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April 9, 2012

How to Make the Most of Your MBA: A Primer for Entrepreneurs-to-Be

Filed under: Application ideas,Inspiration — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — admin @ 3:12 pm

This week's tips come courtesy of Alison Albeck Lindland, a fellow Vassar graduate who went on to get her MBA from Columbia Business School, graduating in 2008.  Prior to business school Alison worked on the Goldman Sachs and Jaguar accounts at OgilvyInteractive and was an early team member at TheaterMania.com, a startup media and ticket software company. After graduating from CBS, she worked at

Alison Lindland and colleague

American Express Interactive, and is now director of business development at Kohort, a venture-backed  group management and event planning platform.

Alison says these tactical pointers cover a potential entrepreneurship career. Personally, I think her recommendations apply to anyone hoping to take a big jump into something new and different careerwise.

  • Get to know everyone in your cohort. There’s a temptation to gravitate to the people you are just going to be friends with or have to work with in study team but guaranteed you’ll be missing out on some terrific people and contacts.
  • Network with your classmates. Once you’ve identified the industry or area of focus that you want to pursue after graduation use all the internal databases and  or LinkedIn to identify current classmates who worked in that field and do coffee chats with them. I met lots of great classmates who I otherwise would never have met socially, whose background ranged from telco engineers who gave me mini tutorials in how mobile tech actually works to mobile entrepreneurs who had worked on interesting early mobile dating apps.
  • Get to know your professors personally and tell them what you’re interested in.  Having gone to a small liberal arts school, I came from a mindset where you always got to know your profs personally and would have them over to your house for dinner.  Most business schools are not this way so you can really stand out if you make an effort and you never know what it will yield.
  • Seek out opportunities to TA for your favorite profs or help with their research.  I TA’d for Prof. Whadwa’s excellent strategy consulting class for a session for the Exec MBA class.  This a great chance to get to know my favorite professor better, and to know 65 terrific Exec MBA students.
  • Volunteer to help out institutes or think tanks in your school.  You would be surprised how many institutes and think tanks your school funds.  Though the smaller ones may not have a great profile to students you would be surprised to learn how many industry and high profile alums may be involved.  At CBS I was thrilled to discover the Columbia Institute of Tele-Information and I simply walked in, introduced myself and said I wanted to get involved.  Turns out they were in the early stages of planning a Location Based Services conference for the summer . Given my contacts from my summer doing mobile at Amex, they were happy to enlist me.  It was without a doubt one of the best experiences I had in school.
  • Get off campus and talk to everyone.  If you’re nervous about cold-emailing people for networking coffee chats, start with the guest speakers in your courses. Connect with them in person before they left the actual classroom and follow up that day asking for a coffee.  It’s a great warm intro and usually you’ll know more about what they’re working on after the talk.  In my case, if they could not meet with me, they would give me someone else to talk to.
  • But if you’re nervous about cold emailing people - don’t be.  Being an MBA gives you carte blanche to reach out to people - it is what professionals expect of MBAs.  Just say you’re really interested in something related to their career or company and can you come to their office for a 20 minute coffee chat.  90% of the time people said yes to this request - and again, if they didn’t I’d ask them if there was someone else I could talk to. Remember to make networking hay while the MBA sun shines.  And set yourself a target - like 3 a week so you keep doing these.
  • Take a class in another school or that is widely cross registered. MBAs are great but you’re going to spend most of your career working in cross functional teams - why not get to know these people (lawyers, journalists, designers, developers etc) now.
  • Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you to go to all the happy hours and on some major group trips.  You’re working hard in school and this is a great way to recharge and really grow those relationships - plus you’ll never have time in your adult lives to do things like this again.

Phew! It's exhausting, but that's the beauty of the MBA experience -- it's all there for you if you want it.

 

--Betsy Massar, taking a leaf from the Alison Lindland playbook. For those who want to jump in and experience the busy and rewarding MBA experience, make sure you set yourself up for success with Admitted: An Interactive Workbook for Getting Into a Top MBA Program.

March 28, 2012

Aiming for a Business Career: A How-To for College Students and Recent Grads

Filed under: Application ideas,Harvard Business School,Stanford GSB — Tags: , , , , , , , , — admin @ 12:58 pm

May the odds be ever in your favor

My day job is helping people get into business school, and most of my paying clients are a few months away from filling out their applications. In most cases, I wish I had met them years earlier. That’s because young professionals-to-be could have taken advantage of opportunities that make it just plain easier to jump into a great enterprise after graduating.

Solid skills, leadership potential, global awareness
The MBA is not a requirement for a business career. And I don’t recommend that people set their sights on it simply because it’s another hoop to jump through.  But some of the things that admissions officers are looking for are some of the same things that recruiters are looking for, which are the same things that your hiring manager and teammate wants from you:  a combination of solid skills, leadership potential, and global awareness.

Harvard Business School presents essentially the same three attributes as its admissions criteria. And if you know up front that’s what everyone is looking for, you have a good chance to work on them now.

Skills=quantitative ability
I’m leading with the math stuff because many exciting post-college jobs need you to crunch numbers and use excel.  It may not be inspiring work right away, but businesses make decisions on analytics, and if you can figure your way around basic math and logic problems, you will add value to your team.  Look at the job description for the analyst position at any of the consulting or investment firms, and you’ll see they are looking for candidates with strong analytic (=math/quant skills).

If you are thinking of going a less formal route, but are still considering business or professional graduate school, you should take one math course now and nail it. If calculus scares you, take business statistics (not social science stats). It’s incredibly relevant; I’ve used the tools of probability and regression time and time again in my own finance career, and never had to calculate the area under a curve.

Finally, grades matter. People talk all about the GPA, but the quality of the school, the challenge of courses and the trend are more important. Everyone forgives a weak freshman year if you turn it around by your junior year and really focus.

Patterns of leadership
Harvard Business School calls it a “habit of leadership,” There are thousands of definitions of leadership, and it doesn’t mean you have to be president of the student body or be the next Mark Zuckerberg. You should be actively involved in a select number of activities during college. Investment firms like athletes, not just because of the competition, but sports requires working hard, discipline and being part of a team.  Sports show opportunities for leadership, not just for the captain, but through collaboration and helping teammates do better.

You can also start your own a club or lead an initiative. One student I worked with from Vassar (my undergrad alma mater) started two different clubs – snowboarding, electronic music, and now is spearheading an entrepreneurial effort within the alumni community.

Emerging leadership shows in the words of a student newspaper editorial or production of a college comedy troupe. You can find leadership in teaching – especially if it means getting up in front of a room, encouraging a discussion, motivating others, giving and receiving feedback.  The college campus is filled with opportunities to spread your wings and make something happen.  That’s how leaders begin.

Go Global
I once asked Derrick Bolton, head of admissions at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, if having overseas experience was a “check the box” requirement to get admitted. He demurred, but did say that he would encourage college students to become fluent in another language. MBA programs are training global leaders.  Look at the single essay University of Virginia’s Darden School requires of applicants:

Share your perspective on leadership in the workplace and describe how it has been shaped by the increasing influence of globalization.

For those of you who are already bi-lingual or bi-cultural, you have a leg up on the competition. It’s no secret that business is global; it could mean living abroad or it could mean working in an international virtual team.  This cross-border outlook is essential for those who want to be leaders in business or social enterprises. Having worked in Asia for 10 years, I personally believe that a cross-cultural experience should be a requirement for tomorrow’s business leaders.

Take a breath
You don’t have to race toward your career goal by doing everything perfectly, or even in a straight line. Take advantage of all the opportunities you have now.

Aim high. You’ve got nothing to lose.

March 14, 2012

Goldman Sachs, Greg Smith, and Leadership (Updated!)

Filed under: Application ideas,Ethics,Inspiration — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 12:17 pm

The Greg Smith resignation letter from Goldman Sachs is a big deal. And yes, it has some repercussions about leadership and the way it is taught at MBA programs.

Already I’ve seen comparisons to Jerry Maguire , which I get, and Don Draper regarding quitting his tobacco client, which is a bit of a stretch. Here's the letter in its entirety.

goldman mug

A little coffee with your New York Times op-ed piece?

The internet is abuzz with parodies  and character assassinations.  For me, a focus group of one, and former Goldman Sachs employee, I say right on.  Not because I have any inside information – I don’t, but because the winner is the discussion.

The winner is the discussion because we are able to talk about what a great company is supposed to be.  For years, Goldman Sachs has been considered one of the most admired companies in the world. Ranking #2 in “megabanks” by Fortune, , but more importantly, at least for those in the MBA and Wall Street world, it is ranked #1 in prestige by crowdsourced career site Vault.com.

Greg Smith is not the first one who fired the opening salvo. I happen to be reading Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, and it’s clear to me that Goldman Sachs, like so many other pre-apocalypse Wall Street firms, were selling some weird stuff in their “structured products.” Lewis didn’t come out and say “Goldman is amoral,” but there’s a lot of support in that very book for Greg Smith’s accusations of putting profit before clientsL

Did Goldman Lose its Leadership Vision?
I think what is exciting also about the conversation, is that Smith had been such a champion of Goldman’s culture for the right reasons.  He wrote in his letter,

Culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. … It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization.

And I hope that’s what MBA students around the country start debating. Culture. Profits. Purpose.  What is a great enterprise anyway? How can a leader change organizational culture?

The sheer excitement about this public resignation letter is gets people talking. Sure, there will be some very foolish things said in the unfettered world of internet discourse. But if this letter is one of the many in a series of wake-up calls for the global icon called “Wall Street,”  then have at it.  Smith is no fool. He knew he would be skewered personally, but he opened the door to the conversation.

UPDATE: some decent, uncrazy comments, first from Justin Fox of  Harvard Business Review and also from Bob Bruner, Dean of the UVA Darden School.

Let the discourse begin.

-- Betsy Massar

 

February 28, 2012

Leadership Do's & Don'ts Learned from the Oscars

Filed under: Application ideas,Inspiration — Tags: , , , , , , , , — admin @ 8:33 am

While Joan and Melissa Rivers commented on Oscar styles, Master Admissions focused on the lessons for leadership, especially for those

Surprise! Angie was a don't!

thinking about applying to business school, a job, or accepting an international award. Here are five takeaways from the Oscars that will resonate with MBA wannabees.

1. Have a brand, but be humble: The Oscars are known for glitz and glamour, not for authentic emotions. Some say the same for MBAs.  So even if the odds are in your favor, like they were for Octavia Spencer, show your humility. It’s a powerful way to command respect.

2.  But don’t go overboard on what you show and how you show it: Angelina Jolie didn’t need to strike a pose, and when she did, leg and all, she played the fool.  Prospective MBA’s want to know not to act too impressed with their talents.

3.  Use your age to your advantage:  Christopher Plummer had no apologies about his 82 years and showed the world that he was hardly over the hill.  Grace, maturity, and a sense of humor about yourself will always add to the conversation.

4. Give credit where credit is due: Meryl Streep thanked her husband first and her hair and makeup guy second.  She showed leadership by broadening the spotlight to include her important teammates.  And we loved her for it.

5. When in doubt, go global: Although the Oscars are in Hollywood, the stage was international.  Whether from France, Iran, or surprising the audience with fluent German like Sandra Bullock, we all speak the same language. It’s a small world after all.

These lessons are a good reminder that leadership shows up whether you are honored for your accomplishments--or letting the spotlight shine on your colleague. The world is a stage, and let's face it everyone has a little Hollywood in them.

---Betsy Massar

This post is a condensed version of the March 1 Forbes article.

Betsy Massar is founder of Master Admissions and author of Admitted: An Interactive Workbook for Getting into a Top MBA Program , published by 85 Broads. A graduate of Harvard Business School, she has worked on Wall Street for Goldman Sachs and in the financial markets in the US, Europe, and Asia. In addition, she has been a business journalist and a communications coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

May 6, 2011

The New MBAs Who Are Changing the Definition of Leadership

Filed under: Chicago Booth,Harvard Business School,Inspiration,Stanford GSB — Tags: , , , , , , , — admin @ 9:46 am

This article was originally published in Forbes Woman. You can see more at this link.

If someone were to ask which countries in the world have more women than men preparing for their MBA by taking the Graduate Management Admissions Test, you might guess the U.S. or Sweden or even Iceland.

You’d be wrong – in fact, more women than men are taking the GMAT in China, Russia, Vietnam and Thailand.

This represents an amazing trend… not only are hundreds of thousands of women preparing to embark on a serious business careers, but they are coming from some countries that have historically seen relatively few women in executive and leadership roles.

This trend is quite a bit different from when I entered business school in 1980.  A generation ago, my class at Harvard Business School comprised 21% women – a number now which has grown to 36% – still low.  Apple launched its initial public offering with a split-adjusted price of $2.75 (now $351). Charles and Diana were about to be wed, China’s Gang of Four had yet to be tried, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were about to define a decade.

Thirty-one years ago, most women who are now applying to business school weren’t even close to being born. Their parents likely had no inkling that their future female offspring would be sitting at a computer taking an English-language standardized test in hopes of embarking on a career in business. They had no idea that these eventual young women would be stepping into a formal program with the goal of walking out with an MBA.

What has changed, and will continue to change, is twofold: women are starting to look at themselves as leaders, and the definition of leadership has changed. Business schools today are not just looking for managerial potential, but are looking for different kinds of leaders:  principled change-makers who show up in the world.

Much More than Management

But many women still believe they cannot gain acceptance to an MBA program because they think they have not yet held a high-ranking title in their company. Or have not managed a team of subordinates.

“Leadership encompasses much more than managing people,” wrote Rose Martinelli, former director of Admissions at the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business.” Business schools are now equating leadership with influence, or the ability to motivate others toward a shared goal. Stanford Graduate School of Business’ recommendation form includes a “Leadership Behavior Grid” with traits such as initiative, influence and collaboration, developing others, and trustworthiness. Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business defines leadership as “the ability to inspire others to strive and enable them to accomplish great things.” And Wharton places its leadership programs “at the heart of MBA life.”

Leadership can mean anything from running a classroom to being the idea person in your work team. From standing up for an unpopular position, to organizing a food drive. In a nutshell, leadership is about finding the passion inside and acting on it – and that’s what these amazing women from unexpected countries are doing by taking the GMAT and believing in their own leadership potential.

The Essence of Leadership

Furthermore, business schools are actively searching for what women have been known for traditionally: Emotional IQ.  In a seminal article published in a 1998 Harvard Business Review article, entitled, “What Makes a Leader,” Daniel Goleman attempted to answer the question with the attributes of effective leaders.  Goleman, who popularized emotional intelligence with his book of the same name, wrote, “It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant,” he says. “They do matter, but mainly as ‘threshold capabilities.’ But … emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership.”

Emotional intelligence is what separates good leaders from great ones.  And business schools want to see people with the raw material to produce nothing less than great leaders.  “We educate leaders who make a difference in the world,” proclaims Harvard Business School’s mission page.

Women are training up, getting their technical chops in order, and are ready to take the next step. They will both influence and be influenced by what is being taught in the leadership component of MBA programs all over the world. And you can bet that when this generation of female leaders matures, we’ll see business and enterprises become even more diverse, more embracing of new ideas and creativity than we can even imagine now.  The world is ready.

April 25, 2011

Asian Women Applying in Droves

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: , , — admin @ 10:20 am

Betsy with 1997's future leaders

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just got off the phone with a Bloomberg BusinessWeek  reporter discussing the trend in women's applications to business school.  It has completely skyrocketed, especially in Asian countries, where the vast majority of test-takers are women.  For example in China, never known to be a capitalist country, 63% or  19,000 women took the GMAT in test year 2010.  I'm still trying to figure out the biggest driver -- are Chinese women going to rule the world?

From these numbers, it looks like it.  But my guess is that the type of women and the type of leaders modern business schools will graduate will not try to be a Master of the Universe, but in fact, someone who will be a pioneer in her field.  Business schools have changed their approach to leadership so that it isn't about being a senior manager, or having a corner office, but instead about changing the world. And lucky for us, thousands of young women around the world, particularly in developing countries, are drawn to business school programs.

I'm just starting to think this through, but if any of you have any thoughts on why numbers of women from developing countries are overwhelming the number of men from similar far-flung locales, please drop me a line at betsy@masteradmissions.com

 

 

November 14, 2010

An inspiring friend

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: , , — admin @ 8:13 pm

In the midst of business school applications, sometimes I simply forget that there are others who are making their way in the world. One of them is Gretchen Peters, an old friend who taught me what it was like to go out and do things nobody thought she could do.

I wrote about her a year or so ago when her book was published, and I thought it was worth reminding the world of why she is so cool. Here's the what I said about her then, and it's even truer today.

I recently found an article in the Wall Street Journal about the heroin trade, Afghanistan and the Taliban. Not an easy subject, I know.  The thing is, the article reviewed a book called "Seeds of Terror" by Gretchen Peters, whom I knew very well when we were both working is Asia. She has been on Newshour, been interviewed by John Stewart on the Daily Show, and briefed members of Congress and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The greatest thing about the book -- well written, informative -- is the dedication to her two "near-perfect daughters."
To "Isabella and Sophia," she writes. "Never believe it isn't possible."

Gretchen is one of those women that just plain followed her heart. We met in the Euromoney Magazine offices in Hong Kong. I asked her to intern for me on a project there, and we became fast friends. When she moved to Phnom Penh to work for, and ultimately edit, the Cambodia Daily newspaper, I took advantage and visited several times, bringing her Twizzlers and other junk food which you couldn't get in Cambodia.

She later ended up as ABC TV's bureau chief in Pakistan, and while there, started research on her book about the Taliban.

When I saw her on the Daily Show, I felt like cheering. She was the same Gretchen I knew from our days hanging out in the Foreign Correspondents Club. To think now that her knowledge may help guide US and worldwide foreign policy on the Taliban. Wow.

I recently followed my heart to start my business as an MBA admissions consultant. I did it because I want to help people be more like Gretchen. To be able to change the world in their own special way. To be honest, I didn't see her and say, "There's a woman who can become a foreign policy expert on Afghanistan and the Taliban." I just thought that she was smart, interesting and had a great sense of humor. But I knew she had something... and boy, look at her now.

All because she believed it was possible.

April 29, 2010

10 Tips for Getting Into Business School—Tip 3: Connect with Your Inner Rock Star

Filed under: 10 Tips,Chicago Booth,Essays,Stanford GSB,Wharton — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — admin @ 11:07 am

Welcome back to the Master Admissions 10-Tip series. In the first tip, I recommended you start early, and in the second tip , I recommended you take inventory. Now it’s time to take the leap to connect with your inner rock star.

Leadership Goes Far Beyond Any Title
Every business school is looking for students who are leaders – and that definition of leadership is very broad. “Leadership encompasses more than managing people,” says the University of Chicago’s Rose Martinelli in her excellent blog, The Rose Report. You may not have had direct reports, but “you were successful because of your influence, effective communication skills, and your ability to motivate people toward a shared goal,” she adds. Dartmouth’s Tuck defines leadership as “inspiring others to strive and enabling them to accomplish great things."

Demonstrating leadership can mean anything from running a classroom to being the idea person in your work team. From standing up for an unpopular position, to organizing a food drive. In a nutshell, leadership is about your inner rock star.

Get Comfortable with the Personal
So how do you connect with rock-star you? First, you have to get a comfortable with the personal – the application process and the essays require a lot of introspection. Be prepared to explore what makes you want to excel. Admissions officers are clear that they want a fully three-dimensional person sitting in those coveted business school seats. Derrick Bolton, head of the Stanford GSB admissions committee, explains it succinctly: “We want a holistic view of you as a person: your values, passions, ideas, experiences, and aspirations.”

Introspection can, and should be individual. Going through the process of thinking about what makes you that motivated, driven, inspired leader of tomorrow can feel onerous. So make sure you take notes.

You might want to keep a journal of those observations. If you feel that a journal is too Oprah, just scribble down your own observations and thoughts. If you work on a team, take notes on what works, and what doesn’t. Where do you fit in? What would it take for you to oppose the consensus of the group. Notes on group dynamics will also help when you might want to come up with examples of team wins, losses, or conflict resolution.

You’d be surprised over the course of weeks or even months of what you have written. Thoughts and impressions that might have otherwise been lost to memory will help when you start drafting the essays and crafting your story.

Leadership = Emotional IQ

Looking for these rock star traits within yourself does not have to be an exercise in bravado.
Schools are also looking for leaders that present emotional intelligence. For those who haven’t read and dissected Daniel Goleman’s classic works on Emotional IQ, get started now. You can find a summary of his seminal article , “What Makes a Leader?” in a post I wrote back in December. Goleman’s model of emotional intelligence has dramatically improved the global discussion of leadership. Hopefully, this model will help you take both a broader, deeper, and more self-aware view of what you bring to the party.

Leadership is the heart and soul of the business school program. For some more inspiration on how schools look at leadership, take a look at Wharton’s exciting Leadership in Action Programs, Stanford GSB’s leadership labs, or wander around Harvard Business School’s Leadership mini-site.

http://blogs.chicagobooth.edu/RoseReport/

September 21, 2009

Leadership: More than Managing People

Filed under: Application ideas — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 2:08 pm

Rose Martinelli, head of admissions at Chicago Booth is an outstanding blogger. This week she asks, "What if I don’t manage people?"

She says: "While several members of our team are heading to Europe, I’ll be heading to Southern California for the next few days before heading to NYC and back to Chicago on Friday for our first Chicago Booth Live of the season. It’s a busy time of the year!

While on the East Coast last week, I heard a number of questions surrounding leadership that I thought I would address briefly here. First, leadership encompasses much more than managing people. The vast majority of applicants will not likely have had the opportunity to officially manage people yet, but have had opportunities to “lead” ideas, sports teams, student groups, and, of course, make life decisions. Think about how you’ve impacted an organization or decision recently. It’s likely you did not have hierarchical authority, but you were successful because of your influence, effective communication skills, and your ability to motivate people toward a shared goal. So think broadly about the topic of leadership recognizing that each person has their own unique style. Make sure that you explore your leadership style as you prepare for your MBA experience. It’s one of the biggest developmental challenges you will face throughout your career."

Meanwhile, if you are interested in sustainability, don't miss the 15-school writeup on green MBA programs in my previous blog entry.

© 2008-2012 Betsy Massar, Master Admisisons, Berkeley, CA. All Rights Reserved.