Everyone has their reasons for pursuing an MBA. It may be the network, the need for a change, or the desire to gain a specific skill set. An applicant may feel that an MBA can facilitate the transition to a new role or increase the likelihood of advancement in a current role. Regardless of your reason for pursuing the degree, most applicants agree that they want to go somewhere that can help them land a great job after graduation. Today Fortune published their list of the 50 Best Business Schools for Getting a Job.

The top ten schools are not terribly surprising:
Wharton
Harvard
Sloan
Stanford
Kellogg
Columbia
Chicago
Fuqua
Tuck
Stern

If you are deciding where to apply, or deciding between acceptances, the rankings are worth a look, as they summarize average starting salaries and number of job offers. Rankings are based on strength of reputation with recruiters and strength of career placement.

However, it is important to keep in mind that these are general rankings, and if you are targeting a specific company or industry you will want to do your own research. The best school overall, may not be the best one for you.

A companion article to the rankings featured me, discussing some guidelines for getting in to a top business school. Number 9 in the list of tips provided states, “Do your own research. Don’t choose a B-school just by picking it off a list (not even ours). ‘Every MBA program is different, and you want to focus on the ones that are right for you,’ Blackman says. ‘Compare the schools carefully, and visit as many of the campuses as you can.’”

Here are a few ways to research schools with regards to your job search:
1) Contact HR at target employers and see where they recruit and where most of their employees attended business school.
2) Contact Career Services at schools you are considering and discuss the resources they offer for a job search in your areas of interest. Also ask about companies that recruit on campus.
3) Network with individuals in your target industry to learn their perceptions of a given school.

The pool of MBA applicants is filled with all sorts of diverse backgrounds: doctors, lawyers, bankers, entrepreneurs, teachers, writers…and of course we cannot forget the engineers. Many bloggers, including Rock of Gibralter and Juggler, are members of the tech world, and they represent the high volume in the applicant pool. Muskblog reported that 25% of his class had an engineering background. A quick look at some other schools:

Stern: 9% of the class of ‘08 worked in Technology
Haas: 13% of the class of ‘08 worked in Technology, 29% majored in engineering
Tuck: 16% of the class of ‘08 worked in Technology, 18% majored in Engineering
Fuqua: 28% of the class of ‘08 majored in Engneering

Translating engineering experience and lingo into a language that is both understood by and relevant to the admissions committee can be a challenge. This is an important hurdle to overcome, as it will touch most aspects of your application. Here is a look at how to rethink a basic business document - your resume.

On a typical engineering resume, you might find a line such as this one: “Synthesized an 8-bit ALU chip which could perform logic operations such as AND, OR and XOR.” Although I do not doubt that this is an interesting and impressive accomplishment in the engineering world, I have no idea what this means and am guessing that many admissions committee members do not either. When I see something like this, I will ask an applicant to translate it into MBA speak - what does this mean? What did you really do when “synthesizing”?

Often, on a second draft, I see a line that I can more easily understand. “Led the design and development of X.” Now this is something that I can understand. Led, design, development…the technical jargion has been translated. However, this resume still has a long way to go. It’s interesting how difficult it can be to really break down and describe the work that you do every single day. Yet this is what you need to do.

I ask, “when you are developing X, what are the steps you take, what are the skills you use?”
Think about the smaller steps:
Who did you manage, either directly or cross functionally?
What processes did you manage?
What kind of analysis did you run?
How did you structure communications?
Did you develop or improve upon any processes?

Developing X is a big accomplishment, and it took a lot of little steps to get there. To understand what you really did, you need to think about the smaller steps, and how they can be repurposed in a business role - how did you communicate, collaborate, manage, lead and more? Also important, think about your results. If you developed X, why is X so great? What was the impact of what you did? Did it save time, cut costs, increase revenue? Quantify results to the extent possible so a reviewer can understand the impact.

To appeal to an MBA audience, an applicant must think beyond technical tasks. He or she must identify what lies behind those tasks that might reveal an effective business leader. Going through this exercise can be painful, but it is a necessary step and something that will serve an applicant well throughout the entire application process.

If you are struggling with this important document, our consultants can help you think through how to translate your accomplishments into business lingo. Contact us to learn more.

One of the more challenging admissions essays this year has been HBS question 4: In your career you will have to deal with many ethical issues. What are likely to be the most challenging and what is your plan for developing the competencies you will need to handle these issues effectively? As Cornfed MBA points out, what makes this question so vexing for applicants is the forward looking aspect, asking you to predict future challenges rather than reflect on past experiences like the Wharton and Columbia questions.

While many applicants struggle with this exercise, HBS is not asking this question in vain. In fact, the ethics essay is just the first step in your ethical education should you attend HBS. Last year, Harvard Magazine covered the mandatory, full semester HBS course Leadership and Corporate Accountability. It is an interesting read and will give you insight into what HBS and other business schools are doing to augment future leaders’ standards of ethics. Tuck just announced the addition of a social leadership program. Stanford’s new individualized curriculum includes ethical analysis. Kellogg also requires students to explore the ethical relationship between business and society. Business Ethics magazine has even profiled the top business schools for social stewardship.

In general, as an applicant, it is important to stay abreast of new program developments at business schools. You need to be able to show schools that you are prepared to help them build up academic programs such as Wharton’s international opportunities, professional clubs and conferences such as Columbia Women in Business, or even social organizations like the Haas Culinary Club. That way your essays will include specifics on why you are a great fit for their school and how you will contribute.

As we discussed last week, interview season is upon us for second round applicants. Many of the top schools such as HBS, Stanford, Wharton, and Chicago hold “invitation only” interviews. These schools seek to interview all accepted applicants, which means that you must receive and complete an interview in order to be accepted. Other schools such as Haas at UC Berkeley and Columbia may accept you without an interview.

Again, while Wharton had a deadline for releasing invitations to interview (Feb 15), HBS and Stanford do not have formal end date for interview invites. Often waiting for the invitation is the hardest part as Cyndi’s Journey mentions. Moreover, anxious applicants continue to question whether the timing of their interview invitation holds any significance. It does not. HBS unequivocally states this on their website. As you can see from AGirlsMBA and Stanford Life, you may be interviewing with an alum, an admissions officer, or even a current student depending on the school.

Regardless of when you receive your invitation or who is going to interview you, it is important to prepare for those tough interview questions. While you do not want to memorize answers so that you sound like you are making a prepared speech, you need to be the expert on all of your content. To that end, for the next few weeks we will feature suggestions for tackling common interview questions.  This week we are addressing a few of the common open ended questions that concern applicants.

Many interviews will begin with some version of “Tell me about yourself” or “Walk me through your resume”. It is hard to know where to begin with this.  One approach is to simply ask, “Where would you like me to begin?”  As an applicant, you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for further clarification; this also makes the interview more of a conversation. Remember that the interview is a dialog, often with someone who could soon be your peer. Don’t feel like you need to read their mind and immediately “know” what they are looking for. In general, you will begin this question with college, and provide a brief chronology regarding decisions from there. Some applicants have reported being asked “Tell me about yourself - not the resume stuff”.  This is a different type of question, where you might start with where you grew up and provide more personal anecdotes about family and personal interests.

Another common question is, “Tell me about a typical day at work”. Here you can state that there is no truly typical day, but explain what you did yesterday, which is representative of the types of things you do at work.  Then you can provide a breakdown of some of the activities that you engaged in.  This is one to keep brief as you are not sharing your most unique selling points, but be sure to convey some nice diversity in your day.  An interviewer wants to understand more about your role at work and to know that you are not hiding in your cubicle all day.

Best of luck with waiting for the invitations and the interview themselves.  Check back next week for more tips on specific questions.