MBA Guide

I've created this guide as a way to pay it forward as I received help and advice from numerous MBAs when I was deciding on whether to attend business school or not. I'm going to discuss what you should keep in mind before and during the MBA. Hopefully this helps you. If you have any questions, please feel free to hit me up on social media which you should be able to find in the navigation menu.

Pre-MBA: Should you do it?

So you're thinking about an MBA? My guess is you might be in one of the following situations:

1. You're feeling unfulfilled in your current job/industry, especially if there's little growth.

2. You're feeling like your employer's leadership is failing and are dismissive of your concerns.

3. You're feeling like starting your life over again in a different region/country where your current skillset isn't valued financially.

4. You like the company you work for, but to get into a more senior role, your company's leadership prefers MBAs to fill them.

Regardless of why you're thinking about the MBA, there are two buckets business school students often fall into: Career Climbers and Career Changers. If you just want to move up at your existing company or you want to be considered for more senior roles in your industry, a Part-Time MBA will likely work out best for you (that's what I did!). Even better, you don't have to worry about school rank as much so you don't have to spend a lot. However, if the first 3 reasons I mentioned above resonated with you, I would consider you more of a Career Changer. In this case, a full-time MBA will make much more sense. Here's why: The first year of your full-time program, within the 1st few months you'll be interviewing for internships that happen the following summer. This gives you the opportunity to learn the speciality (ex: Marketing) and industry (ex: Automotive) of your dream job so that in your 2nd year you can compete for jobs against fellow MBAs who already have a background in that speciality/industry. Furthermore, there are Leadership Development Programs that are (sometimes) only available to Full-Time MBAs. A number of Fortune 100 companies recruit talent via Leadership Development Programs in which the hired MBA talent are put in a rotational program to learn all the facets of the business. This will enable them to become strong leaders of the company down the line.

So the question to ask is should you do the MBA? It depends. Someone who hates their job/industry/region but doesn't have the the best idea of what they want to do career-wise will likely benefit from an MBA. However, it is going to be costly as it'll behoove them to get into a program with a very strong career services department and school brand reputation (i.e.: highly ranked). The better way is to have an idea of the exact role you want and validate that an MBA is a requirement for it (ex: Senior Brand Manager). If you're trying to move up at your current job, talk to the head of the department of where you want to work. They can let you know if the MBA is the right step for you.

Key Action Item: Search the term 'MBA Internship' in Google and job sites like Linkedin and Glassdor to see the type of roles that are out there.

Pre-MBA: Picking a School and Applying

So you've decided that the MBA is right for you. Now you need to pick a school, apply, and (hopefully) get accepted. Here's some tips:

1. Make a list of companies whose products/services you love. Check their career site to see if they hire MBA interns/graduates. Check with the school to see if they have recruiting relationships with those companies. Schools will likely list this in their career report for the previous graduating class. If you don't see it, ask them.

2. Make a note of the median 80% range of the GMAT for the target schools. You'll want to ensure you can score in this range. If your GPA is below average for their incoming class, you'll want to score in the upper end of that range to offset it.

3. Block a few hours out of the day on a weekend when you're relaxed and take an official GMAT Practice exam. How far from the median 80% are you? If it's a significant difference (50+ pts), be prepared to spend at least a few months on GMAT prep.

4. If you didn't score anywhere close to the median 80% range, DO NOT PANIC OR GET DISCOURAGED. The GMAT typically requires preparation to understand the patterns so that you can efficiently eliminate the wrong answers while guessing within an average of 2 minutes. There's frameworks that will help you do this which is why there is a mini-economy in helping people prep for the exam. I recommend you check out the Manhattan GMAT books to learn the frameworks.

5. Once you have learned all the frameworks in the Manhattan GMAT books, start doing timed drills using questions from the Official GMAT question bank book. For example, 20 questions in 40 minutes. Also ensure you do just 500 & 600 level questions first. You need to master these as getting these level questions wrong will kill your score. The GMAT adapts to you as you take the exam. When you're rarely getting 500/600 level questions wrong, then add in the 700 level ones.

6. When you're doing well on your timed drills, start taking the GMAT Practice Exam once a week. If you're in the median 80% range for your target schools or pretty close to it, you should be good to schedule the official one. If you're a bit below, make a note of the area(s) where you were weak and schedule time with a tutor to help you beef it up.

7. If you're on a time-crunch to apply or you're slightly below the median 80% range, schedule the official GMAT exam; However, take a week or preferably 2 weeks off prior to the official exam. While on PTO take practice exams and drills daily. If it helps you to do it at a resort somewhere, great. Spend part of the day practicing GMAT and the rest relaxing and de-compressing.

8. Take the application essays and interview prep as serious as you do the GMAT. There's plenty of folks out there that can crush the GMAT. However, a mistake applicants may make is thinking the school only cares about your score and grades and that the essays and interviews are formalities. That's false. There's plenty of straight A students out there, especially when you're competing against folks from around the world. You need to craft a very compelling story to stand out. The better you can articulate why the MBA is right for you and why that school is the best one for you, the better your chances of not getting rejected or wait-listed. If asked to interview, do a google search on MBA behavioral interview questions. You'll likely get a few of those when interviewed so prepare for them so your answers are crisp and concise.

9. If you dont have a great undergrad GPA and your GMAT score is barely in or below the median 80% range, shoot for early admission (1st round) applications. Applying in later rounds will have more competition. I would say the optimal time-frame is to start studying in January, getting a solid GMAT score by July and getting your essays done by end of that summer. If you started in the fall and it's close to January you may need to push it out.

10. If you plan to stay in the USA, I would avoid MBA programs outside the USA. However, if you want to live in regions like Europe for an indefinite amount of time, getting an MBA they know and respect in that region would be helpful. MBA programs in Europe are typically around a year long so from a cost-saving perspective they can be enticing. I would say an exception to the rule would be if you plan to go into management consulting for McKinsey, Bain, or BCG or one of the big 4 like Deloitte, Accenture, PWC, and E&Y. No summer internship needed to get a job with them.

11. Make sure that you visit the schools and take the tours while also doing the meet-alumni nights if they are in your city. This will help you during the essay process. In addition, you'll make yourself seen to the admissions folk and you can start making a great first impression. Finally, you can determine if the culture of the school is right for you. Personal story, but when I went to Columbia for their tour I found it super cold and up-tight while I thought University of MD was WAY too laid back. I felt MUCH better at NYU Stern, IU Kelley (where I eventually went), Insead, and IE Madrid.

12. There's a misleading statement going around the internet that you need a Top MBA to become a Product Manager, especially at companies like Facebook & Google. This is FALSE! In my opinion, the MBA is actually more of a requirement if you want to be a Brand Manager at a non-Tech company. Brand Managers handle the product management of tangible goods like cars, sneakers, wine, and shampoo. The MBA preference/requirement is because the metric that matters for Brand Managers is often Profit & Loss and you need to have a solid understanding of what makes your brand & company successful (supply chain, operations mgmt, marketing, finance). These are all skills an MBA program will teach you. If you simply want a Product Manager job at a company like Google or Snap overseeing an app or a feature of an app that isn't even tied to revenue, then you can skip the MBA entirely. You'll save time and money by just learning basic coding, reading some books on quickly testing ideas & launching products (see my recommended Readings page), while getting experience delivering solutions. Attend the conferences for the target companies you care about and network so you can get a referral. You'll hopefully get a shot that way or even better, your product idea might be so good you get funding to expand on it by an Angel investor or VC. You can quit your job and run that. If it does really well maybe it gets acquired and you become a director. Now you're the one interviewing the MBAs!

MBA Time: Keys to Success

So you picked a school and got accepted and now you're about to begin. What are some things to know? Look below:

1. Go on Youtube or Udemy and take classes on Excel and PowerPoint. Learn the short-cuts well. Thank me later.

2. If you are single, be prepared to be frustrated. Getting dumped or ghosted might hurt more, especially in the age of Tinder & Bumble. While in your 9-5 pre-MBA life you can simply take an unplanned trip or do some other activity to feel better. However, in business school it doesn't work that way. Your schedule can be really limited, especially if you're also working. Remember you're competing with others who can be more spontaneous to the needs of whoever you're dating. Thus, don't get upset with them if they flake or dump you - wish them well and move on. If you still do want to date, you can try the League Dating app. You'll likely be matched with others going through the same issue (grad school) as you so there's more consideration of your feelings. With all that said, whatever you do, don't date your classmates in your cohort! There's plenty of people outside of your class to date and they won't make things awkward if it fizzles. You want as strong a network as you can get out of your program.

3. If you are married or in a relationship, be prepared to be frustrated - just differently than the single folk. Likely your partner is NOT in a grad program the same time as you. You may also have young kids to deal with. All I can say here is try to make an effort to be as "present" as possible. This can mean planning a date night for each week - something you both can look forward to. On top of that, be mindful of the little things like getting them their favorite meal if they're doing more of the house-work and child-rearing.

4. If you're getting your MBA part-time, don't take big vacations in the middle of the semester. Your assignments and readings can be time-consuming. Save it for after your semester ends and use it as a celebration.

5. If you're a full-time MBA or you're part-time and you realize you now want to ditch your employer, start getting a mock interview group together and practicing MBA Behavioral and Case interviews. The career services department of your school can also do these with you. If you followed my earlier tips of already knowing the target companies you want to work for, Glassdoor will likely show you the type of questions they ask candidates for the role you're after.

6. Be a good teammate. Try your best and don't slack off during group projects. You don't want to get a bad reputation among your peers. They're going to be a great support system for you emotionally during the MBA and afterwards too!

7. Get familiar with the concept of Kanban and use apps like Trello to keep track of everything you have going on. Prevents anything major from slipping through the cracks.

8. Pay close attention to how much you borrow for student loans. Typically repayment is 10 years and the interest can get high. Make sure the salary of the role you want is in line with the loan payments you'll be making. To give you a sense of what I mean, when I went through loan exiting, they suggested in order for me to feel financially "comfortable" while paying back my loans, I would need to make around $120K/year. My business school loans were under $80K. At the time, I still had around $12K in undergrad loans and live in a relatively high cost-of-living state.

9. An Ipad is a god-send. I had in-person lectures (70% remote/30% in-person) and I would just turn the camera on to record the lecture. That way I could easily refer back to anything the professor said. It made note-taking easier.