Curriculum

Cambridge MBA core courses are distributed throughout three terms - Michaelmas, Lent, and Easter Terms, with the first term covering a broad range of topics from Entrepreneurship to Corporate Finance to Organizational Behavior.

Read the Complete Analysis

2) What Preparation you are doing now

How do you meet the requirements of your short-term career goal? What preparation are you doing now?

The goals essay requires incorporating examples that demonstrate that switching from Function A to Function B is feasible. The proliferation of online courses, led by top universities and private players including Coursera, EdX, Khan Academy and Udacity have widened the options available for applicants to strengthen their profile.

Inaction is not looked kindly. Even corporate-led training courses – functional or project-based onboarding or even seminars on functional topics outside your core expertise is an exposure that you should mention. The hands-on learning opportunities with functional experts outside your industry should also be mentioned even if it is a typical demo. Use the latter if you have not taken any pro-active steps to address your weakness.

3) Research you have done

Looking at your short-term career goal, describe the research you have done to understand how this industry/role/location recruits MBA talent and what they are looking for in a candidate?

The first mention should be an alumnus or a current student who has traversed a similar career path that you aspire with a Cambridge MBA. Here your networking skills are tested. Drop a few names – at least one person in specific, preferably a current student as the economy, markets and job market evolves rapidly with each year. A generic observation about the trends in an industry from 2-3 years ago is unlikely to show that you have done the research.

Be specific with your goal, the research and the trend you have collected.

If you are interested in working on Cryptocurrency, go deeper.

Do you want to work on the hardware, software or process side?

Are you interested in working on mining or transactions?

Is your interest in Trading, Remittance or Payment technology?

Which region do you want to focus on?

Another meaningful interaction is the feedback from a recruiting team on what is currently lacking. I had clients who did try to enter Consulting without the aid of an MBA and were told to gain uninterrupted hands-on learning in the industry.

Let us strategically incorporate three narrative elements into all our goals essay: research, preparation, and curriculum.

Download F1GMAT's Cambridge MBA Essay Guide to learn how

 

About the Author 

Atul Jose - Founding Consultant F1GMAT

I am Atul Jose - the Founding Consultant at F1GMAT.

Over the past 15 years, I have helped MBA applicants gain admissions to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Chicago Booth, Kellogg, Columbia, Haas, Yale, NYU Stern, Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, IE, IESE, HEC Paris, McCombs, Tepper, and schools in the top 30 global MBA ranking. 

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