Before drafting MBA application goals essay, understand these 3 Strategies to bring authenticity your post-MBA goals.
1) Finding the School’s Reputation
No matter how much schools customize their curriculum and offer majors and specializations, there are four types of Business Schools – General Management, Finance, Consulting, and Schools with high Technology placement. These schools know very well the kind of application pool they are targeting. So if you write a post-MBA goal to transition into, say, Investment Banking and the placements in the school are mostly in Consulting and Technology, regardless of the feasibility of your goals, the school might not help you reach that goal.
To create authentic post-MBA goals, you must research the feasibility of achieving the post-MBA placement. We have an excellent research section, where we cover salary, curriculum, and placement trends.
2) Temperament
Your recommender is the first person to validate the key personality traits required to transition into a career if your post-MBA goal is about career transition or highlight your leadership traits if the post-MBA goal is ambitious and requires specific leadership qualities. You can brainstorm with me by Subscribing to F1GMAT’s recommendation letter editing service. With the service, I will create a guideline document that will help the supervisor cite and expand on qualities required for your post-MBA goal.
The #1 reason applicants are rejected is a mismatch in temperament. If you were in a desk job – Technology and the post-MBA role is geared towards collaborating with multiple stakeholders, you need a credible volunteering experience to validate the goal.
The same goes for ambitious post-MBA goals like starting a non-profit or a company that serves underserved communities. All these goals would be believable if you were the primary person to start an initiative in your company or the non-profit you served. You don’t need exact entrepreneurial experience to cite entrepreneurial goals, but it improves the authenticity of your story if you started ventures regardless of the outcome or size.
3) Performance Metrics
Most applicants who are transitioning to another industry or function realize fast that they have used their growth and acquisition of skills to achieve the company’s objective. Now is the time to expand on other aspects of their personality to transition into another industry or function, but how do you do that without showing some dip in performance?
This is a delicate topic.
You must work closely with the supervisor to ensure that poor performance in, say, a project is not included in the weakness question of the recommendation letter. I remember watching Mike Tyson’s last bout. When the sports reporter asks him why he is retiring, Mike honestly replies, “I can train and be fit, but I don’t have the fight and guts anymore.” So don’t include your knocked out project in your weakness essay or your supervisor’s feedback question.
The best strategy is to approach supervisors who saw you at your peak and then develop a strategy for your recommendation letter. If you need my help with MBA application strategy, essay editing, recommendation letter editing, or resume editing, Contact me, Atul Jose
