By: Brett Pellegren
Submitted: 2010-03-03 03:09:15 | Word Count: 617
It is a fact of life that everybody is going to have to accept. Experience trumps just about everything else in the world.
You can have the best grades, the highest GMAT scores and be as handsome or beautiful as a high priced fashion model, but without experience, you’re fighting an uphill battle.
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Therefore, it is imperative that you highlight your work experience…whatever it might be.
A lot of students think that their work experience, if they have any, isn’t relevant to their MBA because it isn’t exactly business experience. This is simply not true.
Your MBA program wants to see experience, not so much for what that experience is but so that they see that you can handle responsibility. Even the most menial jobs require a degree of discipline.
If you think garbage collectors don’t get fired, they do. Showing that you’ve held onto a job for a length of time is more important than what the job is.
The key is showing what responsibility you had and bringing it out in the best light.
For example, if you were a file clerk at a company, don’t just put down, “I was a file clerk.” Make it sound important.
“Responsible for proper care of contracts and documents.”
It’s all in how you say it. Point is, YOUR experience is going to score more points than just about anything else you have to offer.
Now, what about length of time of that experience? Well, this is going to vary from school to school, but the general rule of thumb is you want to have at least 3 years of experience.
Why 3 years?
Let’s face it…even a monkey can keep a job for a day.
Point is, this is a sufficient enough time to show the people who will ultimately decide your fate that you do indeed have a practical understanding of the real world.
And trust me…that real world IS a whole lot different than a classroom…if you haven’t already found this out.
What you also want to do, if applicable, is highlight how this work experience bridges with your long term goals. If the job you had IS directly related to your MBA, all the better.
What they’re looking for here is a solid foundation to work with. Students who know what they want and are on that path already are going to be considered over other students.
I would also like to take a moment and talk about a real no no...lying.
The more things you have to remember (the lies) the greater the chance of slipping up somewhere along the interview process. Some questions might refer back to other questions and if you don t have your lies down really pat, you re sunk...plain and simple, DON T DO IT! Trust me, you have to be a real pro to pull off a ton of lies at an MBA interview.
Now, having said that, there are ways to tell the truth without having to say anything negative about yourself should you be asked a question that would require a less than positive answer. For example, let s say you were asked if you ever had a job in an office and you hadn t. You could say something like, No, but I have had office training from XYZ company when I was staying with my uncle over the summer. They showed me around and taught me some office procedures like filing and answering phones. So while I never actually worked there, I do understand those jobs and feel very confident that I can perform them if I had to.
Author Resource:-
Brett Pellegren, of http://mbainterviewadvice.com, has been an admissions consultant for the last 5 years. He wants to do his best to get you into the best MBA program possible. You can check out his free report 'MBA Interview Secrets' at http://mbainterviewadvice.com/free-report.html
