The first deliverable in Basic/Detailed profile evaluation is the creation of an IMPACT table. The joint exercise between the MBA admissions consultant and the applicant lists all possible events – successes, failures, individual projects (hobbies, extra-curricular and volunteering) and team projects (professional projects, group sports, and volunteering) that marked the applicant’s growth in the company or made their skills attractive for Business Schools.
What I learned evaluating hundreds of applicants’ growth is that individual projects tend to have a clear IMPACT over team projects. This seems counter-intuitive as what you do professionally as a team should have defined you as a person.
Unfortunately – it doesn’t
Team Size – Magic Number
When the team size crosses 5, individuals put less effort to reach the goals. This is not a conscious decision. We tend to fall for what Social Psychologists call Social Loafing.
As an individual – most tasks allocated to us has a clear performance indicator and deliverables. With a team, the burden of the responsibility is shared and depending on the company culture – individual performers are revered or hidden beneath team metrics.
As the complexity of the tasks increases and the success of the project depends on external conditions (market response/economy/manufacturing/supply/team performance), managers/supervisors rely on a group of functional experts to communicate pro-actively and complete the tasks. Unless everyone in the team is equally motivated and represent individuals with equal skill set – both are unlikely, team performance is a function of the median.
Managerial Skills of the Supervisor
Another factor that MBA applicants forget is that their success as a professional is heavily dependent on the managerial skills of the supervisor.
I had a client who used to allocate 1-hour every Friday as a Manager to offer specific praise for team members who have exceeded the expectation and met all quality guidelines for the project.
The secret was specificity. It was never – “good job creating the copy in 1 day” but “ I loved when you wrote…”
The constant engagement with the team increased the team’s output by 35% in just 6 months.
He monitored the mood of the team through the ease with each the daily morning meeting translated to the first deliverable for the day.
Everybody was required to deliver a micro-project in just 3 hours. The technique was to push the team member to perform as fast as possible without thinking.
By doing so, the Manager created a routine. After a month, the impossible 3-hour turnaround time became a norm for all the teams working under him.
He developed the process. This was not part of the company culture or best practice.
The Culture of the Company
The client who developed a new process that valued deliverable over theory/brainstorming was part of a rising media start-up in London.
We used the story for his strengths Essay.
This was not his one-off trick.
The start-up encouraged risk-taking.
He went on to share how two of his previous innovative project management techniques brought down the productivity of the team. The explanation became a backstory for his failure essay.
Most of you work for the Fortune 500 companies with little incentive to innovate as outrageous results – good or bad, are noticed and rewarded/punished over above average performance.
Extra-Curricular Completes the Picture
You can’t create fake stories and spin narratives that can’t be concurred by your supervisors.
Don’t worry.
The admission team understands the rigid hierarchy and bureaucracy of big companies, where completing the specific task before time is appreciated over any form of innovation.
Your Extra-curricular and volunteering experience should bridge the gap in your narrative.
The most common question that I get is regarding the relevance of extra-curricular in MBA Application.
I would say – list them all out.
The bigger picture of who you are as a person needs examples from volunteering, individual/group sports, and creativity outside work.
Work limits you to a stereotype.
Articulating IMPACT
For MBA applicants, the inability to articulate IMPACT can be the difference between a persuasive and a cliched essay narrative. Fortunately, most companies have established markers for evaluating IMPACT at an organization and team level.
The 360-degree feedback and appraisals should be used as data points for your MBA Application. What we offer is the context for each achievement.
Subscribe to our Basic Profile Evaluation or Detailed Profile Evaluation Service, and we will help you:
1) Shortlist the most relevant achievements and failures
2) Offer context for all your projects (Easy to read and understand)
3) Map your personality to the right MBA program/Post-MBA job function
Reference
Social Loafing: A Meta-Analytic Review and Theoretical Integration
Winning MBA Essay Guide
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.