How To Become A More Competitive MBA Candidate

In late January, we welcomed a new columnist to Poets&Quants who has been one of the best advice givers I have ever met. For the last three months, Ivan Kerbel has been answering all kinds of MBA career questions from readers--and his counsel is always thoughtful, perceptive and very sound.

As the former MBA Career Director at The Yale School of Management and Senior Associate Director at The Wharton School, Ivan has deep experience in the key success factors for students pursuing competitive MBA internship and full-time job opportunities. Ivan currently serves as CEO of The Practice MBA Summer Forum, an intensive, pre-MBA summer school held annually in Seattle for newly-admitted students. He’s also one of the most generous and kind-hearted persons you will ever meet.

Here's some of the advice he has dispensed:

Becoming a more competitive MBA candidate after graduation by following these strategies

The best thing to do, post-undergrad is to seek out challenging work that allows you to learn new skills, to experience new projects/responsibilities and work environments, and come into contact with a wide range of colleagues, clients, and customers. Focusing on how you’re personally going to impact your environment, and how you will help your colleagues succeed and your organization thrive — what will those future bullet points on your resume say about what you did at “Company X”? — may be a good way to seek out and select that job.

You can still get a recruiter’s attention even if you attend a lesser-ranked institution

The reality is that you must do the leg-work yourself to make the connections and to engage with a firm (in the absence of on-campus recruiting’s formal company presentations, coffee chats, etc.). This can take a lot more effort, and you may find that you’re learning how to do it as you go, but it may also mean you might be the only one, or only one of a few students at your school, making that sort of effort … and this, in turn, may help you to stand out. (The alternative is being one of 100s of candidates from a big MBA program who must distinguish himself or herself from a big group of peer classmates).

At the end of the day, competition for elite consulting jobs is global, and includes all schools, so there is a lot to overcome, but keep in mind that in the mix of those dozens of MBAs from a shared alma mater at any consulting firm there are plenty of outstanding consultants from programs like Simon’s … and beyond!

Working abroad is a big advantage

The simple answer is “yes”, international work experience is valued, if for no better reason than that it exposes you to colleagues, clients, customers from different cultures, as well as to different business practices and/or strategies. It can also help to work in different countries while staying with a single company (by taking advantage of a management rotational program, for example); I find that by keeping one constant the same (employer), all of differences in everything from go-to-market strategy, to more subtle differences in how meetings are facilitated, for example, tend to be that much more distinct.

Landing pre-MBA work is possible, but not easy

Any informal or project-based pre-MBA work you take on will most likely be either with a smaller, boutique firm, or with a company that does not have a formal MBA recruiting process, or both. Coming up with this arrangement is usually a matter of leveraging your own personal professional network, and/or focusing on an aspect of the industry or particular market space where you already have some domain expertise and can offer valuable work to the employer, even while expanding your own horizons and taking on a new functional role or different investment or trading activity than you have been exposed to in the past.

From my perspective, the goal is not to “get a foot in the door” with a prospective post-MBA employer, but rather to seek out tangible experience (at a company that may be too small or too focused to pursue general MBA recruiting) that you can then showcase as part of your formal MBA recruiting effort. Yes, cold-calling and cold e-mailing, in those instances in which you don’t have a personal connection, is the way to go.

Advantages of applying before four years of experience

Whether you would be a better applicant now vs. later is a trickier question to answer. If you know that you’re simply wide of the mark (by virtue of GMAT, GPA, or any other factors) in the upcoming admissions cycle, given the incredibly high benchmarks established by admitted students in prior years, then perhaps it’s better to hold off… but the only way to know that is to “get in the game” and start down the GMAT track, to take additional coursework if you need to, etc.

And, this is just a personal perspective, but I think you should not be too afraid of being “too early” or “too green” in your efforts at applying. It can sometimes work to your advantage, assuming that you come back at a later time with stronger scores, a better application, incredible impact in the jobs you’ve held in the interim, etc. Assuming that your approach (integrity and behavior) is at a consistently high, polished level from initial to later applications / years, it can be great to show the delta (closing the gap due to your perseverance and focus) from when you first applied to a later point in time.

For the best of Ivan's advice, check out PoetsandQuants.com:

Landing Your Dream Job or Internship -- The Best of Ivan Kerbel