5 Career Lessons From Thousands of MBA Journeys
When it comes to MBA career advice, most of it focuses on the first two years: recruiting, the right offer, maximizing ROI on your degree. But Stacy Blackman, founder of Stacy Blackman Consulting, has spent more than 25 years watching what actually happens next. Kellogg recently invited her to share what she’s learned on their alumni news site, and we’re expanding on those five lessons here.
The MBA Career Advice Most People Don’t Hear Until Year 10
The starting line isn’t the finish line
There is enormous pressure during MBA recruiting to find the “perfect” first role and to maximize ROI on your degree investment. But looking at alumni 10, 15, and 20 years out, that first job is rarely where they stay. Stacy has watched people move from equity derivatives to CEO of a Michelin-starred restaurant. From Goldman Sachs to leading a major museum. The first post-MBA role is where you sharpen the tools. It is one chapter in what will hopefully be a very long story.
For applicants, this is worth keeping in mind when building your school list. The MBA you choose should open doors broadly, not funnel you toward a single outcome.
The best MBA career paths zig and zag
Career ladders are vertical by design. The most interesting careers aren’t. Stacy describes them as jungle gyms: founders who became VP at major tech firms, then left to run nonprofits or boutique advisory shops. The “path less traveled” isn’t a consolation prize. It often builds more resilience and a more distinctive value proposition than the straight line ever would.
This is exactly why SBC’s B-Schooled Paths Less Traveled series exists: to put a spotlight on the MBA graduates who zigged when everyone else zagged, and to show prospective students what’s actually possible. Check out:
- The CEO & the Intern | A Conversation with 2 Stanford MBAs at Woz AI
- One Stanford MBA, Two Paths with Terry Cumes & Tristen Langley
- Kellogg MBA and Stacy’s former classmate Paul Earle, co-founder of Goodles, one of the fastest-growing emerging consumer brands in the U.S.
Reputation compounds like interest
In the short term, professionals obsess over titles and salaries. In the long term, careers are built on the compounding interest of reputation. The way you treat people, the trust you build with colleagues and classmates, the consistency between what you say and what you do: those things follow you for decades.
It’s the kind of MBA career advice that doesn’t show up in recruiting guides: the trust you build with classmates in year one follows you for decades. Stacy is still close friends and occasional business collaborators with her Kellogg classmates from 1999. Those relationships aren’t just nostalgic. They sustain you through every reinvention.
Adaptability is the real MBA ROI
No curriculum can predict how fast the world will change. When Stacy graduated, AI was science fiction and streaming was barely a concept. The business landscape today is unrecognizable from the one she entered.
The real ROI of an MBA isn’t a specific financial model or case framework. It’s the ability to learn how to learn: to approach new challenges with structure, to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, to stay curious when the map runs out. The most successful alums that Stacy interviews are the ones who never stopped asking questions.
Values outlast titles
Titles are extrinsic and temporary. Values are intrinsic and sustaining. Career momentum stalls when leaders chase a title at the expense of their core purpose. The people who sustain high-level success over a long arc are the ones who align their professional expertise with what actually matters to them.
When the work is meaningful, the momentum takes care of itself.
The bottom line
The best MBA career advice isn’t about optimizing your first step. It’s about building the optionality to reinvent yourself, more than once. If you’re an MBA applicant feeling pressure to have it all figured out, this is the reframe: an MBA is a long-game investment. You aren’t just building a resume. You’re building the optionality to change your mind, change your industry, and change the world. More than once.
Ready to start building a school list that reflects your values and your ambitions? Book a free 15-minute advising session with SBC.
Here’s a snapshot of the caliber of expertise on our SBC team.
Ashley
Ashley is a former MBA Admissions Board Member for Harvard Business School (HBS), where she interviewed and evaluated thousands of business school applicants for over a six year tenure. Ashley holds an MBA from HBS. During her HBS years, Ashley was the Sports Editor for the Harbus and a member of the B-School Blades Ice Hockey Team. After HBS, she worked in Marketing at the Gillette Company on Male and Female shaving ...
×Pauline
A former associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School, Pauline served on the HBS MBA Admissions Board full-time for four years. She evaluated and interviewed HBS applicants, both on-campus and globally. Pauline's career has included sales and marketing management roles with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and IBM. For over 10 years, Pauline has expertly guided MBA applicants, and her clients h ...
×Laura
Laura comes from the MBA Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS) and is an HBS MBA alumnus. In her HBS Admissions role, she evaluated and interviewed hundreds of business school candidates, including internationals, women, military and other applicant pools, for five years. Prior to her time as a student at HBS, Laura began her career in advertising and marketing in Chicago at Leo Burnett where she worked on th ...
×Andrea
Andrea served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years. In this role, she provided strategic direction for student yield-management activities and also served as a full member of the admissions committee. In 2007, Andrea launched the new 2+2 Program at Harvard Business School – a program targeted at college junior applicants to Harvard Business School. Andrea has also served as a Career Coach for Harvard Business School for both cu ...
×Jennifer
Jennifer served as Admissions Officer at the Stanford (GSB) for five years. She holds an MBA from Stanford (GSB) and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Jennifer has over 15 years experience in guiding applicants through the increasingly competitive admissions process into top MBA programs. Having read thousands and thousands of essays and applications while at Stanford (GSB) Admiss ...
×Davina
Davina received her MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB), with a certificate in Public Management, and her BA in Psychology from UC Berkeley. Davina is an experienced strategic planning leader, facilitator, and business case writer who spent more than 15 years building culture, entrepreneurship, and leadership initiatives across Stanford University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She designed ...
×Erin K.
Erin served in key roles in MBA Admissions--as Director at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Assistant Director at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB). Erin served on the admissions committee at each school and has read thousands of applications in her career. At Haas, she served for seven years in roles that encompassed evaluation, outreach, and diversity and inclusion. During her tenure in Admissions at GSB, she was responsible for candidate evaluation, applicant outreach, ...
×Susie
Susie comes from the Admissions Office of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she reviewed and evaluated hundreds of prospective students’ applications. She holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB and a BA from Stanford in Economics. Prior to advising MBA applicants, Susie held a variety of roles over a 15-year period in capital markets, finance, and real estate, including as partner in one of the nation’s most innovative finance and real estate investment organizations. In that r ...
×Dione
Dione holds an MBA degree from Stanford Business School (GSB) and a BA degree from Stanford University, where she double majored in Economics and Communication with concentrations in journalism and sociology. Dione has served as an Admissions reader and member of the Minority Admissions Advisory Committee at Stanford. Dione is an accomplished and respected advocate and thought leader on education and diversity. She is ...
×Anthony
Anthony served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he dedicated over 10 years of expertise. During his time as a Wharton Admissions Officer, he read and reviewed thousands of applications and helped bring in a class of 800+ students a year. Anthony has traveled both domestically and internationally to recruit a ...
×Meghan
Meghan served as the Associate Director of Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute, a joint degree program combining the Wharton MBA with an MA in International Studies. In her role on the Wharton MBA admissions committee, Meghan advised domestic and international applicants; conducted interviews and information sessions domestically and overseas in Asia, Central and South America, and Europe; and evaluated applicants for admission to the program. Meghan also managed ...
×Amy
Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team. During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students. She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions ...
×Ally
Ally brings six years of admissions experience to the SBC team, most recently as an Assistant Director of Admission for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School (CBS). During her time at Columbia, Ally was responsible for reviewing applications, planning recruitment events, and interviewing candidates for both the full-time MBA program and the Executive MBA program. She traveled both internationally and dome ...
×Emma
Emma comes from the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School (CBS), where she was Associate Director. Emma conducted dozens of interviews each cycle for the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as coordinating the alumni ambassador interview program. She read and evaluated hundreds of applications each cycle, delivered information sessions to audiences across the globe, and advised countless waitlisted applicants. ×
Dana
Dana served as Assistant Director of Admissions at Columbia Business School for the Full-Time MBA program and has over 10 years of experience working in higher education. Known as a scrupulous file reader, Dana reviewed countless applications and assisted in rendering final decisions for the Admissions Committee at CBS. While leading information sessions at Columbia and on the road, Dana met and advised myriad applicants� ...
×Holly
Holly worked as a member of the NYU Stern MBA Admissions team for seven years and holds an MBA from NYU Stern. In her tenure as Director of NYU MBA Admissions, Holly worked closely with admissions teams from Columbia, Michigan Ross, UVA Darden, Cornell Johnson, Berkeley Haas, Yale SOM, and Duke Fuqua on recruiting events domestically and internationally. On the NYU Stern admissions committee, Holly conducted interviews, planned and hosted events, and trained staff on reading and interviewi ...
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