What’s up, y’all. It looks like the exodus of techies out of IT and into Bschool and consulting is going to continue for a long while. The message below is from an IT engineer who is trying to figure out a way to differentiate himself as he looks to reapply to business school. His request is similar to another one I got a couple of months back, so I’ll reference that earlier response and add in a little more content for some extra flavor here.
—————–
MPB wrote:
Hi Marquis,
Have been a regular reader of your blog. I find it extremely helpful and inspiring. I am an Indian IT engineer trying to get into a top school myself. I applied to K/W/Chi last year and was dinged from K and W and WLed at Chi. While I now think I dont really fit into Kellogg, I really want to get into Wharton or Chicago. I am having serious trouble trying to say, “What I bring to the table?” and “What makes me different?” from the various other IT engineers applying.
Also, my short term goal is strategy consulting why my long term goal is to open my own consulting firm in India. I am wondering what I can do during my consulting career to prepare myself for my long-term goal. If you can give me some tips, I will be grateful.
Thanks.
MPB
—————–
My response:
MPB,
Thanks for checking out my blog and thinking of me as a resource as you consider your reapplication to business school. As you know I have a soft-spot for techies trying to make this transition, so I hope you find my words helpful.
As a first step in giving you advice, I would refer you to an entry that I posted on June 15, 2007 (I wanna break free – the story of a pigeonholed techie) because the reader in that post had an issue very similar to yours. In particular, follow the link in that post that leads to an earlier post that i made about positioning and developing your “MBA application story”. I think you’ll find both posts to be very helpful as you try to figure out what might have gone wrong for you the first time you applied.
When it comes to answering the “What do I bring to the table?” and “What makes me different?” questions, I’ve got a quick exercise that might help you come up with good responses. Take out a sheet of paper and a pencil, relax, and think about the the full suite of qualities that make you who you are. These qualities could include your educational background, your work experience, the place you grew up, any life circumstances that you’ve faced over the years, or what your goals for the future are. Once a quality pops into your head, write it down on the paper and try to think of another one and keep on doing this over and over until you can’t come up with any more ideas. Next, read over the list of your qualities and scratch out the ones that have anything to do with your job as an IT engineer, such as the nature of your job, your technical training, or your strong technical skills. What you should be left with a list of items that SHOULD distinguish you from the other Indian IT engineers who are applying to business school along with you. This technique is a good way to block out the usual methods that B-school applicants describe themselves (by job, education, etc) and focus on the other qualities that make them unique from everyone else out there. This sort of exercise would be useful for people in a variety of jobs, but it works especially well for people in your position because IT guys often fear that there’s no way for them to stand out in a crowd. With this list as a starting point, take another try at those (hopefully) formerly challenging application questions and see what you come up with.
As for your entrepreneurial aspirations to start your own consulting firm, you can address that issue with a number of actions over the next few years. First, make sure you take as many strategy and entrepreneurship classes in business school as possible to aid in getting into a strategy consulting position and then in starting your own company in the future. Next, pursue a consulting job at a generalist firm…I specify “generalist” because you’re going to want to make sure you get as broad a business foundation as possible and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get that by working in a wide range of industries and functions at a generalist firm. As you’re working at that consulting firm, try to build as many relationships with more experienced consultants as possible so you can gain their insights on building your consulting skills rapidly and also get their perspectives on being in leadership positions at a consultancy. At the same time, be sure to network with your peers at other firms because they could become either business partners or advisors as you move through your career and launch your own firm. Eventually, you’ll have to make the big leap to launch your firm, so make sure that you’ve been putting away some money for a while before doing so…the last thing you want is to run out of money to live on within a couple of months of giving up that consistent paycheck.
Take care and good luck with your applications this time around.
-Marquis
Recent Comments