What’s going on, everyone. I’m not sure if any of you are sports fans, but I’m a huge one and have my eyes stuck on Game 6 of the World Series. I was hoping for a Phillies win in this game in order to bring about a Game 7, but Pedro Martinez had pretty much given the game away by the end of the third inning…Actually, scratch that…Hideki Matsui pretty much snatched the game away from the Phillies. That dude is playing out of his mind tonight. All I can say is “WOW!” and say an early “Congratulations” to the folks in NYC who will be celebrating yet another Yankees World Series trophy tonight.

The message below is from a prospective MBA student from Morocco who currently works in Sales but aspires to transition into microfinance with a stint in strategy consulting first. She asked for my advice about whether that sort of change makes sense and whether it might hurt her chances of getting into B-school. She also attached an essay describing her short and long-term goals and asked for my opinion on how well it was written, but, as you all know, I don’t do that sort of thing anymore (as described in my new guidelines). I briefly thought about skipping over the email altogether, but the monster game that Hideki Matsui from the Yankees is having right now inspired me to try to knock this reply out of the park. I’m not sure if I did that or not, but this reader got what I had to give at this moment so I hope she finds it useful.

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SA wrote:

“Marquis,

First of all, I want to thank you for your wonderful blog where career switchers can find valuable information.Thank you again!

I am writing you Marquis because I think you can help and advice me.

I am a telecom engineer working as a PreSales key accounts engineer in a telecom operator in Morocco. I don’t like my sales career because i feel that it lacks purpose and meaning…Attached you can find a more detailed description of my short/long term goals..

1/ Do you think Marquis that my story is convincing? is it well written? Any advice on making it more convincing?

2/In my SOP, i am saying that my short term goal is working in strategy consulting and my long term goal is social enterprise (microfinance). Don’t you think that i am confusing things in the minds of the admissions commitee? let me elaborate on this…i mean should i focus my MBA on strategy consulting or in microfinace? can it fire back against me??

Thanks in advance Marquis.”

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My response:

SA,

Thanks for checking out my blog and considering me as a resource as you plot your career/MBA path. Before I dive into my response to your message, I should tell you that I have a policy where I don’t read people’s essays and give opinions on the way that their stories are structured or written. I used to do that for my readers a few years ago, but several of those readers took advantage of that gesture and made it more of a hassle than it was worth for me to help out in that way, especially since those mofos weren’t paying me for that service. So, I stopped doing that across the board as a way to be as fair as possible..it’s a shame that those people drove me to stop doing it too because I’m pretty damn fantastic at it according to what people have told me and judging from the schools that I’ve helped kids get into. Anyways, I’m only mentioning that so you’ll understand why I’m not going to read the essay that you sent with your email and, as such, won’t be able to answer your first question. But, your second question is general enough for me to provide a perspective without me having to read your essay, so I’ll go ahead and tackle that one.

Your second question was:

“2/In my SOP, i am saying that my short term goal is working in strategy consulting and my long term goal is social enterprise (microfinance). Don’t you think that i am confusing things in the minds of the admissions commitee? let me elaborate on this…i mean should i focus my MBA on strategy consulting or in microfinace? can it fire back against me??”

As I read this question, it seems like you’re asking several things, so I’m going to try to address all of them in my response. At a high level, I don’t think that you’re confusing anything by saying that your short term goal is to work in strategy consulting and then move into a microfinance-related position. In fact, one of my friends who started in McK’s Atlanta office with me did precisely that when she left the Firm. I see how it could potentially get confusing because consulting to microfinance isn’t a path that we see too often, but it’s definitely possible, as evidenced by my friend’s experience. One of the great things about consulting is that it can prepare you to do any number of things, so you’ll just have to figure out how to leverage it correctly to make this move.

In terms of your MBA, you should think about two things: how to explain your desired career path to the admissions committees and how to plan out your coursework to learn what you need. When telling your story, you’ll need to describe your reasons for why you believe strategy consulting is the right direction for your career right out of school and specifically how it’ll prepare you to move into microfinance. Here, you can write about a range of ideas, including the skills that you’ll learn as a consultant, the variety of organizations and industries that you’ll see, and broader perspective of business that you’ll gain. Then, you’d want to explain how each of those items would prepare you to be a success in the microfinance industry. If you’ve already done this in your current draft of the essay, then you’re golden…I wouldn’t know if you had though because I didn’t read your file attachment.

Next, you’ll have to plan out your business school coursework, which is something to think through now and then maybe mention it in your “Why MBA?” essays. Think about both core courses and electives that will be available to you and the ones that’ll be applicable for both your desired consulting and microfinance paths. For example, courses like strategy, operations, organizational behavior, and finance would be good for building skills you’ll need in consulting and ones like finance, economics, and non-profit management could serve you well on the microfinance path. These lists are just some random ones that I came up with off the top of my head, but I’d encourage you to put some serious thought into this in order to develop a map for your MBA coursework. Once this is done, you will likely have a much easier time explaining why your desired career path makes sense and how the MBA can help you get there.

I hope that you found the above information helpful. Also, just remember to tell your story as honestly as possible and the message should come across to the MBA admissions committees very clearly. Take care and good luck on your MBA applications.

Marquis