The Final 22 for the Top MBA Blog: Vote for my Blog

I am pleased to announce that I made Ecollege's Final 22 for Top MBA Blogs in the free world. I am also almost as pleased to ask my readers to please click here to vote for the Roll Away the Dew! Voting ends March 30, 2012 at 5 pm EST. The 22 MBA blogs will be ranked to see who will be killed and eaten by the other MBA blogs. Oh, that's the Hunger Games.

I'd like to say that I haven't asked my readers for anything before and to please vote. However, 42% of my readership is a direct relative so that's not exactly true. However, I have read cousin's graduate schools essays recently so it's payback time!

If you need another reason to vote, here's an endorsement on my Facebook page:
You got my vote mainly because I only read MBA blogs that cover colonoscopies.

I dominate my niche.

MBA Admissions Season Review: Advice for Applicants

I closed the books on my 5th year of professional MBA admission consulting. Actually since everything is electronic, there is no actual book to close. Perhaps, I should say that I shut down my hard drive but that sounds like it has a double meaning.

Any readers who have weathered my digressions are probably wondering how successful the admissions season was and I would respond cryptically that my clients got into the schools that they should have gotten into. With the margin of error in the admission process shrinking like the credibility of baseball's steroid policy, that is a successful season. Especially since 80% of the applicants have reasonable shot of successful admissions. Applicants are no longer destroying their chances with essays about their most successful solo project when the question was about leading a group. However, I am an inverted sentence structure and Sesame Street voice over away from sounding like Yoda so I will get specific about how applicants can be successful or unsuccessful with their essays:

1. Your admissions consultant should not have to tell you what your career goals are: Even though schools like Harvard no longer ask about an applicant's career goals, this is still a relevant question. This question is even still relevant despite having only has four answers which are:

• I want to work in industry X with a first job of finance analyst, product manager, or marketing and advance to the Chief Office of my division
  
• I want to work in Investment Banking in order to transition into Private Equity or Venture Capital (Hedge Funds are so 2009)
• I want to work in Management consulting and then start my own business
• Some combination of the previous three bullet points

The reason schools stopped asking this question is because the bullet points above were the only answers they were getting. It no longer provided enough information to distinguish candidates since everyone figured out. Since the bar is so low, applicants need to be able to trip over it. However, I have to answer this question for at least half my clients. These are rarely my successful clients. I appreciate it's a hard question since the real answers to the career goals question are typically:

• I want to work in an industry where I can make more money than I am making now
• I don't want to work in engineering, computer programming, or yak herding anymore
• If I knew the answer to this question, why would I need an MBA?
• Some combination of the previous three bullet points

The gap between the first and second set of bullet points is where applicants can fall. Even if the question isn't being directly asked, the ability to have enough introspection to come up with the reason for an MBA provides focus and a process for answering the other questions.

2. The applicant dictates the story, not the essay questions: I commonly get asked what are the right answers to the questions or how to answer a question. That's the wrong question. Questions are an easily driven vehicle to share information. The real question is what information do you want to share? The answer is 1) example of your professional skills or your favorite work story, 2) example of your extracurriculars or what are you most interested in outside of work, 3) example of your leadership skills (since business schools still cling to the belief that they train leaders and not managers), 4) any other great story that you use in every interview or essay that you didn't fit in already. My #4 is about starting a running water project as a Peace Corps volunteer and it can answer questions such as: Tell me about a time that you failed? Tell me about a time that a project wasn't clearly defined? Tell me about a time that you encountered resistance? Tell me about an international experience? Tell me about a time that you didn't have access to modern plumbing while working with a cross-functional team?

Essays should draw from the four examples above. It doesn't take much work to make them fit into the question. For example, the following are all the same question:

• Who are you?
• What matters to you most and why?
• What is your most significant achievement?
• What has shaped your life the most?
  
• What would you tell the student body about your candidacy?
• What would you tell admissions about your candidacy?
• What would you tell a stoned cashier at Safeway about your candidacy while you are trying to decide if you should buy the raw cookie dough or the Boston Creme donuts?

These are all open ended questions which can be answered any way the applicant decides. Perhaps, the easiest way to describe every question is "What have you done with your life and why should we f#cking care?"

3. Stop being nice and start getting real. As more and more applicants are able to actually answer the essay with a writing style that doesn't resemble a Microsoft Project document, the opportunity to differentiate is to make a connection. Making a connection with admissions is just like making a connection with a new friend, coworker, or the person who asked to share your table at a crowded airport Quizno's. It's about sharing appropriate amounts of information, including an accomplishment or something that you did, and being genuine.

The most amount of personal information that you share with your table mate at the airport Quizno's is perhaps flight destination and your favorite sandwich sauce. For admissions, it's anything that you have done and why it's important to you. Don't share what happened to your friend, what your boss should have done, or philosophize about what you would like to do. What happened to your friend is their story and philosophizing about innovation or leadership is a classic mistake that applicants make when answering an essay. An essay about leadership shouldn't sound like an essay from Harper's magazine but about what you did with your team.

The threshold for accomplishments that you share is if you can explain how it's important, provided guidance for your future decisions, or shaped who you are. I think that winning a mustache growing contest while at Wharton was an awesome accomplishment but I can't explain why it's important to me without saying that it's awesome and then nodding a few times. Therefore, it doesn't meet the threshold.

Genuineness is the hardest concept for applicants (and the human race) to grasp. It involves not saying that everything turned out well and they had no regrets. We always overanalyze everything that we do and see mistakes. It's not about making catchy puns and alliterations with how your cooking hobby will help you add a little bit of thyme to your learning team. It is about talking about struggles, how they made you feel, what allowed you to overcome struggles, and what you learned from it. It's about the shades of grey in life or as Fletch would say, "Charcoal." Nothing turns out perfectly in our lives and it shouldn't in an applicants' essays.

Understanding what to Haul off the MBA admissions process

Alex Fleming wrote a post about how "Business School Admissions needs an Overhaul" My joy increased as I read it since it gave me great material for a post of my own. There are various genre of blogger posts such as the List (i.e. Top 5 ways to give yourself a Colonoscopy), the Repost (look at this funny baby and animal video where someone makes them talk about colonoscopies), and this genre of the Disagree. With the Disagree, I simply disagree with Alex's post.

Alex's premise is that the MBA admissions process needs some innovative techniques to help schools better assess candidates and render MBA admissions consultants obsolete. He attacks the essays as being prone to ghost writing and whispering by admissions consultants His suggestions for new innovation are:

1) Group interviewing which the Wharton school is piloting
2) Stealth interviewing where everyone from the Security guard to the fellow who just clogged a toilet in the men's room is a potential interviewer
3) Personality evaluation

Personally, I think that the best approach is to combine all three and have stealth group interviewers evaluate personalities. To be able to assess Alex's approach, we need to break down the MBA evaluation process into its parts

Talent Level: This is the GMAT score, work experience, and grades. Admissions simply wants to gauge academic and professional capability. This has largely already been predetermined and there is little a candidate can do to change anything in this category other than taking a quantitative class to address a major in Comparative Scandinavian Skiing and no classes that involve numbers. The best thing that a candidate can do is use this determine their safety, sweet spot, and stretch school

Community Involvement: Extracurriculars are as much a part of the MBA experience as classes and the job search. A history of extracurricular involvement is a strong predictor of future extracurricular involvement. Blinding Case of the Obvious is the group that sponsored this research. It also is likely to indicate an engaged alumni. The insightful cultural comments that I get on the rugby team alumni list serve also give me fond memories. A candidate can't change a past history of extracurriculars that includes "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" TV marathons but it truly is never too late to start. This will separate an applicant from the candidate who never does start.

Is the Candidate Clueless: This is addressed by the variety of Why do you want an MBA and what will you do with it essays. No admission consultant can make up a reason to apply for an MBA if the candidate has no idea. I have worked with candidates who tried to pick noble MBA goals but we could never get their work experience and career choices to ever tie together. The candidate who develops a sudden passion for public health can't explain why they are not applying for a Masters in Public Health. The candidate who wants to start a non-profit can't explain how the passion started with only large corporate experience and a post MBA goal of investment banking. The candidate who can't decide if they want to work in consulting or investment banking but who really wants to work in private equity can't even meet the essay word limit in a coherent way.

Schools are moving away from this question because there are only about 6 different answers that they ever see. However, a candidate who can't come up with one of those 6 will eliminate themselves from consideration.

Does the candidate have a personality: This is where the essays and interview come in and where ghost writing is also less useful. From reading the essays, does the admissions committee want to risk running to them on campus? Will they be interesting learning teammates? Are their essays littered with passions, interests, or funny stories about their past or more mundane tales about leveraging project management resources to ensure that IT met its deliverables?


What part of the MBA application process do Alex's interventions target and what do they reveal?

Group Interviews: Some think this will produce the same environment as TV's Apprentice. However, that doesn't give a lot of credit to MBA candidates who will figure out that group interviews are intended to see if candidate can play nicely with each other in the sand box. Assholes will be easy to spot but wouldn't a 1:1 interview pick up the same trait? My main criticism is that it will reduce applicants contributions to sound bites. With less air time, there isn't time for thoughtful anecdotes about one's past, hopes, and dreams. It's speed dating rather than a candle lit dinner. How will creating an artificial social atmosphere provide new information to an admissions committee and help them figure out if they have a clue or personality?

Stealth Interviews: If someone has been promoted once in their lifetime, haven't they already figured out to be nice to everyone's administrative assistant? Unless the stealth interview involves tackling the applicant, this is about as innovative as emailing a thank you note to someone as a way to differentiate yourself. I don't see how this will answer the clue or personality question either.

Personality Test: Alex's theory is that admissions should look for the same personality traits that great leaders have in MBA candidates. My first reaction was to Google search "CEO psychopath personality test" which has 91,900 hits and links like this. This solution also addresses the Talent Level category of which there is ample information. Assessing the candidate's personality in terms of how well they get along with their classmates seems like a larger opportunity. Finally, this suggests that admissions have the data capabilities and bandwidth for social engineering which I have addressed previously in this post. In summary, this addresses a need where this is already plenty of information, there are unintended consequences, and there isn't even the infrastructure in place.

Alex's post seems to be guided on a notion that admissions consultants need to be removed from the system. However, admissions and consultants seem to be developing closer relationships. As an admissions consultant, I have a vested interest in the status quo but I also don't see a need for an internal ethical reflection. Most successful applicants use some kind of external review process since they think their own poop smells like roses. That external review can be a co-worker with an MBA, a former teacher (which is what I used), or an admissions consultant. Admissions consultants fill the same niche as mail order brides. Those who can't get the quality of service they want for free, have to pay for it.

Corporate Jargon, dead yet?

The MBA admissions season is starting to tail off. As usual, I spent at least 25% of my time pulling corporate jargon out of client's essays. Words like "value extraction" or "create value" are replaced with what the person actually did. "Leverage" and "optimize" are replaced with real verbs rather than name of a TV show and a Transformer. "Tool kit" is replaced with an actual description of skills unless the person is describing a carpentry project. "Impactful" or "Impacts" is changed to the humble original word of impact. I also pull out the word unique, profound, and deeply because they are just another way of saying "very" and suggest that they use real adjectives instead.

Given that MBA admissions cracks down on corporate jargon, I wonder if this effort will eradicate impactful value streams from future MBA's vocabulary like the invasive species that it is? I had further hopes during a conference call with a vendor that was trying to cross sell us their products. Since we were on mute, we spent the call laughing at phrases like:

• To be honest with you
• As the risk of sound sales-y
• I don't want to get into the weeds
• In order to wrap your arms around this

We spent the time trying to use as many of those phrases in one sentence. The winner announced "At the risk of being honest with you, I really want to wrap my arms around this project while I am down in the weeds." These corporate jargon phrases caused the person's stock to plummet as fast as the actual stock market in August.

After these observations, I was feeling hopeful that standard English was making a come back at the expense of corporate jargon. Real words and adjectives were the new black. Or is it the new pink? My hopes were dashed after receiving this email from a current MBA student. I had expressed an interest in writing for their newsletter and this was the response that I got:

Thanks. Will be in touch. We are refining a plan based on the responses we have been getting so we can optimally leverage the talents and enthusiasm of all those interested in a high level of engagement. We would like to "share the wealth" such that the time commitment for any single individual is manageable and to have a full queue of content throughout the year to maintain momentum as each edition rolls out.

For readers who don't speak corporate jargon, the response was "We are trying to get a lot more writers so we have enough material to produce at least a few issues." FML. MBA student's writing ability is a lost cause just like Rick Santorum's hope of ever solving his Google problem.

The TV Show that Best Mirrors the MBA Admissions Process

Some would guess the Apprentice or Survior are more reflective of the MBA admissions process given their cutthroat nature, latent sexual tension, and winner take all mentality. For those who are curious about that list, yes, despite a 2:1 male/female ratio, one can generally cut the sexual tension in an MBA classroom with a food processor. However, that's a common mistake MBA applicants make. For a guide to how to approach the MBA admissions process, there is no better show than the Glee Project.

The Glee Project is a singing, acting, and dancing competition where the cast member wins a spot on the TV show Glee. It is generally assumed that the winner will play a socially awkward, downtrodden character who is an underdog who dares to dream and fight for the dreams. While most MBA applicants would like to identify with the cooler kids in school, in truth they have a lot more in common with the members of the Glee club. Thus, it makes sense that the selection process for both is a parallel as opposed to a paradigm shift (One always gets a bonus in MBA school for using buzz words like paradigm shift). Here is an episode by episode example:

• Vulnerability: In this episode, characters are expected to exhibit their vulnerability in one word. It requires introspection and brevity which are two things that are difficult for the average MBA applicant. The vulnerability is important because it shows the real side of the candidate (for both Glee and MBA programs) and allows both admissions committees a chance to understand more about them as a person. Everyone is vulnerable and has issues. The candidate who presents themselve as having never failed and expects the evaluation to be a victory lap is an incomplete candidate. The introspection that comes with identifying vulnerabilities also shows an ability to indentify true career passions and goals. This is an MBA candidate that will not have a herd mentality and truly take advantage of the program.
  


• Pairability: In this episode, the Glee Project cast pair up to perform and in some cases, kiss. MBA programs involve teams or pairs to manage work and projects. This is not exactly a stretch nor should be a surprise. The message for MBA candidates is that better essays should demonstrate team work and ability to work in teams rather than a desire to work independently and be a lone wolf.



• Believability: Characters were critiqued for trying to put on appearances and not being themselves and inviting the audience in. For the TV show, this was about connecting with the audience, creating believable characters, and not being one-dimensional. Diva-esqe characters were encouraged to show other sides, the scrappy underdog was encouraged to show that he can be a leading man, the cool, dread-locked cast member was encouraged to try using a different facial expression. The cast member who tried to be perfect was told that no one believed that she was perfect. That is an especially important message for MBA candidates as admissions will never believe that a candidate is perfect so no one should position themselves accordingly. Successful MBA candidates will show multiple sides of their personalities in their essays.



• Damian: Damian is not an episode but a cast member from Ireland with a great Irish accent and incredibly mobile eye brows. When he was really nervous, his eye brows looked like they were going to jump off his face. He was clearly identifed as not the most talented and had to scrap to not be eliminated in the final song in almost every episode. Yet he was one of the two winners in the Lake Wobegone-esque season finale. His personality was very clear and enthralled everyone despite not having the same level of talents as others. This a key lesson for MBA applicants which is the importance of showing your personality in essays. A talented personable candidate will trump a more talented candidate who comes across as too perfect.
  

All the cast members of the Glee Project were very talented with resumes that included long histories of acting, singing, and dancing competitively. Some were also ridiculously good-looking. Some had really bright blue eyes that were kind of innerving. In summary, they mirrored the MBA admissions pool for top schools (except for the bright blue eyes).

So you want to be a Product Manager?

No, you still want to be a rock star? Me, too but I'm tone deaf. Let's face it, if we didn't become astronauts, fire fighters, princesses, or vampire slayers, we all sold out our 8 year old selves. That's okay as long as you felt that you got a fair value for your soul. One relatively new career that provides fair value is product manager.

Product Manager has become a popular short-term career goal for MBA graduates to write about in their essays. I have recommended it to a few folks who are struggling with their career goals and they all seemed to like it. However, when you are struggling with the MBA career goal essays, if someone suggests being Colonel Mustard in the library with a candle stick, you consider it.

Digressions aside, product manager is a more savvy way of saying that you want to work in general management. Another option to the general management career track (which does not involve actually managing generals or even colonels) is management consulting. However, unless something in your background indicates that you can tolerate the rigor and demands of the lifestyle associated with a consulting career, it's not likely to make your essay look believable. In this example, managing even private first classes would be a rigorous enough background.

In the last five to ten years, product management departments have been created at companies, like health insurance, that did not previous have this functional area. Tech companies have used product managements since the industry was first created way back in 1991. Geek MBA 360 covers product management at tech companies very well while my knowledge is product management in health insurance. The product management position has become popular since it provides a clear accountable person or "one throat to choke" for a line of business. The fact that it's becoming a more common post-MBA destination shows how widespread it's become and how it may have peaked.

I hope that it won't go the direction of project management which is often confused with product management not only because the names sound very similar especially if you say them quickly. The demise of project management is the endless certificate options like PMP or PgMP. These certificates or license have proven to be very good predictors of tolerance for standardized tests and adult education classes and a very poor predictor of the level of quality of a project manager. They are also very good at creating an easy way for recruiters to screen out applications for positions that could attract a lot of candidates with every diverse backgrounds and many applicable skills. This type of certificate program is a significant risk for the demise of the product management position.

My tirade against project management served as an opportunity for me to both vent and juxtapose it with product management. At some companies, a product manager is very similar to a project manager as they tend to focus on implementation. These implementation product managers are more internally focused and implement new strategies, products, or decisions that someone else, usually the Sales department, made. In the case, they don't usually conduct market analysis except to validate specific decisions or build business cases since that work was already done.

What an implementation product manager will do is:

• Use bullet points because product managers know that their implementation teams won't read anything they write unless they use bullet points
• Work closely with IT or IS or Computer people Product Managers to define requirements and get sign off from business owners
• Develop and maintain documentation on decisions
• Resolve interpretations of different decisions or different documentations that may vary across departments or systems
• Product training
• Ensure that any annual processes are completed
• Work closely with internal departments on new process development
• Lots of project management
  

The work is very tangible, specific, and it's a great way to learn about how an industry works. This is a good way to enter a new industry or get training to become a strategy product manager.

A strategy product manager is definitely sexier. However, to put that in perspective, that's like saying one member of the Hell's Angels has better flossing habits than another one. The strategy product manager can generally get project managers to do the implementation work and is the one involved in the decisions for new products, geographies, or other strategies. The work includes:

• Still has to use bullet points but communications are shorter and more like "We decided to do launch a new product that will appear to niche X. The project manager will actually implement it and I will pretend that I am the project manager's boss."
• More external facing with lots of market assessment, developing market segments, forecasting market growth, and talking with customers
• Presenting to customers. The Sales folks will generally trust you in front of clients to not talk about the difficulties that the latest request will create with the billing department's invoice batch process
• Develop 3 year product plans called road maps
  
• Assess new business opportunities.
• Be the product expert and know how it should work but you will get to buy a vowel or use a lifeline with another functional area that knows the actual answer. The strategy product manager just has to know who to ask
  
• Develop very good judgment on what projects really require the strategy product manager to manage in order to be successful but won't absolutely suck away too much time

Since the grass is always greener, strategy product managers strive to be budget product managers or work at a company where the product manages their budget and is responsible for profit. That is typically called "P and L" responsibilities which stands for Profit and Loss. However, I don't know why anyone would want to be responsible for the loss. Try to find someone else to take that on so I would describe it as being responsible for just the profit.

The main difference with strategy product managers is that budget product managers don't have to beg other functional areas to free up FTE time or hours to support their products. They already have an allocated FTE time that they can spend how they choose. In the corporate world, control of budget trumps all. Whenever someone tries to assign me a new responsibility, I demand the budget and resources to cover it. No one has called my bluff and given me both which shows how much people value their budget. Therefore, I am still a strategy product manager.

Wharton Admissions to use Behavior-based Interviewing aka Late 90's Human Resource Innovation

During my latest perusal of my Wharton alumni news, I noticed the following excited announcement:

"This year Wharton MBA Admissions will be taking an innovative new approach to our admissions interview by implementing a behavior-based interview."

It also included offers to train interested alumni on this technique. Behavior-based interview was a late 90's interview technique based on the theory that past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. However, the whole premise that the past is an indicator of the future is what destroys a financial firm every 10 years.

Additionally, this provides another example of how social psychology studies tend to provide statistically significant proof of blindingly obvious human behavior. This behavior prediction model is on par with the study that stereotypes truly do impact our perception of others. Thus, the stereotype of the Fed Ex MBA is still appropriate. The reason that we have stereotypes is because they are usually true.

However, I digress. One applicant described their experience with Wharton's behavior-based interview and included specific questions. Generally, a behavior-based question asks about what you did in the past in response to difficult situations and what the results were. For example:

"Tell me about a time where a coworker told you that monkeys would fly out of their butt before they agreed with your idea. How did you respond, what did you do to get them to support your idea, what were the results, and did a monkey actually fly out of an orifice?"

I think that a behavior-based interview mainly measures how well someone answers interview questions. I have seen many an interviewee somewhat rightfully respond that they truly can't think of a time when coworkers told them that that their idea was on par with animals flying out of people's orifices. However, they would be happy to answer questions that were more directly related to the job that they were applying for, such as what is their experience developing a marketing plan.

Therefore, why did Wharton switch their admissions interviewing? This could create more conspiracy theories than Chemtrails. My ideas are:

1. They wanted to do it before Harvard or Stanford in order to not look like they just follow whatever those schools do. While intended to be a joke, this is actually probably a likely factor in the decision.

2. Their current interview technique was not yielding enough relevant new information. This is probably the main answer. Wharton, and most school's current interviews, are conversational with the idea of gleaning personality behind the paper application and selling the school to the applicant. There's only so much you can learn from an interview that is more of a victory lap for the applicant and the 30 minutes interview has limited effectiveness with convincing an applicant to turn down Stanford for Wharton.

This is the same reason that schools tend to change essay questions. The "describe an ethical dilemma" essay did not root out future rogue traders or peddlers of now toxic assets but just produced standard responses. Thus, schools dropped that essay.

Harvard actually has a rigorous interview technique where they review the application and ask follow-up questions on the essays. For example, one of my friends described in an essay how they wanted to invest in businesses with a similar business model as our local organic grocery store chain that promotes living wages and sustainability. When the Harvard interviewer grilled him on the grocery stores' wage and benefit structure and ROI on sustainability, he almost caved and responded with, "I just like the grocery store and wanted to make it seem like I think about business models while trying to figure out if I should buy local carrots or organic ones that were shipped from developing nations." As a result, Harvard gets a lot of differentiating information from applicants during the interview.

3. Wharton is trying to figure out which applicants interview well which will help Wharton's job placement statistics and ranking in magazines. Since behavior-based interviews mainly measure how well someone interviews, Wharton can screen out candidates that are not as good at corporate interviews. Thus, they will create a class that is better at getting jobs.

This is more of a conspiracy theory since MBA programs spend a significant amount of time training its students on how to interview well. Students tend to be smart enough to figure out how to answer these behavior questions and prepare enough stories in advance. I am pretty sure there's a social psychology study somewhere that proves this.

The MBA Admissions Consulting Season in Review

About 7 posts or 2 months ago, I had threatened to hibernate due to the upcoming MBA admission consulting season. Round 1 deadlines have long ended and most applicants have some idea of their fate or at least the fate of their MBA applications.

Here is what I can share about the 2010 admissions seasons in review:

• Clients are asking a lot more questions: I could no longer pass myself off as all knowing and all wise merely because I had successfully applied to business school during an era when AOL email addresses still had significant market share. Clients questioned my lack of focus on the importance of grammar or why one of their stories showed personality while another was just pontificating like a Harper's essay. While I would prefer that clients think I was wise and all knowing, I gave them a lot of credit for some of their questions. Since I was always very deliberate with my feedback, I usually satisfied them. For anyone considering working with an admissions consultant, I would invite questioning and scrutiny of the consultant's analysis up until a few days before the deadline. However, once you are that close to the deadline, the scrutiny looks like resistance to submit. There is also greater risk of rewriting your drafts in a late night flash of apparent brilliance that does not look as good in the morning light.
• Admissions really has a holistic approach: Clients who work in more technical areas have projects where every line of code or test scenario matters . The admissions process is much more of a big picture with broad brush strokes. That's why grammar doesn't really matter since the admissions review won't get at that level of detail. Admissions truly uses an 80/20 review process where they glean 80% of the necessary information from 20% of the application. However, what that 20% of the application includes will always vary based on the applicant so there is no formula to capture it. Main takeaway is to focus on larger themes in essays and not ponder punctuation.
• I now know how recommendations do not matter: In my previous posts, I have classified the recommendations as the most useless part of the application. Writers and applicants spend a disproportionate amount of time based on the value that they contribute. I would climb up on my bully pulpit (aka this blog) to urge schools to reduce the amount of effort it takes to complete them. However, from reviewing some recommendations, I now understand their role. They are supplementary to themes in the essay. Recommendations can really bring some of your characteristics to life and help admissions really see what an applicant is truly like. However, they will not add anything that's not already in the essay or they won't be be believed. They're basically like the movie version of the book. The book is always better and if the movie doesn't follow the book, we just assume excessive artistic license.
  

Hibernating for the MBA application season

All my faithful readers (Hi Mom, Dad, Halley, and Uncle Danny!), have noticed that my blog posts have slowed from their raging torrent to more of a trickle. That's because MBA applicants have started to work on their applications and it's been a busy start for admissions consultants. Therefore, I've decided to declare some form of hibernation for this blog while I spend the next month or two shredding essays on leadership, teamwork, and other lofty MBA goals, words counts, and the occasional self-esteem of the future MBA class of 2013.

The application environment has shifted as more candidates are using some sort of skilled or professional reviewer. This does not mean that everyone is using admissions consultants or an applicant is at a disadvantage if they do not. I don't use anxiety to sell. What it does mean is the days of sending your essays to your parents to review for a comma adjustment here and there are done. There is enough information on the web and people can access skilled reviewers. As a result, essays are consistently more coherent, tightly written, and better answer the questions.

In order to not leave applicants or readers lost and without any guidance in my blogging hiatus, here are some tips that I can share about the early MBA application season:

1. Current MBA students typically give bad advice: MBA students are focused on being accepted by employers and have forgotten what they did to be accepted by business schools. Business schools look for different criteria than employers. Employers like to hear business jargon, a detailed explanation of your investment philosophy, or your strategic planning capabilities. MBA programs want to hear about how you will be a contributing member to the class in your essays. Every MBA question is some variation of "Who the f#ck are you and why do we care?" not "Here's a case study. What framework would you use?"
   
2. MBA admissions look at work history and academic performance to guess how smart or successful you will be. Therefore, the essays are for describing you as a person. If your hopes, dreams, rises, and falls in your essays all center around leveraging your life mission towards creating organization value that maximizes risk and return, you either have been very focused on an MBA since you were 12 years old or will come across as a complete tool. Or more likely, both.
3. Achievements move the essay along but are not the primary focus. MBA applicants have generally been very successful compared to their peers. As a result, most of their interviews are more like victory laps where they expect questions like, "Really, tell me what you did next! How did you escalate the project plan to achieve the next milestone?" MBA admissions want to know what that achievement actually meant to your personal development and the emotional connection should be slightly more developed than "Everyone appreciated my contribution." The focus is how the achievement shaped you in to who you are today and not about admiring it like a wedding centerpiece.
4. No cliches. If your essay ends with something like, "This experience taught me that it was about the journey not the destination," there are a few outcomes all of which are bad. 1) That sentence is true for 99% of the applicant pool and you did nothing to distinguish yourself from the masses. 2) If the reader thinks that's actually a plot twist, then you lost them a long time ago.
   
5. You will not get denied due to your recommendations. Actually, that's not completely true. If your recommender answers 50% of the questions with, "So's your face," then you might get denied. Or if you use a generic To Whom it May Concern form or some of those universal recommendation forms that's floating around, you might get denied. Nothing tells a school that based on your careful research, they are clearly your top choice like using a generic form that says, "I'm applying to so many schools, I can't even keep track."

Happy MBA application season everyone.

In Response to Admissions Crisis, MBA Programs Announce Plans to Become Too Big to Fail

It has not been a good year for MBA programs. It's towards the end of the admissions seasons with another drop in applications and business schools are getting buffeted by the aftershocks of the economic earthquake. Failed management consultants are trying to revive their careers by cranking out paint by numbers anti-MBA articles. Visa problems have cut back the international pool and financial scandals have resulted in the school's reputations taking a beating not seen since the Buffalo Bills last qualified for the Super Bowl.

Business School deans have noticed an impact on their personal lives.

Harvard's dean commented that his daughter burst into tears at the dinner table because her friends made fun of his profession. "She asked me why I couldn't be more like her friend Cindy's dad," the dean complained, "Cindy's dad runs an internet porn site!"

Wharton's dean recanted his experience at his son's career day at his elementery school. "As soon as I mentioned that I worked at a business school, some kids in the front row threw quarters at me and chanted 'Bail Out! Bail Out!' The first question that I got asked was isn't a golden parachute too heavy?"

This has resulted in a crisis of confidence. Applicants were pulling out their applications and submitting them to law and medical even veterianarian programs. This drop in applications can have a severe impact on the MBA program's acceptance rate. If the acceptance rate drops below a certain threshold, this triggers a call for collateral by magazines that produce business school rankings or else schools are dropped a tier in the rankings. For example, if Harvard's acceptance rate increased from 8% to 20%, US News and World Report could require an increase in advertising rates or otherwise Harvard would become a second tier school.

MBA deans denounced the run on their applications and blamed their liberal arts colleagues for spreading rumors. In the jungle of the academic world, these MBA deans have not lost their resourcefulness. When the going gets tough, the tough make deals. Therefore, the deans of Harvard, Wharton, Columbia, Kellogg, Stanford, MIT, Chicago and Tuck announced that they would all merge into one business school that would be called "Too Big To Fail (TBTF)" until Kellogg's Marketing Department could come up with a better name.

"Like all good marketers," commented one Kellogg professor, "we're going to start with a good acronym and figure out a name from there. The main acronym that we're considering is FUBAR." Upon hearing that news, Duke's Fuqua Business School immediately claimed trademark infringement.

TBTF or FUBAR ran into some initial problems during the organization process. They invited the country of Columbia instead of Columbia University to their kick off meeting. "Like half of the people who apply to Columbia don't make the same mistake," fumed the Tuck dean when confronted.

When asked how the merging of the same business schools would correct the MBA business model, MIT's dean commented, "It's about improving efficiency. We've all come to terms with the fact that no one really thinks there is any difference what so ever between our programs. Students generally apply to all eight schools. Companies generally recruit at all eight schools. If you want a top business school, you'll generally be happy with an employee or education from any of these programs. Sure some will claim that Chicago's better for finance or Harvard's better for leadership or they just felt there was a good fit at Tuck. However, there is much difference between tomato and basil pasta sauce or just plain tomato pasta sauce or Prego or Ragu as there is between any of our programs.

The dean continued, "There will also be improved efficiency as no one will have to spend time deciding if Columbia is a better program than Chicago or if Stanford is better for venture capital than Wharton. Look, you say tomato, I say tomato, all eight programs are the same damn school. We should have merged 20 years ago."

When asked about the MIT dean's comment, the Harvard dean sniffed and said, "That's why we generally don't let MIT people interact with the public. Our merger will create significant syngeristic streams by leveraging our enterprise platforms to create added value for all segments of consumers. Shotgun writing the case study!" The Tuck dean whooped and shotgunned a can of Miller High Life in agreement while the Wharton dean rolled his eyes and mock vomited in the Chicago dean's brief case.

Response from the rest of the MBA programs was swift. Darden announced that they will cement their position as the most rigorous and hardest working MBA program by not allowing their students to wear shoes and limit daily calorie consumption to 2,000.

Yale attempted to merge with their law school but in the haze and confusion wound up really merging with their School of Forestry. This turned out to be a surprisingly serendiptious combination as all students went into the woods to find trees to hug. Berkeley's Haas program sent out a letter to Yale requesting a three-some next year.

"A three-some is a common merger term," fumed the Berkeley dean to a room of giggling reporters.

If Networking is still the New Black, why are people still Bad at it?

There is a typical format to the job search blog post. It starts with a paradigm shifting title like, Everything that you are doing with your job search is wrong or Your resume is just uncomfortable toilet paper. The advice in the post is typically a combination of 1) Create a profile on Linked In, 2) Monitor your on-line presence by Google searching yourself and enhance it with a blog, 3) Use Twitter to meet new people and find job postings, and 4) Network, network, network since most jobs are filled before they are posted.

Hardly paradigm shifting suggestions, hardly the new black or even a shade of gray (charcoal?) Although I give credit to one job search blogger for the good idea of using Linked In to connect with people at companies where you want to work as opposed to just connecting with people you already know.

Considering the number of posts about the perils and issues of Job Boards like Monster or Career Builder, I guess that some of the advice is actually paradigm shifting for job searchers, especially those who have not had to look for a job for a while. I personally thought that most job searchers know not to really rely on job boards but maybe my MBA program taught me a lot about job searching.

Joshua Waldman knows a lot about using Linked In and there are many declared Twitter experts out there, although this is my personal favorite posts for the links. I can put my stake in the ground for #4 networking due to the following story. I spent half of a 2004 job search doing a lot of networking that culminated in a regrouping session with a partner at a public relations firm after an opportunity fell through. Six years later, I sat across the desk from the same partner to hire his firm for some work despite their price being higher than the competition. It's a beautiful karmic example of how you'll never know which struggling job searcher will hire your firm in the future. Therefore, I will not only talk to anyone about job searching but I'll be sure to follow up with them after we're done talking.

That's my claim to expertise despite the fact that I happily eat lunch alone almost every day. That's because I enjoy inhaling my food and getting mayonnaise on my beard. However, from the networking mistakes that I have seen recently, I may be in the 90th percentile despite a tendency to get condiments on my facial hair.

The Bad:
The lack of following up: I'm surprised by the number of people who email me that they would like to schedule some time to talk or have coffee and never follow-up. In some cases, I've sent 2-3 emails with my updated availability and they've never finalized a time. If they emailed once and never followed up, I understand that things change. However, multiple requests with no follow-up is just a waste of time since I'm not going to do that much for someone that unreliable at even scheduling a meeting.

Too much following up: On the flip side, a weekly follow-up about a job application status in my department makes someone seen to desperate with too much free time. There's obviously a balance.

Give the full picture: I had great conversations with some job searchers who were looking for positions at my organization. I saw that they would be a perfect fit in a certain department, sent their resume to the manager, and was told that they had interviewed for a job last year and been denied. All I can say to the manager at that point is, sorry for wasting your time.

If the job searcher had told me about their application history with my organization, I could have told the manager about new skills gained, reasons to give them a second chance, or at least mentioned that they shaved their beard so there wouldn't be any food on their face.

The Good: (The sun just came out so I have got something positive to say, too)
Don't just network when you need something: The toughest thing for all of us is to block out free time for reaching out to people in your network rather than do work. I'm impressed with people who take the time to remember birthdays and send greetings. It's such a great, easy personal touch but I'm too inconsistent with birthday calendars to ever pull it off. The holiday season turns me into too much of an anti-establishment curmudgeon to send non-sarcastic holiday newsletters. I am good about updating people about when I change jobs and sending articles that might interest them. My best talent is being organized enough to reach out to someone a few weeks in advance before hitting them up for a favor. I grease the wheels, but that's about it.

Close the loop at organizations: Whenever I reach out to someone at an organization or apply for a job at an organization wherever I have a contact, I make sure that my contact knows. As a result my contact is at least prepared or possibly even ready to advocate if asked about my interests or intentions. At worst, I'll avoid a "that's strange that Deadhedge contacted you. I have no clue what he's got in mind" response if my contact is asked about me.

Someone who I worked with at a previous organization did this closing the loop when he applied to a job at my current organization. I didn't think poorly of him when I worked with him but I didn't think highly of him either. He got my phone number through a mutual contact and called me. After a mundane talk, he turned me into an advocate just because he cared enough to reach out to me.

We are all pretty easily flattered so decent networking and outreach will go a long way.

Start Up the MBA Job Search Right

Two weeks ago there was a little bit of an on-line smackdown about MBA's job searching efforts in the start-up field and how they approach companies. Charlie O'Donnell wrote how he has experienced many mediocre outreaches by MBA's who are interested in working in the start-up arena and what they can do differently. An Harvard Business School student, Rafael Corrales responded with a post about the number of MBA's who are doing well in the start-up arena. I found all this on Sam Huleatt's blog where he wrote a measured response that shows a very good third way as an alternative to the arguments.

Now that we have the players assembled, here are the plot twists. O'Donnell and Corrales are really making two separate arguments and both are mostly right. MBA's are approaching O'Donnell with the pick up line equivalent of "Can I borrow a quarter so I can call my mom and tell her that I found the perfect girl?" and he offers advice on how to develop some game. Corrales talks about MBA's working in the start up arena that are probably not talking to O'Donnell.

It's similar to the Pacific Northwest argument where we complain that Californians who move to our beloved forests are resource-sucking, horn-honking jerks who drive up housing costs. However, the counter argument is that Californians who have not moved to the Pacific Northwest are sophisticated entrepreneurs who spend their time trotting the globe rather than navigating our mountain roads. Same argument but different people. It also reminds me of the old joke, "What's the difference between a b!tch and a ho? A ho does it with EVERYONE. A b!tch does it with EVERYONE but YOU." With that joke, I'm not sure who would be the b!tch and who's the ho.

My b!tch and ho joke are about my only contribution to O'Donnell's post and other MBA responses. If I were on Jeopardy and the categories were Famous Scandinavian Military Leaders, Engineering Equations that start with the letter E, 16th Century Russian Literature, and The Start-up World and MBA's, I would buy a vowel.

Since I have high expectations of my blog posts, I am certainly not going to stop with a few links, my kneejerk opinion, and a joke or two. What I do know is the MBA admissions process and MBA experience and I can provide that kind of insight from this argument. After all, MBA admissions and experience are two of my more common tags. O'Donnell's post and subsequent responses from mostly MBA's do offer a valuable lesson on how MBA's can waste a lot of time on a poorly planned job search strategy. Here's what current and aspiring MBA's can learn.

First, O'Donnell is right. MBA's like us have been following the herd to trendy industries ever since the first herd of wildebeests thundered across the hot and humid Locust Walk on Penn's campus. We take valuable time out of our career game plan to just check out the Venture Capital sector or the Start-up arena or whatever the latest hot industry is. The thought is that Hot Industry X looks like a great field so why not do a little networking and maybe we'll catch that hail merry pass and get lucky with a job offer?

That approach is similar to trying out for an NBA team because there might be a chance that our jump shot might be on fire that day. However, that time spent in that NBA try out is time that our more focused classmates are spending on finding a job in the industry where will most likely want to work. We fall behind to those classmates and risk missing opportunities that have a much more likely chance of success. The time spent trolling in hot industries hoping to snag something is wasted time.

Second, Corrales is right. There are some very smart MBA's that the herd is usually following. Being on Learning Team's or working with these really smart MBA's has helped me understand how an average NBA player feels playing with or against Kobe Bryant. That average NBA player was always the best on their team, has talent, and works hard. However, Kobe is always one step ahead. We always feel like we can hold our own on the business case team with the smart MBA but they are always a few steps ahead.

What this means for aspiring and current MBA's is that unless we the Kobe Bryants of our class, we should not waste time trying to get lucky in the hot industry of the year. Instead spend time getting a job in the industry where you really want to work and have a realistic opportunity. That is why the "What do you want to do with an MBA" essay is a really useful exercise and where I spend the most time with applicants. For example, a good portion of applicants have short-term career goals of management consulting and a long-term career goal of starting their own business. I ask the following questions:

Why not start a business now instead of going into consulting?
How will consulting help you start your business?
Why not work for a corporation?
Have you ever done anything similar to starting your own business or anything that would make you think that you would enjoy it?
What kind of business do you want to start or what's your idea?

For those candidates who stumble over those questions, I suggest that we think about what they really think more before starting the essay. That time spent thinking and writing this essay will save lots of times during an MBA program by having a focused career path.

College and the MBA: Not Dead Yet

Penelope Trunk's blog is one of my guilty internet reading pleasures. I balance out reading her posts about a train wreck personal life and deliberately controversial advice by reading Fred Wilson's thoughtful venture capital blog.

Trunk's latest post on the value of a college education led me to think about the topic since I promote education as an admission consultant for MBA programs. Trunk's post proposes that the availability of information on the internet and work experience available through social media has resulted in private colleges no longer being worth the cost when measured by job placement. She attacks college career centers which is kind of like going after the punter, the smallest player on a team, in a football game.

Trunk linked to Ben Casnocha's post on the topic which analyzes other aspects of the college experience besides job placement including the arguments against "signaling" studies. Google couldn't find the original researcher for me but the signaling theory is essentially that someone who is motivated to achieve the highest or most prestigious education sends a signal to future employers of their skills or level of motivation. All in other words, it's why someone will hire a Harvard MBA over a less recognized program even though they study the same material.

The drivers that resulted in this discussion are:

• Colleges may be pricing themselves out of the market: Colleges have joined health care as the two industries whose costs have increased at twice the rate of inflation for too long. What was once thought to be a very inelastic, price-insensitive market is starting to stretch.
  
• Colleges have more competitors: Performance in college had been the best way to evaluate the capabilities of an 18-22 year old who doesn't have a great jump shot or can't run the 40 yard dash in under 4.5 seconds. It's measurable, can be benchmarked, and takes 4 years. The 4 years is actually probably the more important piece because it requires sufficient dedication and reliability to complete a degree. Peace Corps used to require a college degree (or 5 full-time years in one profession like farming) mainly because if someone spent 4 years and finished college, they were more likely to finish their 2 year Peace Corps assignment. Now, college has more competitors. People in their 20's can demonstrate their website portfolios that show similar levels of commitment and talent as a college degree. Additionally, community colleges have done very well with focused vocational programs and raising their reputation.
  

However, while a college degree or graduate programs are being questioned, this will still be the dominant destination for people in their 20's because:

• People will college degrees are more likely to be employed and make more money: Data shows that you are twice as likely to employed if you have a college degree compared to a high school diploma. Sure Bill Gates dropped out of college and did pretty well but can you think of anyone else who doesn't have a good jump shot or crossover dribble?
• Social Media careers have their limits: My standing comment on posts that worship social media like a golden calf is to ask about social media market penetration. Does even 5% of the Western world use twitter? Do 10% of the Western world blog and do 20% read blogs regularly? Until social media reaches double digits as a distribution channel, it won't even replace direct mail. It will receive a few percent of the budget from direct mail but that won't fund too many positions. The conversion rates and ability to track response may look cool but you'll still reach the largest audience with Google or traditional methods. Social media needs more volume for it to become as viable a skill as the critical thinking of a liberal arts degree.
  
• As do web portfolios: As far as web portfolios, the danger is that they are made by people in their 20's and can contain career killer content like calling a business WTF Consulting or writing articles like this (note the comments section). If anyone has any Generation Y web portfolios that reflect the equivalent effort as a college thesis, please send them to me and prove me wrong. Most web portfolios that meet this threshold are written by older individuals that well, have college or more advanced degrees
  
• The Value of an MBA: To bring this back to my secondary job of MBA admissions consulting, the MBA degree still is the best options in two areas. First and foremost, it is the best option to career switch into a business sector due to the dedicated 2 years to learn a new field, get internships, and access to companies. Career coaches have told me that you can switch industry or function but never both without an MBA or industry specific training. Second, it provides the most job training of any non-licensed (like medicine) graduate degree as students learn about how to write resumes, interview, and other nuts and bolts of job finding. There are other advantages, such as networking, access to alumni, and "signaling" that I described above. However, the first two are aspects of the MBA that will survive the disappearance of the investment banking industry or the competitors that colleges are facing. It's possible for an MBA program to price itself out of the market but the other options for these two aspects have not yet emerged.
  

The MBA Arms Race

During one of my first weeks at Wharton in 2001, I remember a second year telling us how one of their classmates really made an impression at recruiting events. That enterprising classmate got business cards from people that he met during information sessions, sent a follow-up email thanking them for their time, and was very succesful during the recruiting season.

You can imagine the impact of telling an entire class about sending thank you notes. I am sure that company representatives began to dread returning to the office to find their email system frozen due to the sheer volume of nearly identical, "Thank you for taking the time to describe your career path while I smiled and nodded with a deer in the headlights look on my face." I noticed that company representatives started to "forget" their business cards. Some probably changed their out of office message to, "Thank you for your thank you. I enjoyed standing in an awkward circle with you too!"

This is an example of the MBA arms race where MBA's steadily send more thank you's, ask for more recommendations, retake that GMAT, volunteer more, cap their teeth, color their hair, or do whatever the previous class did to get ahead and add to it. Some help MBA's get accepted or get the job while some perepetuate this path of mutually assured destruction where you do more and expect less.

Which of these really matter or which are noise in the machine?

Thank you notes: One of my humble classmates turned out to be an absolute all star with the consulting industry. After the interviews were over, she was the only who turned the hat trick and had offers from Bain, McKinsey, and BCG. While we were at the same lunch table, she was going through her bag and a pile of business card fell out. She looked up at us and said, "Oh I still have to send thank you notes to all these people who interviewed me. Do you think that I can just send the same thank you note to all of them?"

The concept of a thank you note hasn't changed whether it's delivered on monogramed stationary with raised gold lettering or through your picklesniffer@hotmail email address that you had since 8th grade. It can show that you are still sufficiently interested to want to keep lines of communication open but main are just about being polite and saying thank you. When organizations have test scores, resumes, recommendations, background checks, google searches, and behavioral interviews to assess everyone, do they really need another piece of information that is tangentially related to the job or graduate program?

Thank you notes are really about what your mother told you they were for. To be polite.

Volunteering and Extracurricular Activities: After getting good grades at a fancy institutions and finding success at a well-known company, MBA's eventually came to the same conclusions that admissions committees did. There are a lot of people with similar credentials. But some of those people used their free time to play a sport at a competitive level, folk dance, or breast feed orphaned goats. Others used their free time to watch every episode of Seinfeld. All are noteworthy achievements but admissions chose to value those who studied hard, worked hard, and found time to pursue outside interests and contribute in focused, chosen extracurriculars. Some applicants feel that this is outside the scope of an MBA program or that they can't make time due to their job. However, extracurriculars are a big part of the MBA experience and they are competing with others who have made the time.

Taking Quantitative Classes: In the last few years, applicants who majored in East Timor Poetry, minored in the bag pipes, and whose only demonstrated application of math was figuring out tips at restaurants have explored taking accounting or statistics classes to demonstrate their quantitative ability. Some will retake certain business classes where they got a B or C. Some take classes because they figure that it will show admissions that they're serious about the business school thing. In reality, the only good reason to take business or quant classes to help with your application is if you really never took a class with numbers in undergraduate and the quantitative section of your GMAT is below the school's average. MBA programs are just looking for a demonstration of mathematical aptitude, they don't need to see a cult-like dedication.

Retaking the GMAT: The GMAT is the most quantitative part of the application which is why applicants want that number to be as high as possible. Since I graduated, I have watched a 700 GMAT score go from being a great score to being a good score. It's the worst case of inflation that I've seen outside of Zimbabwe. The key is that 700 is a good score or whatever the 80th percentile is. Even 670 is within a standard deviation of 700 so it's close enough. If you are thinking of retaking the GMAT if your score is anywhere near these numbers, your time would really be better spent watching Seinfeld re-runs.

However, if your score is below the school's average after 2 tries, you do need to take the GMAT a 3rd time to show the school that you tried. Stopping after 2 tries with subpar scores is like not running out a ground ball in baseball.

I have read some accounts where companies that ask for your GMAT score claim that it should be a 700. Personally, I think that's used as a convienent excuse to reject someone instead of telling them that they failed the airport test or that they just weren't into them.

Pre- MBA internships: This is more about the job search but this seems to be a new part of the MBA experience. Back in my MBA days, if you could rule out consulting or banking by October, you were in good shape. Today, some first years have a pretty focused game plan by the time they've they've finished their beer at their first MBA kegger.

The advantage of a having a game plan in place early (like knowing that you want to do pharmaceutical marketing on the west coast or corporate finance in the midwest) is you can spend more time networking with companies and researching than your classmates who are still trying to figure out the difference between venture capital and hedge funds. However, there is nothing wrong with actually using the 1st semester to figure out which industry you want to work. You will have access to a wealth of information in the form classmates, employer sessions, and free time to develop an excellent game plan. The key is to not get distracted by bright and new shiny employers or industries that you learn about. Figure out what is most important. If you hate airports, than traveling for consulting will still suck no matter how appealing that employer session was.

Now what is a pre-MBA internship and is this a new development in the arms race? A pre-MBA intership is really just a short-term consulting project or finding someone that you can shadow to learn about an industry or a company. You would probably quit your day job a few months early. The main value comes from demonstrating that you're serious about the industry or making connections at the company.

I would be highly skeptical that you will actually do meaningful work. The first 2 weeks of the intership would be spent on introductions to people and systems. Next 2 weeks getting a project which leaves possibly 4 weeks to actually do some work. For a post MBA employer to be impressed, one would have to assume that they place no value on the MBA training but solely value that the school accepted you. While this may not be a stretch, the company probably wouldn't admit it.

The main value of a pre-MBA internship is demonstration that you are serious about a chosen field. However, this could be accomplished with a consulting project during the first semester via school clubs, field trip to corporate offices, or tattooing the company's logo to your arm.

Summary: The only development in the MBA arms race that I've seen with a strong influence an MBA application or the job search has been extracurricular activity or volunteering. With my clients, the ones who surprise me by not getting accepted tend to be weak in this area. Likewise, the clients that surprise me by getting accepted, tend to have strong demonstrated interests and a track record with extracurriculars. They aren't necessarily Olympic volley ball players but rather social chairs of their local club team.

Thank you notes (or even thank you carrier pigeons) and Pre MBA internships don't have an impact (although as my mother would agree, you should send Thank you notes to uphold rules of etiquette and to be a nice person) and quantitative classes or retaking the GMAT have their occasional place.

What have others seen with the MBA or job search arms race? What new things do you see candidates doing and do you think that it's effective?

Deciding between MBA programs

For those who have been accepted at multiple MBA programs, some are still deciding what program to attend. Some struggle bicoastally between Harvard and Stanford, some are stuck in the middle with Chicago and Northwestern, or some debate between extremes with small rural Dartmouth (Tuck) and large urban Wharton. A lot of the decisions are between schools with less prestige and a scholarship vs a more prestigious school.

My MBA decision process was truly a demonstration of the bliss of ignorance. Due to my pursuit of a pretty unique dual degree of a joint Masters in Social Work-MBA, my predetermined choices were Wash U in St Louis, Michigan, Chicago, and Wharton. I had never seen an MBA rankings list before applying. Nor was there a Masters in Social Work ranking system but that wouldn't have existed since most social work schools would reject such a hierarchical competitive exercise in favor of a strengths-based approach that provides positive affirmation for all. When the application dust settled, I was wait listed at Wash U and Michigan and accepted at Chicago and Wharton. Since Chicago never resonated with me, the choice of Wharton was pretty easy. If I had been accepted at Michigan, it would have been a very tough decision since I really enjoyed my visit and had a great conversation with a professor who taught at both the Social Work and MBA program. Rankings would have not factored in my decision since I knew that both schools were prestegious and I didn't need Wharton's additional prestige for my career plan.

However, through my work in admissions consulting and war of words on the Business Week Forums, I've come out of the woods and learned about the issues with deciding between MBA programs and whose advice is helpful. Outside advice is not necessarily helpful those who are deciding between a local, more affordable option and a more prestegious national option. Those are highly personal, case by base decisions, where it depends on the career game plan, and finances, attachment to the local area.

For decisions between schools within the national Top 50 programs, I have developed a framework and have gotten some experience with evaluating how much r squared of value you get with each additional ranking position. Well, if I went to Chicago, I would have gotten down to that r squared level, but I've just got bullet points:

• No need to shed a tear, it's all about tiers: Alex Chu of MBA Apply (disclosure, I work with Alex) had a blog post which outlined the tiers nicely. For the top 50 programs, they can be divided into 4-5 tiers in addition to the top international schools of Insead and LBS. The only consensus that generally emerges about rankings is around the tier approach. Companies generally recruit by tiers and geography so this approach has practical applications.
• What if I really like rankings?: MBA's like clean numbers that allow them to quantify subjective topics. For some it is hard to ignore the data that rankings provide. Ignoring rankings can be like telling yourself that you're not going to finish the whole cylinder of Pringles potato chips. Given that MBA's are drawn to numbers like Brittany Spears is drawn to questionable decision-making, rankings must matter to someone, right? In the end, the exact rankings really only have an impact on the East Coast or MBA-dominant industries like consulting or banking. That part of the US and those industries contain most of the ranked schools, its participants are actually aware these rankings exist, and they are filled with competitive people that actually might care.
  
• How does this help me pick a school?: Focus on the tier and know what companies will recruit in what tier. Keep in mind that it should just be where you want to work after graduation but where you may want to work long-term. Going to the highest tier you can is a career safety net. If you are accepted to multiple schools within a tier, pick the one with your favorite curriculum, weather, or where you met that really hot woman or guy during Welcome Weekend. From a typical company stand-point, there is little difference between Columbia, Chicago, and Northwestern. If you're in the east coast at heavy MBA recruiter, they will be aware of the difference in rankings. However, if a recruiter wants to be take seriously, they are not going to make the case to select one candidate over another because their school is one point ahead in the rankings of Agricultural Economics and Farm Implements Magazine. It's hardly a compelling argument.
  
• What happens when they offer scholarship money?: It is inevitable that when a student is accepted at schools in different tiers than the school in the lower tier will offer scholarship money. Admissions programs have been doing this for a long time, admissions standards don't change a great deal so schools are probably very good at identifying students that need to be incented with scholarship money. In general, I advise students to stay within the best tier that they can. An MBA has a lifespan of 20-30 years. The scholarship money fades in the long run. There have been some arguments that an MBA has a limited life cyle before it become strictly about your accomplishments. However, there have been lifetime earnings studies that show how tiers impact income over 20 years. 6 years out of Wharton, my MBA still follows me, especially when I change jobs. Senior managers have liked the fact that a Wharton MBA works for them since that makes them look smart. In general, my co-workers assume that I'm smart until I do something to prove them otherwise. Finally, a recruiter will not got criticized for hiring a fancy MBA so it makes you a safer hiring bet in the long-term.
  
  

Just like Screwing for Virginity: MBA's and Retraining

A NY Times article has been making the rounds called, "Is It Time to Retrain Business Schools". The article points out how most of the Financial Company CEO's have MBA's and their ability in terms of leaderships and strong ethics ranks along with a monkey's ability to refrain from flinging its own poop. There is a feeling that MBA programs focus too much on analytics and not on the big picture application. To balance the article out, it mentions some curriculum where business schools try to integrate analytics into the business context so students can better apply these principles or emphasize leadership and ethics.

With regards to CEO's Behaving Badly having MBA's, that's more of a consequence of finance being a lucrative and popular field recently. If yak breeding suddenly developed a huge arbitrage opportunity, MBA's would replace their financial calculators with the Farmer's Almanac.

Business schools have been placing big bets on becoming experts in teaching leadership and ethics ever since I graduated. However, their ability to accomplish this is under attack and rightfully so. I think that MBA programs need to admit they cannot teach leadership and ethics and give up this tactic. One notorious Wharton student essay in the leadership class compared practicing leadership in a classroom to masturbating in order to become a better lover. Teaching leadership and ethics is falling into the realm of fighting for world peace or screwing to keep your virginity.

Despite all these efforts around leadership and ethic development, business schools have nothing tangible to show for it. From my admissions essay reviewing, the leadership and ethics essays tend to be the easiest for applicants to write as they are cookie cutter with a blindingly obvious approach. Thus, the essays fail as far as being an effective tool for screening for leadership or ethical potential. Most leadership opportunities in business school essentially involve leading your peers in consulting projects, learning team assignments, or to strip clubs. However, business school students are remarkably homogeneous in terms of work style and motivations. In most situations, someone has to lead a diverse group of education, backgrounds, work style, incentives, etc. While MBA students are a diverse group ranging from citizens of former Soviet republics who work in oil fields to blue blooded bankers to Save the Whales non-profit gurus, their learning approach, incentives, and approach to problems is all very similar. Thus leadership exercises become a demonstration in self-pleasuring (okay I have to stop with the sexual references. I still think that I am writing a dating post).

With ethics, MBA programs introduce the topic, have a class, and there is often really fun philosophical discussions. However, implementing ethics into the business world is a larger more societal issue. I work in a non-profit Catholic health care system so my ethical direction from my organization is very clear. To make it even clearer, a nun works 50 feet away from me. Someone has to evaluate their ethical framework every day in a new situation. Therefore, a class 5 years ago is not going to provide the knowledge for each specific situation. For example, I will sometimes attend competitor sessions or use their applications to research their products and performance. Each time that I do it, I have to conduct a different ethical review based. I barely remember my ethics class let alone having any tools from it. I would rather just ask the nun.

It's time for an Exit Strategy. Human Resources bloggers are talking about what their industry is really good at in light of a recent critical article and it's time for MBA programs to take the same approach. I think that schools recent curriculum reforms are moving in the right direction but it's time to cut losses.

1. Stop pretending to teach leadership: Teaching leadership is difficult. The military is most reknown for teaching leadership but that is in a very structured chain of command organization. Chain of command outside of the military would likely mean how most employees want to beat their bosses with chains. MBA programs have demonstrated no success and it's time to stop pretending.


2. Start teaching Management: It became popular for MBA programs to claim, "We don't teach managers, we teach leaders!" It's worked as well as me claiming that knitting makes me really sexy. However, management skills are precisely what MBA's need to work well in large corporations. Decision-making committees, approval process, and organizational charts are management skills are underdeveloped. Every MBA will be involed in these aspects and there is almost always room for improvement. While not sexy, they can result in a cumbersome decision-making process or decisions that are not fully understood. The failures at financial companies were management organization failures in some way as bad decisions were made. I think that a class on how to change an organizational chart for a start-up as it grows would be remarkably practical and something that Business Schools could teach.
   
3. Analytics within a bigger context: Schools are focusing on this with their curriculum reform and it's a great step. In the 70's, an MBA was a general management degree and that is still important. Understanding the data to drive decisions in marketing, finance, operations, etc are useful skills. No matter what department someone ultimately works in, having enough business understand to know what NPV stands for or not snicker when Marketing talks about the 4 P's is valuable. It's not all about financial returns but analytics in a larger context can help an organization.
4. Certification: Business school is a trade school like law and medicine. Other trade schools have post-graduation certification or training programs or exams like the bar, residency, or fellowships. MBA programs should have the same certification programs. As it is, MBA's will seek out PMP's in Project Management or Belts in Six Sigma to demonstrate mastery. Business schools could set up additional programs to demonstrate mastery in different topics to meet demand for students who are looking to set themselves apart. With regards to the PMP, I keep looking at that certificate program to set me apart even though I know the material is of little value. However, a marketing certification from a business school could be a different story. There is definitely an opportunity.

MBA programs have evolved over time to focus on what's important. Usually, they follow the money (which is not necessarily a bad thing). In times of crisis, those are good opportunities to evaluate what they are really good at and what they are not.

I've also changed. I've stopped knitting at bars and making lewd jokes about the size of my needles.

Exit Stage Left, the GMAT

Instead of the GMAT, you can take the GRE. My post is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds as business schools are starting to expand the array of standardized tests that they will accept according to this article. Harvard has joined the trend which makes it official since if Harvard required ballet recitals for admissions, there would be a surge in demand for extra large tutus.

The article above is also as misleading or misdirected as my post title. It's title of "Business Schools Want You Now More than Ever" doesn't really show the love that it (which sounds like an 80's love ballad that would be sung by Chicago or a power ballad sung by Poison) suggests. Accepting the GRE instead of the GMAT is exchanging one tedious standardized test for another tedious standardized test. I had taken both the GMAT and GRE and I really couldn't tell the difference between them. Both have a Math section similar to the SAT's that I took in high school and a language section that includes some of the most arcane questions about punctuation and very dense paragraphs of equally arcane material. One of them also has a logic section, but I forgot which one.

Given they are both similar and equally painful to prepare for, it doesn't really feel like an outrageous display of affection. If business schools really wanted me to know what love is and they wanted to show me (show off your 80's music trivia and name the band who sings that song! I thought that it was Chicago but I was wrong), they would accept my SAT, ACT, or standardized undergraduate admissions test. The SAT, GRE, and GMAT provide context for grades and undergraduate institutions. Either of the three are a similar standardized test that show how well you take standardized tests which is the most effective measurement for scholastic performance that we currently have. Whether you take the standardized test in high school or post-college, it's really the same measurement. While I don't have the research, I am sure that people who do well on the SAT will do well on the GRE, GMAT, or LSAT for law school.

While I have been beating on standardized tests like a rented mule, I think they are a valid part of the admissions process. They provide a single measurement for evaluating applicants' scholarly performance. For example, take the following:

• Standardized test score of 90th percentile or above (700+ on the GMAT) and a 3.8 GPA mean someone who is very smart or smart and hard-working
• Standardized test score of 90th percentile or above (700+ on the GMAT) and a 3.0 GPA (excluding engineering since grades are usually lower), mean someone who is smart but lazier with school work
• Standardized test score around the 50th-60th percentile (low 600's on the GMAT) and a 3.8 GPA mean someone who is not as smart but very hard working, or went to a school with lower academic standards or someone who doesn't test well. Schools can investigate these applicants to evaluate the real story behind their academic performance.
  

Either way, the standardized test provides additional information that can be very helpful with evaluating an applicant. It's not perfect but it provides better information than some other factors which I described in this post.

Getting back to beating on rented mules, this is my favorite quote from the article:

Mark McNutt, a spokesman for ETS, says one reason business schools are embracing the GRE is because it brings in a more diverse applicant pool. "The typical model of an MBA student isn't working," he admits. "Schools are seeing value in recruiting creative people."

How is taking the GRE a measure of creativity? When I think of creativity, I think of the art students who made their front door furry. I think of the Clown House in Northeast Portland where they made crazy bicycles and tried to show that clowns could be your average neighbor. I don't think that any of these individuals would view a 6 hour standardized test as outlets of creativity unless you got extra credit for creating interesting patterns with your multiple choice answers.

Rather than the typical model of an MBA student not working, I would say that business schools are realizing that the GRE and GMAT are interchangable and having to take an additional standardize test is a barrier to entry. If anything, it's an idictment on the products of ETS company who administers the GMAT and GRE. This switch shows that schools believe that the GMAT is no more an effective gauge for MBA admissions than the GRE.

However, I think that we should continue down this path and graduate schools just accept the SAT or undergraduate admissions test. It provides the same data (which is useful) and removes a barrier to entry. Now for more fun tests, who knew who sang the 80's song quote that I mentioned above?