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MBA Candidacy Guide

re you are considering applying to business school in the next several months or even years from now?

Even though essay questions and online applications are not posted for your admissions cycle, you can begin to act now. Here is my 7-step action plan for preparing for your candidacy in advance of your application. When you think about your candidacy for MBA programs, you will want to show that you have strong career progression, have contributed to your community, show academic promise, and have character. Following these steps will help you show those qualities to the MBA admissions committee.

1. Show Career Progression MBA programs want to admit successful candidates with a strong performance trajectory. One of my students, Sudhir B., had been at the same job, at the same level for several years. When he came to me about two years before his target application year, he was concerned about his resume and wanted advice to improve it. The first thing I asked Sudhir to evaluate was the environment at his current company. Was the firm growing? What was the expected trajectory at his level and in his department? He was in a business development role at a moderately sized tech company that was growing, but modestly. Sudhir was one of the few junior-level employees in his department, and his boss was several salary grades above him. Sudhir told me that his boss relied on him for significant amounts of research and preparation for partnerships. While he had not increased his title in the three years in the role, he had received two significant pay raises and stock option grants. I realized that his company was not a culture that granted title increases lightly, but rather recognized high performers through salary and incentives. Most MBA applications ask for salary progression for this reason, and it can show that you have increased responsibility even without a title change. Sudhir was reassured that I could help him rewrite his resume to show how he had increased his responsibilities over time, and that he could demonstrate his salary progression on the application. At the same time, Sudhir took action by asking his manager for a title increase. His manager was open to the idea, and proposed adding a “senior” designation, which was enough of a boost for Sudhir’s resume, especially combined with his salary progression. Another student, Emily, was in situation similar to Sudhir’s, but she was at an organization that told her an official title change was out of the question. She decided to brainstorm ways to take on more senior responsibilities. She asked to take a stretch role on the long-range planning project in her department, which gave her exposure to senior executives at the company, and exposure to the highlevel issues in the industry. I find that volunteering for leadership roles at work can both improve your resume and improve your career. You will be able to speak about the strategy of your company, build relationships, and learn new skills. As a last resort, and if you are at least a year away from applying to MBA programs, you could consider seeking a new job at another company and demonstrate your career progression. If you decide to pursue a new job, make sure it is aligned with your long-term career goals and is a significant increase in responsibility from your current role. Since you want a smooth transition, make sure you give plenty of notice to your current manager, and stay in touch. You may want to ask them to write a recommendation for you.

2. Extracurricular Activities If you do not have any community service or activities outside of work in your profile, you should become involved now. MBA programs are looking for candidates to have community involvement, and it is a great way to show a different side of your leadership qualities. Another reason to develop your community service or volunteer experience is to bridge any gaps in work experience, i.e., if you needed to care for a family member or experienced a layoff. If you have some community service, but without leadership experience or a record of impact, now is the time to increase the level of your involvement. First, brainstorm ideas. What do you enjoy doing? It’s great to be able to show continuity in your interests. Do you have any abandoned talents or cultural interests? Think about activities that you participated in as an undergrad or in high school and become re-engaged. My student Taylor had been a competitive swimmer in college, but with the demands of work and keeping up with her friends and family, she had ceased involvement in any team activities. She missed the camaraderie and sense of accomplishment in competitive sports, and decided to start working with an organization that taught low-income children how to swim. After a few months as a volunteer, she was able to leverage her leadership skills and start organizing more ambitious efforts, like a summer program outside the city. Taylor’s expansion of the program and her impact on children’s lives was a compelling essay topic for her MBA applications. Other candidates, like another student I worked with, Brandon, already tried to volunteer in the community. He spent holidays and several weekends volunteering for a food bank in his community. I suggested that Brandon could demonstrate his leadership and impact by thinking of ways to grow donations and raise awareness for the food bank. Brandon knew that many people led food drives in schools and offices, but he had been involved with the food bank long enough to realize that money was far more valuable to the organization, and could help them purchase the exact foods their students needed. He decided to organize a fundraiser for the food bank, leveraging his community of military veterans and working with the community investment department at his company. The fundraiser was a great success, not only raising the profile and revenue for the food bank, but also providing valuable brand halo for Brandon’s company. Are you too busy to leave the office? Many companies, like Brandon’s, have a community investment or community service department. If you are part of a smaller company, perhaps your human resources or government affairs group would be interested in sponsoring a day of volunteering for your company. Another path to community service is within the company you work for, as a leader or board member for an employee resource group or diversity panel.

3. Recommendations Another student, Steve, was planning to apply to top business schools after his third year as an analyst at a large management-consulting firm. He started to think about his recommendations about a year ahead of time. Because he had worked with several different associates and managers, he wanted to lay the groundwork for strong letters. The first thing Steve did was to think about his projects, and the managers and associates who had worked with him most closely. A few leaders requested him for their projects and seemed particularly happy with his contributions. He thought about the accomplishments on his projects and what the associates and managers might say about his work. Steve was surprised to see that the projects that taught him significant lessons about analysis and leadership were often under the leadership of the supportive managers. After reviewing his work experience and interaction with leaders, Steve was able to identify two or three people who he considered the most supportive and who had seen him produce his best work. Steve started to lay the groundwork to approach each manager, associate, and ask for a recommendation letter. He thought carefully about requesting to be staffed on specific projects that highlighted his skills

and gave him more exposure to the potential recommenders. Then he thought about what would demonstrate his value to his team, while also improving his own admissions profile. On one difficult project, Steve volunteered to help with challenging analysis and to mentor younger analysts and check their work. He was able to reduce the amount of time and effort his own manager put into training the other analysts, and demonstrated his leadership skills. A few months before application season, Steve took his target recommenders out to lunch and told them he was interested in applying to MBA programs. If they had attended business school, he asked for advice and listened to their experiences. After discussing his plans, and hearing their feedback, he was able to gauge who would be supportive of his plans. Then Steve followed up with a request for recommendation letters from the managers and associates who combined strong support, experience on his best performing projects, and confidence in his MBA plans. Right before starting his application, Steve created a recommendation package, something I advise for all candidates. This included the questions from each target school, an outline of his short- and longterm career goals, his key accomplishments, and why he chose each school. Steve recognized that his recommenders would do a lot of work on his behalf and wanted to assist in any way possible.

4. Low GPA Your GPA is an important piece of your application to demonstrate academic potential to MBA programs and enhance your candidacy. Unfortunately, it is one of the only parts of the application that is already completely set. If you have a low GPA, take steps now to build a case to the schools that you will be able to succeed academically in their program, that you are working to improve on skills that may have been lacking, and that you are mature enough to balance academics with your career. If you have a below average GPA from your undergraduate program, or low grades in specific quantitative/business classes, consider taking a course now to prove your academic skills. First, evaluate your transcript and review any grades below a C. If those grades were in calculus, microeconomics, or statistics, you may want to show that you have improved your skills. If you did not take a significant number of quantitative courses on the undergraduate level, or itâ€™s been many years since you graduated, you may also want to take courses now. Consider taking an extension course at a local college to show that you can achieve an A. Your goal is to submit updated grades that may mitigate concerns. Along with courses, think about areas of your work that require intellectual effort or analysis. Are you involved in data projects? Do you analyze projections or build budget models? If you were not a strong student in statistics or calculus, but you work with data and numbers on a daily basis, you should emphasize the challenging analysis involved in your work. The final piece to improve your candidacy in terms of academics is to submit an optional essay that explains any issues with your undergraduate transcript and describes what you have done since college graduation to improve your academic profile. If it is relevant and useful context, you could spend a bit of time on the background story of your undergraduate experience and then use the balance of the essay to explain what you have done since. For example, my student Linh experienced the death of her older brother while in her sophomore year of college, and the process of mourning left her with one semester of a C average GPA, while the semesters surrounding that time had higher average grades. Her transcript clearly demonstrated that there was in issue in her sophomore year, so I advised that she write a brief optional essay explaining why her grades slumped. Linh decided to repeat two classes before applying to MBA programs and was able to show an A in both calculus and microeconomics. In addition, she had studied hard for the GMAT and achieved a 98th percentile score in the quantitative section. By explaining her college transcript and providing evidence that she was academically capable, Linh gained admission to her top choice school.

5. GMAT or GRE Taking the GMAT or GRE as soon as possible will help you determine what schools you should target for the strongest candidacy, and will give you time to take the test again if necessary. As busy as you may be now, it will only be worse once you add essays, data forms, and recommendations to your plate. The first question to ask is if you should take the GMAT or the GRE? The majority of MBA programs accept both tests, so choose the one that gives you the best score and provides the best data for your application. The GRE is still less common for MBA applicants but gaining popularity, and the majority of the top programs accept the GRE. The first thing to do is take a practice test of both the GMAT and GRE. On which test did you perform better? If there was a clear winner, you should focus on that test. As a general rule of thumb, the quant section is easier on the GRE and the verbal is harder. If you are stronger in one area, it may be better to focus on the test that rewards that strength. A higher GMAT or GRE score is always better than a lower score, but you should keep in mind your overall quant profile when you decide. If you do not have a strong history of academic success in quantitative courses, and do not work in a quantitative field, you may need to prove your skills with the test. Preparation is essential for anyone to excel on either test, in terms of both knowledge and your mental state when you take it. In addition, taking a prep class or using a tutor can help you maintain discipline while studying for the tests. If you have already taken the GMAT or GRE and received a below average score, consider retaking it. You should consider whether you truly gave it your full effort the first time around. If you think it would be possible to obtain a higher score, it is worth retaking, as the schools will look at your highest score.

6. School Selection Most MBA programs are interested in candidates who are a great fit for the program and are excited to attend. When evaluating who should gain admission to a class, the admissions committee considers a studentâ€™s enthusiasm, familiarity with the school, and likelihood of success in the program. You can do a lot to ensure a great fit upfront by choosing schools that are truly right for your personality and aspirations. Do you enjoy being part of a large community? Look beyond the rankings to find the right school for you. Starting online will give you data to begin a list of the schools you might consider. My student Antonio came to me with a starting list of 25 schools he was interested in, based on rankings and recruiting data. He was targeting a finance career and wanted to attend a school with the best possible reputation with recruiters. I suggested that he expand his research by talking to students and alumni of each program. Antonio identified people within his network of friends, family, and co-workers, and was able to have introductory phone calls with someone who had attended each of his target schools. After asking questions about culture, recruiting experience, and post-MBA careers, Antonio narrowed his list down to 15 programs for which he wanted to attend informational sessions. After attending most of the informational sessions in his city, Antonio visited the 10 programs on his short list. After the visits, he felt the strongest fit with six programs, and he decided to focus on those programs. Because Antonio talked to dozens of students, alumni, faculty, and staff at his target schools, he was able to paint a compelling picture of how he would fit in the community. Antonio knew the classes that were most interesting to him, the professors he wanted to learn from, and the clubs and activities he expected to be involved in. These specifics were invaluable for his essays, recommendations, and interviews.

Antonio was truly able to fit his candidacy to the right schools for him. Demonstrating an understanding of what made his target schools unique and showing he was passionate about attending led him to acceptances at four of the six programs.

Executive/Online MBA candidates How do you change your approach for programs tailored for a more experienced candidate? I have worked with students who are more interested in advancing in their current role than changing careers by investing in a full-time, residential degree. Those students often choose an executive program or an online MBA. One candidate I worked with, Subha, had worked for many years at a large health care company and was interested in advancing her career in the marketing organization. She had noticed that many new hires had an MBA, and she knew that to compete for executive positions, the skills she could obtain through an MBA would be helpful to her. She had strong work experience with a history of leadership roles, but her undergraduate experience felt long ago. She was interested in finding programs that would waive the GMAT or GRE requirement, and found that with her years of experience many online programs were willing to do so. Subha enhanced her academic profile by highlighting the quantitative work she had done, and referencing her high undergraduate GPA. Subha also used her recommenders strategically. Because her goal was to advance within her own company, she had a strong case to attend a remote program while continuing to work full time. Her recommenders wrote about her strong leadership skills and potential, explaining that the skills she would gain in an MBA program would immediately enhance her career and her contributions to the company. While some criteria for executive or online programs may vary from their full-time residential counterparts, it is always a benefit to tell a compelling story about your goals and use the elements of the application to support that story.

7. Essays While it is likely too early to draft essays for your MBA application, I find that it helps to start thinking through your story for the essay section of the application. Once you have a list of target schools, take a look at the essay questions from the last application cycle. Even if the questions change, it will reveal what is most important to the school and the sort of experience they are seeking. Typical essay questions cover career goals, why you want to pursue an MBA as the next step in your life, and your leadership experiences. Along with recommendations, essays can also reveal your character. A student I worked with, Claudia, found that starting her application journey with the essays helped her uncover her own goals and motivation. Stanford was Claudia’s top choice school, and she wanted to start thinking about the essay question: “What matters most to you, and why?” This question can be challenging to most applicants, and Claudia embraced the challenge and spent time thinking about her hopes and dreams. She first talked to her friends and family about the character traits they saw in her. Their feedback helped her refine the story of a determined, stubborn, and passionate person who cared deeply about improving the lives of others. She thought about the formative moments in her life. As a second-generation immigrant in America, she felt strongly about taking advantage of every opportunity. Claudia also saw the structural disadvantages her family had faced while starting over in a new country, and realized it was an opportunity for her to improve access to education and health care for her community. Claudia’s story was bolstered by evidence that she had a passionate commitment to community service, that she had pursued an interest in public health, and that her journey was now taking her to

a future where she would lead a business using technology to improve access. This overall story was an excellent fit for Claudia’s Stanford application, and also helped her answer the other target schools’ career goals question, prepare her recommenders, and perform in her interviews. Another candidate, Victoria, started to think about her essays early because she wanted to explain a large gap in her work experience when she decided to stay home to raise her young children before they started full-day school. Victoria was also seeking an MBA to change careers. She had previously worked at an advertising agency and now wanted to develop her business acumen and work in technology, eventually planning to start her own business. Victoria wanted to get her story right, so she spent time thinking about how her career aspirations were rooted in her experiences, including raising her children. She was able to talk about both the experience of managing a household and negotiating with her family that had led her to reconsider her future goals, along with the volunteer activities she had pursued during this time. By keeping her skills sharp and telling a compelling story, Victoria created a successful narrative about her goals.

Conclusion Whether you are six months or two years away from your MBA application process, I hope that you can use these tips to start working on your overall profile and shape your candidacy. While there are many components that are required to complete an application, MBA programs view applications in a holistic manner. If you are able to target the right programs for you, and communicate clearly who you are and why an MBA is the right next step, I believe you will be successful.

About Stacy Blackman Consulting I launched Stacy Blackman Consulting (SBC) to help foster and guide the next generation of MBA innovators and professionals, and today we are a leading MBA admission advisory with a proven record of accomplishment of acceptances to the world’s top MBA programs. Year after year, our students’ acceptance letters and scholarship awards speak for themselves. SBC boasts a whole team of consultants with backgrounds as varied as the candidates we work with. Overseen by the time-tested techniques that only come with our years of experience, each SBC admissions consultant focuses solely on candidates like you getting what they want: an acceptance to business school. SBC is the preferred admissions consulting firm recommended by The Economist and has been awarded the Spectrum Award for excellence in customer service.