by Kelly Wilson
Top Strategies for Early-Career MBA Applicants
Right after college, you accepted an offer from a small niche consulting firm over an offer from a big-name consulting company, and that has proved to be a smart decision. Although your starting salary was lower, in less than two years, you are managing projects and staff, bringing in new business, and contributing to company strategy. In addition, a pivotal client engagement has shaped your career goal: joining a company in the rapidly growing bioinformatics industry and, over time, improving healthcare delivery and outcomes. You’re ready to move toward that goal, but to achieve it, you need to develop a foundational understanding of business and in-depth knowledge of finance and strategy, which neither your undergraduate education nor your experience has provided. You need an MBA.
Demonstrate Five Key Factors
You earned excellent grades in a rigorous undergraduate program, achieved a strong admissions test score, and have an impressive role at your company, but you have only 1.75 years of work experience under your belt (which means you would still have fewer than three years by time you were to matriculate at business school). That is less than the average years of experience at any MBA program, and less than some schools actually require. But by conveying the following five qualities in your MBA application (primarily in your essays but also in your resume), you will show the adcoms that you are ready for this next step in your educational and professional development. Ideally, your recommendations also will reflect these factors.
1. Affirmative, practical reasons for applying at this time
The economy is shaky, or maybe prospects for growth in your company or industry have diminished, so you’re thinking you might as well pursue an MBA now, rather than waiting to gain more experience. These are not good reasons for going to business school. Your reasons for applying now must be affirmative, not reactive. You need to show the adcom that your desire for the degree at this particular time is driven by positive plans and opportunities, not by a lack of other options.
Your reasons must also be practical – based on concrete goals. It is essential that you explain in your goals essay why obtaining an MBA education now is the key to achieving your objectives. Perhaps the market or industry you’re targeting is just beginning to flourish, and you want to get in early. Maybe your skill set is particularly valuable to a changing sector, industry, or niche right now. Or perhaps your company has placed you on a “fast track,” and you need formal business training to be able to effectively shoulder the management responsibilities that will come with your next promotion. Whatever the case, work backward from your goals to where you are currently to identify the reasons you need an MBA now.
2. Outstanding professional growth
You need to show the adcom that you have experienced outstanding growth during your relatively limited time in the workforce. If you can establish that you have packed into just one or two years the same level of quality that more-experienced applicants have achieved over four, this can make a significant impression on the adcom. You want them to conclude, “If this applicant can do this much in one or two years, imagine what they could do in four!”
What constitutes quality experience? Some examples would be hands-on participation in a broad range of functions, leading high-profile projects, earning promotions that skip levels, managing staff, and being given assignments that are typically allocated to MBAs. When you discuss such growth in your essays, be sure to highlight its unusual nature. For example, do not simply say that you were quickly promoted to marketing manager; add that no one before you had ever been given that position without first serving as marketing coordinator. Reinforce these sorts of achievements in your resume, and ask your recommenders to do so as well.
If you are applying to MBA programs right out of college or as a recent graduate, look to your jobs, internships, and volunteer activities during college for outstanding professional-level growth or responsibility. For example, perhaps you were a member of a restaurant’s waitstaff, and the owner asked you to manage the restaurant in their absence. Or maybe you were an intern at an investment firm over the summer and were asked to coordinate communications for an important transaction. Whatever the circumstance, you want to demonstrate that you have performed beyond expectations for your level.
3. Exceptional impact, leadership, achievement
The more impact, leadership, and achievement you can show, the better. And ideally, these should be at the “exceptional” level, meaning beyond what one would typically expect from an actively involved college student or an above-average employee. Most applicants to the top MBA programs will be in the “above-average performer” category and will have had more time in which to demonstrate this excellence. To be competitive, you must at least equal them in impact, leadership, and/or achievement but have done so in less time, whether on the job or elsewhere (e.g., community service, college activities).
- Reorganizing functions to facilitate effective cross-functional operations is worthwhile and smart, but what effect did doing so have on the organization? Did it save the firm money? Eliminate redundancy? Improve customer satisfaction? These are types of impact. Organizing a drive to recruit volunteers for the local school district facing severe budget cuts is a great example of initiative and responsibility, but signing up enough volunteers for the school to keep its aftercare program, sports, and arts activities is a great example of impact.
- Leadership is more than having the title of “leader.” For example, let’s say you lead the consulting team for an important client project. That is a significant responsibility, but it is not necessarily leadership. Your team discovers the perfect solution to the company’s problem, but the company resists, and your senior management wants you to water down your recommendations to appease the client. You discuss the matter with your team members, all of whom are convinced that the solution is ideal. You decide to stand by your team. You gain “champions” in your management and the client’s management and work with them to persuade the rest. Eventually, everyone comes around, and the client now praises your team’s persistence. That’s leadership.
- Achievement relates to impact, but it stands alone in its importance. For example, let’s say your company has only had accounts worth $500K or less, but you bring in a new account worth more than $1M. That is an achievement. You’re captain of the lightweight crew team and drive the team to your school’s first-ever division victory. That’s an achievement.
When you discuss leadership, impact, and achievement in your essays, go beyond just presenting flat facts and offer detail while providing context – in other words, tell the story. If you do, your claims will be not only impressive but also memorable.
4. Maturity
Adcoms seek maturity in all applicants, but especially in younger candidates. It is particularly important for you to demonstrate (1) skill in handling interpersonal communications and interactions, (2) sound judgment, and (3) the ability to self-reflect and self-critique. Your essays and recommendations are the best places to convey your maturity in these areas. Use examples and anecdotes to illustrate your points, and detail both your actions and your thought processes.
5. Ability to contribute to the program
When evaluating your application, the adcom will also be weighing whether or not accepting you into the next incoming class will benefit the MBA program socially and academically – and to what extent. Adcoms seek applicants who will be vital members of the school’s community during their two years of study and subsequently as alumni. There are two key areas of potential contribution – (1) in the classroom and (2) socially – and you need to show how you will add value in both. Your resume, essays, and recommendations should all convey your intended contributions as well, with the latter two doing so more specifically and in greater depth.
Target the Right Programs
Another key element of your application strategy is the list of schools to which you apply. Seek out MBA programs that will not only meet your educational and professional needs but that also welcome relatively young applicants. This requires thoroughly researching your options and parsing the statistics in the various schools’ class profiles. For example, the average age of a program’s students is not as important in your case as the range of ages; in other words, has the school you’re considering admitted applicants with fewer than three years of experience? Also, some MBA programs have a separate application for early-career applicants (usually college seniors or recent grads).
As a younger-than-average MBA applicant, you can outpace your older competitors by creating a compelling portrayal of your ability to achieve, contribute, and learn a lot in a short time. If you succeed, you might even make the older applicants in the candidate pool appear sluggish in comparison!
Get the guidance and support of an experienced admissions consultant as you devise your strategy to apply as a younger MBA applicant. Schedule a free consultation with an Accepted expert. Our singular goal is to help you gain admittance to the MBA program of your choice!
As the former executive director of admissions at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School and assistant dean of admissions at Georgetown’s McDonough School and the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz School, Kelly Wilson has 23 years’ experience overseeing admissions committees and has reviewed more than 38,000 applications for the MBA and master’s programs in management of information systems, computational finance, business analytics, and product management. Want Kelly to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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