Most people pursue an MBA to make some sort of change in their career. Career changes generally encompass a combination of four different factors: level, location, industry, and function. The more factors that you want to change, the more important it is to find the right MBA program to help you make those changes.
Here are some tips for assessing the scope of your desired career change and crafting a story that will help an admissions committee understand your motivations and goals:
Start with the end in mind.
So, you want to make a change—that’s great! You need to be able to clearly articulate what you want to change in both the short term and the long term. Doing so is important to show admissions teams that you have taken the time to research and understand the industry to which you want to move. For your short-term goal, identify a role/function at a sample company (e.g., to work as a product manager at a company like Noom, where you can better comprehend customer-focused products in healthtech). Although the role/function shows what you want to do, the sample company indicates the size of company and the industry in which you want to work.
For your long-term goal, think about where you aspire to be or what big problem you want to solve. Following our product manager example, do you want to launch your own wellness company, do you want to be the CMO of a large wellness-focused brand to help improve access to health and wellness, or do you want to increase accessibility to mental health resources?
Explain why this goal makes sense for YOU.
Many applicants ask if they need to share a personal story from their childhood to explain their post-MBA goal. The answer is “Maybe,” and it depends upon the scope of the career change. If you are looking to change two or more factors, you will need to explain why you want to make this move. This explanation can leverage professional or personal experiences to show what inspires you to make a change. If you work in consulting and want to enter the industry of your favorite project, then your work experience might be the best way to explain why. In contrast, if you want to move to fintech from consulting because of the personal investing you’ve been doing, then a personal story about how you have volunteered to teach personal finance or how you helped your parents plan to purchase their first home might be a part of your story.
Assess your transferable skills/experiences.
Start by finding a job description for your ideal post-MBA job, and then identify the skills you might already bring to that role. Have you managed or developed budgets? Managed client relationships? Built or managed a team? Your skills also can come from personal experiences—and they should if something personal is driving your goals. For example, if you want to transition to entertainment from finance, and you learned English as a child by watching TV, you might tell a story about how entertainment shaped your life and then inspired you to shape the lives of others. What’s important is to convince the admissions committee that this change makes sense for YOU. Use personal examples to showcase why, rather than talking at a high level about a general need that you see.
Define what you need from an MBA.
Leverage that same ideal job description to do a gap analysis and identify what you need from an MBA. Where do you need to grow? Identify skills that you need from an MBA to help you be successful in the role. Mental check here: is the list of what you need larger than what you bring to the role? If so, your desired career change might be something bigger than you can achieve with an MBA alone, and you might want to reassess whether this goal is the best first step for you. In such cases, identify another role you could take as a first step that would help you grow into your ideal role.
Identify programs that can best fill your skill gaps.
Consider certificates, majors, institutes, and centers that might help you hone specific skills. Look at employment reports for the specific MBA programs of interest to you to see which companies are recruiting in your industry. Talk with students and alumni of different MBA programs to understand what resources they leveraged. For example, if you are looking to move into impact investing, is there a fund you can help manage? Or if you want global exposure, what study abroad or global experiential learning opportunities are available? Explain which specific classes, clubs, or experiences you will leverage at a specific program to gain the skills you need—and therefore be employable post-MBA.
Find others who have made similar changes.
Need some more help in identifying whether your desired career path is possible with an MBA? Leverage your professional, personal, and academic networks as well as LinkedIn. Find others in your ideal role, and then investigate the path they took. If you want to create a new path yourself, present evidence that you are a path creator. If you can’t find examples of others who have tread a similar path, you might need to provide more evidence to show the admissions committee that you have done the research and have confirmed that your ideal path is possible.
Identify the best type of MBA program for you.
If you want to accelerate your career or change job levels, a one-year, part-time, or executive MBA program can help you make that transition. If you are looking to change two or more factors in your career, a full-time MBA will be more important to consider, as this program will enable you to build new skills through experiential learning opportunities and a summer internship. When making a larger change, an internship will allow you to develop skills and establish a network in your new industry or role—and can often lead to a full-time position.
Explore your options.
If you are having trouble defining your goals, spend time conducting informational interviews in industries/functions that you find interesting. Brainstorm about what elements of your current job excite you and what impact you want to make in the world. Talk with a trusted advisor or mentor to identify different options.
An MBA can be a great launching pad to a new career. The best way to make your story unique and authentic is to share YOUR story and explain why YOUR goals make sense for YOU!
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