Category Archives: MBA Admissions

MBA Adcom, MBA Admissions, MBA Essay Questions, MBA Essays

The Hidden Why of Work-Life Balance in MBA Essays

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Everybody knows “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” And therefore that you need to mix non-workplace stories and situations into your MBA admissions essays.

I find I still have to nudge on this. Truth is, after 10 years in MBA admissions, I can read applicants’ minds somewhat, and I see the thought bubble above a client’s head that says: “C’mon Avi, this lifestyle story is a ‘soft’ story, while this work story clearly demonstrates my business leadership potential…”

You do need workplace stories, of course. But you need life stories in equal measure, and not just to demonstrate work-life balance. There are further reasons, which are:

1. Your work is not that interesting

What?!! Not interesting? I break it to you, if you didn’t know already, that your own work is more interesting to you than it is to other people. That’s why you do it and they don’t. There may be some exceptions, like if you worked on the international Space Station, but most people most of the time dread having their back to the wall while someone bends their ear about this or that installation where they were able to integrate the database mobility platform of… er…. you’d suddenly feel the urge to refresh your drink, if you know what I mean. Myself, I find picking the lock of elite MBA Admissions gates endlessly fascinating, but if I talk about it socially, people’s eyes glaze over.

2. Your work is relatively junior

Sorry, another home truth here. As an MBA applicant, chances are you are in your mid-late 20s, and so your work is, by definition, quite junior. You are not yet at the top of your game, nor at the top of your industry — where you would have the kind of experiences that would allow you to tell truly interesting work stories, like the time you were in the BP Boardroom when the Chairman of the Federal Reserve called… But, for now your work is pretty standard stuff, or at least it could be bigger and better. That’s why you’re applying for an MBA, no?

3. Your work will change.

By definition, if you are about to embark on an MBA, your professional life will change dramatically. Whatever you’re doing now, you won’t be doing it after graduation. So, whatever your workplace story, you are focusing the admissions reader on your past, while she is in fact looking to your professional future and trying to make a judgment about your ability to progress there.

For these reasons, while workplace essays *are* important, they are inherently limited in terms of their real purpose (to get Adcom to pick you.) The admissions committee is somewhat interested, but is going to gloss over the micro-technical or organizational details in the search for what they really want to know, which is, what is this applicant’s prospects for significant successes at a higher level?

They know, even if you don’t yet, that your current job spec will disappear and be replaced. So they focus on what is relatively fixed by your mid-20s: your character, personality, ambition, drive, and management style.

Turn it around and look at if from the reader’s point of view, as you should always do. What does Adcom at an elite b-school really want to know? (Yes, they say they want to “get to know you,” and they do. But in a way, this is the usual cr*p they alway say.) What they really, really want to know is whether you are going to be a future star, that is rapidly move onward and upward to one day do great things in your industry. Convince them of that (within your applicant sub-group) and you’re in.

The standard workplace conundrum that you solved and learned from is going to take you some way down that road. To go the rest of the way, you need to charm them with your formative life stories.

 

MBA Adcom, MBA Admissions, MBA Essay Questions, MBA Essays

Does Private Equity as a Career Goal Help or Hurt for MBA Admissions?

Among the clients I’ve had over the past three years, at a rough estimate I’d say about half came to me stating that (a career in) Private Equity was their Why-an-MBA goal. I could shake some from it, but not others.

This year again I’ve already seen a number of ‘PE applications’ and am fielding the question that inevitably comes with it: “Is PE a strong-enough goal? Is it too common?”

To answer this, and offer a perspective on career goal value for MBA admissions in general, let’s take a moment to look at PE.

In its simplest terms, Private Equity involves raising capital to be used by professional investors to buy into established but non-listed companies. The aim of the PE firm is to return significant returns to principal investors, which is achieved using the financial muscle or management expertise of the PE firm, or both, to grow the target firm or otherwise “release” its assets. The PE firm may need to be patient while its illiquid investment grows, but the idea is to cash out as soon as profit targets are met, take a part of the pile and return the rest to principal investors.

Is this good for MBA admissions?

It’s not terrible. PE is a necessary function in a modern capitalist economy, particularly in raising efficiencies and releasing value locked up in sclerotic firms, and it clearly demands many MBA skills. Certainly business schools have no problem with ambition, or you wanting to make money.

But it’s not great either, and to explain why it is necessary to consider what Admissions Committees like better, which is to have selected the true architects of tomorrow’s industries. They want the school to have formed and shaped the people who build the next truly great thing – in any sector. They want their alumni to be smiling down from the cover of Forbes or Fortune magazine, or your local equivalent. (This doesn’t mean you have to be an entrepreneur. Any genuine leadership role works.)

If you don’t believe me, believe the cornerstone of the Knight Management Center, the new home of the Stanford Business School, which says:

‘Dedicated to the things that haven’t happened yet and the people who are about to dream them up’

This dedication tells you who will be admitted to Stanford GSB: the people who look most likely to dream up and the build the things that haven’t happened yet.

Why does Stanford GSB — and all the other top MBA programs — want to admit this kind of applicant?

Take your pick: thinking idealistically, it’s about contributing to the economy and the world in the best possible way. “Change Lives Change Organizations Change the World,” yada yada. Thinking a bit more cynically, it’s about branding because, if in 10 or 20 years time the school can point to you and say “alumnus 2015 who changed retail in America,” and point to the person next to you and say “alumna 2015 who built Logo-Tech into a worldwide franchise”… well that’s very good for the school.

Set against this, PE is relatively anonymous and opportunistic. You don’t achieve much more significant than personal wealth via PE, and if you end up on the cover of the financial magazines, it will almost certainty be for the wrong reasons.