Walter: Starting Over on my Career Goals
June 04, 2013 :: Admissionado Team
Another day, another fantastic call with Eric. Lots of new stuff to take in. So I thought I’d share it with you all (since, well, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing).
While discussing my key accomplishments, I noticed the difference of impact when Eric told me to focus on some small moments of the story, and to elaborate on them instead of going into each and every aspect. Originally, I was focusing on what I have done and it actually reflected my strong tech experience. But as we very well know, we are all b-school applicants hence it’s important to focus on the leadership traits of the story and go into details about how we did what we did. In the “how” part, we need to focus on what our feelings were at that particular leadership moment. That’s what sets our experiences apart, and helps make our case to the adcom.
And now I need to re-think the stories from this angle. Assignment 1!
I am clear on my long-term goal, but after talking to Eric, I realized that I might not be able to go directly to my short-term goal post MBA. Maybe this was the reason why I didn’t get an interview call last year from some of the b-schools. Ultimately, b-schools want us to be employable post MBA, and our credibility for achieving our mentioned post MBA goal is an important step. This transition becomes even more interesting for career switchers. It needs to be shown how particular characteristics of post MBA jobs reflect from what was done in the past.
So now I need to re-assess my short-term goals and connect with more people. It’s fine to have slight transition from last year’s goals, but it must not be a big transition such as marketing to finance. Assignment 2 is to think about goals deeply. Very deeply.
As I mentioned in my earlier blog post, I have been a bit concerned about my lack of extra-curricular work since undergrad. I became involved with an educational venture… but at a very late stage. Something which I realized during the call is that I can connect back with the organization I worked with during my undergrad. Due to extensive travel, I’ve not been able to do that as of now, but I certainly plan to connect and seek any opportunity to help. This is Assignment number 3.
With below action steps still pending from my side, I am signing off right now.
I aim to start working in each of these areas until my next blog post:
1. Explain my short-term goals and how they connect with my long term goals. Last year, I wasn’t really clear and specific about this; explaining career detail in as much detail as possible is a critical part of the application, since a lot of schools focus a LOT on career goals.
2. Connect back with the organization with which I was involved during undergrad and seek some opportunities.
3. Continue delivering results at the educational venture I am involved with right now outside of my work.
Walter will be sharing his (re-)application journey from start to acceptance. Follow along riiiight here.
