Everything You Need to Know About Your MBA App: Profile Overviews

Introduction to MBA Application Components

When applying to MBA programs, it’s essential to understand every component of your MBA profile and how they work together in your application. There are 11 total components to understand:

• 7 Soft Components
• 4 Hard Components

What’s the difference? Hard components cannot simply be changed by the time of submitting your app and are more quantifiable (i.e. your undergrad GPA), where soft components are improvable and more qualitative (i.e. your personal story).

In this article, we’re going to explore each component, analyze how they interplay with your application, and make sure you are doing everything you can to optimize each component.

Soft Components: Your Personal Brand and Story

The soft components add color, personality, and depth to your application. They allow the admissions committee to see who you are beyond the numbers.

1. Personal Story & Message

Your personal story should be a concise message to the admissions committee that answers these questions:

• Who are you?
• What drives you?
• What are your goals?
• Why will an MBA help you and why now?

Throughout your application, you will have opportunities to respond to these questions, usually in your essays. Keep these points in mind when thinking about your personal story.

Does your story make sense?

If your experience is in marketing, then it will be hard to list that your goal is to transition to private equity. If you have a transition like this in mind, you will have to prove how an MBA is going to enable this transition and what else you are planning to do to help make this unorthodox transition successful.

Are your goals admirable?

Your story and goals don’t need to invoke tears; however, the more admirable they are, the better. For example, maybe you want worked in technology and now you want to get an MBA to better learn finance so that you can transition to working for a FinTech company and help consumers with their personal finance goals. Some programs will care more about this than others, however, in general this type of goal will be far better received than something vague such as “I want to bring business transformation to a large bank and maximize shareholder value.”

Is your story concise?

Applicants often have wide ranging experiences that can make for complex stories, which is fair (we all have complicated experiences and lives). However, it’s important to keep in mind that your application is still relatively short. You want admissions to clearly understand who you are and what you’re about. To build a more concise story, try consolidating your experiences into a few themes that accurately describe you and your goals. For example, maybe you’re an innovator, community-builder, culture-setter. See how your experiences can be grouped together into communicable themes. These themes can be used throughout your application in your essay and resume as well.

A strong personal story can make up for other potential weaker aspects in an application. Spend extra time on your personal story & message to make sure you get this part right!

2. Resume

Your MBA resume should be concise, results-driven, and should focus on highlighting impactful accomplishments rather than listing duties.

First, think about the structure of your resume. For most applicants, the below structure will make for a strong foundation:

• Professional Experience: Work experience focusing on full-time employment. Avoid elaborating on internships here unless this is the only work experience you have
• Community Experience: Volunteering, community services, or formal extracurriculars. It’s okay if you don’t have anything here, just focus on Professional Experience
• Education: University-level education, certifications, or licenses
• Additional: Skills, additional projects, personal interests, or other accomplishments

Some more tips for your resume:

• Use Clear Language: No industry jargon or acronyms. Your resume should be clear to a layman (i.e. admissions committee)
• Highlight Points of Emphasis: Resume should emphasize leadership, problem-solving skills, your defined themes, or quantifiable outcomes
• Quantify Outcomes: Add data for your quantifiable outcomes as best you can, even if you need to estimate (i.e. Led the implementation of a new billing software which reduced customer billing errors by ~15%)

3. Essay Responses

Essays are your chance to elaborate on your personal story. No matter the school, you will have to be prepared to address the below questions in one or more of your essay responses:

• What are your short-term and long-term goals?
• Why will an MBA help you achieve these goals?
• Why will our program specifically help you achieve these goals?

Some schools will have different, more specific questions such as GSB’s infamous “What matters most to you and why?”, but essentially every school will cover the above questions so be prepared with an effective personal statement that highlights why that specific program is right for you.

Few tips on the essay questions:

• Highlight Your Themes: Remember to use themes to concisely communicate your story to admissions. If you want to convey that you’re an innovator, make sure to highlight an example of you being innovative in your essay
• Be Specific: In general, the more specific your goals are, the better. Even if you’re not 100% sure of your goals, you should specify a detailed, reasonable plan for your goals. Things may change of course, and MBAs understand that, however, they want to see that you’ve given thought to plan your short-term and long-term goals
• Avoid Assertions: Be careful with using assertive statements in your goals. “I will” is normally a phrase to avoid. I.e. “I will transition to venture capital”. You don’t want to sound over-confident or arrogant. Instead, use phrases such as “I plan” i.e. “I plan to transition to venture capital”

4. Extra-Curriculars & Volunteer Experience

You may be thinking, “How are extra-curriculars are a soft component?” If you feel that you are weak on extra-curriculars, there is still something you can do before applying: start participating in extra-curriculars. Examples include:

• Any volunteer work in your local community
• Starting an initiative within your employer
• Creating a club with your friends

Ideally these initiatives / extra-curriculars connect back to one of your themes, but they certainly don’t need to.

While admissions would prefer to see a longer duration with these volunteer or extra-curricular activities, you are far better suited starting them now and showing it on your resume rather than having nothing at all.

5. LinkedIn Profile

MBA admissions will check your LinkedIn profile. The most important thing is to ensure that your LinkedIn profile is created and accurately represents the experiences that you’ve provided in your application and resume.

Few additional tips for your LinkedIn profile:

• Profile Pic: Have a professional headshot as your profile picture
• Background Cover Image: Select a warm, professional image as your background. If you don’t have anything, you can select something your passionate about or maybe your company’s logo
• Follow Schools: Make sure you are following the MBA programs that you’re interested in
• Show Activity (Bonus): Not required, but bonus points if you are active on the platform (Commenting, Posting, etc.). This demonstrates participation in your community. Again, don’t stress about this if you haven’t been active yet, it’s just a bonus.

6. Interview Performance

Before we dive in, here’s some basic information on MBA interviews:

• MBAs normally have just 1 behavioral interview of 45 min – 1 hr
• Interviews are conducted by either an Alumni or an Admissions Director depending on the school
• Applicants can normally choose if they want the interview to be conducted in-person or virtual (There is no defined preference by MBAs for which format you choose)

People often misinterpret the role of interviews for MBA programs. MBAs do not make decisions solely on the interview performance. An interview is simply a piece of your entire application, so it’s very possible to have a poor interview and still be admitted. It’s also possible to get rejected even after acing an interview. Regardless, the interview is a critical soft component and it’s important to be prepared.

What are MBAs looking for in the interview?

• Strong Communication Skills: They want to assess your communication skills and ability to convey your experiences verbally.
• Demonstrated Interest in School: Check that you’ve done your research into the program and understand how the school will help you.
• Culture Fit: Interviewers will check to see if you’re a good fit for the school’s culture. That’s why it’s essential to demonstrate that you understand what the school’s principles and explain how you admire, practice, and embody them,
• Confirm your Candidacy: Oftentimes, admissions will likely already have an idea on your candidacy before the interview. If they already find you to be a strong applicant, then the interview is likely just an opportunity for them to confirm that notion before accepting you. The opposite may also be true. You may be a bit short of their ideal candidate, but they still decide to give you an interview. In that case, you would need to perform very well to improve your chances of receiving admission.

Few tips for your interview:

• Be Ready for the Basics: No matter the school, you will almost certainly be asked the below questions that you should have already covered in your Personal Story / Essays:
  • What are your short-term and long-term goals?
  • Why will an MBA help you achieve these goals?
  • Why will our program specifically help you achieve these goals?
• Highlight School Specific Features: Show that you’ve done your research into the school, especially when answering the question of “Why our program?” You should be able to highlight specific clubs, resources, and classes that you’re excited about with that school.
• Prepare Questions: Have 2-3 thoughtful questions prepared. You will need to tailor these questions depending on if the interviewer is an Alumni or Admissions Director. You will know who is interviewing you when the interviewers reach out to you for scheduling. Ensure that these questions can’t be answered online via a quick google search.

7. Letters of Recommendation

In most top MBA programs, you will need to provide two letters of recommendation. Ideally, these are people you’ve worked with such as co-workers or managers. These can also be professors if you have limited work experience.

Few tips for your letters of rec:

• Pick Recommenders Who Know You Best: Don’t worry too much about the level or seniority of the recommender. The most important thing is who will give you the best recommendation. Ideally, 1 of your 2 recommenders is your current supervisor.
• Give Recommenders Ideas: Once you choose your recommenders, send them an idea of what they can write about in their recommendation. Provide them a list or outline of your accomplishments. Make their lives easier.
• Think of Your Themes: When you provide outlines or topic examples to your recommenders, think back to your themes. If you want to convey a theme of “culture-setter”, this is a great opportunity to ask your recommender to include examples of how you improved the culture of your environment.
• Inform Recommenders of What Not To Do: Even when they are providing positive reviews, some recommenders think they need to include some criticism in the recommendations to establish a more credible and legitimate recommendation. This is a mistake. Please inform them in an appropriate way not to do this. Ideally, your recommenders are giving you perfect feedback across the board. Admissions is essentially expecting perfect reviews in the letters of recommendation so anything negative can hurt you here.

Hard Components: The Foundational Metrics

The hard components generally provide quantifiable proof of your academic and professional strength. While they are important, they only tell part of the story. Now we’re listing them here so you’re aware of what they are, but because these are hard components, there’s not much you can do to change or improve these.

Don’t feel discouraged if the hard components aren’t the strongest part of your application. Hard components can often be compensated in an application with strong soft components.

1. GMAT/GRE Score

While GMATs / GREs can be taken multiple times to improve your score, we are listing this as a hard component since improving this score is not always easy or guaranteed even with multiple attempts.

Applicants will usually over-stress about GMAT / GRE scores. While these scores are instrumental in your likelihood of admission, it’s important to understand where you stand between your GMAT / GRE score and your goals. Your GMAT / GRE is likely going to fall into one of the below buckets

• Way below expectation: A score that will likely eliminate your chances of being admitted into the school
• Below expectation: Can still be admitted, but has likely hurt your overall chances
• Around expectation: Neutral impact to application
• Above expectation: Helping your application
• Way above expectation: Greatly helping your application

Let’s say a program’s average GMAT score is 710. Then your ranges are

• Way below expectation: <620
• Below expectation: 620 – 700
• Around expectation: 710 – 720
• Above expectation: 730 – 750
• Way above expectation: 760+

Reason this breakdown is important is because it’s critical to understand where you currently are and where you can feasibly land. If you’ve already scored a 720, and don’t find it realistic to land a 760+ into the “Way above expectation” range, then it’s time to accept that you’ve already passed the GMAT hurdle and start to focus on other parts of your application.

2. GPA

Your undergraduate GPA is used to evaluate how likely you are to succeed in the MBA classroom. A lower GPA can be mitigated by a strong GMAT, excellent work experience, or other soft components. Admissions committees will also consider the rigor of your coursework, and major. Really not much you can do here, but if you do have a lower GPA or some poor grades on your transcript, then you will want to use portions of your application to elaborate on why your GPA is a little lower. Maybe you were going through something during your studies? Best bet is to add something that sheds light on the lower GPA.

3. Work Experience

Typical background for Full-Time MBA candidates will be something around 3-6 years of professional experience in fields such as Consulting, Finance, Marketing, Tech, Sales, or Operations. However, don’t feel discouraged if you have a unique background. Oftentimes, this can used as an advantage to differentiate your profile. If you do have a unique profile, consider working with an admissions consultant to get some ideas on how to approach your application. Even if you don’t have the budget to hire a consultant full-time, most of them will provide free consultations where you can go over your background and get some initial ideas on how to best position your profile.

4. Undergraduate Major & School

While undergraduate majors & schools are certainly a component, they are likely the least important of them all.

When will undergraduate major & schools be a factor?

• Accelerated Programs: If you’re applying to an accelerated 1 YR program, then it can help to have a Business Major undergraduate degree to show that you already have foundational knowledge. Sometimes, this may even be a requirement.
• Alumni: If you are applying to your alma mater, then you can leverage that you’re already familiar with the culture and resources of the university.

Final Note

Our last piece of feedback: don’t sell yourself short. Be aggressive and optimistic in your pursuit of receiving admission from your top MBA programs. Yes, MBAs are competitive, but if you nail the soft components, you can be competitive at any program and even receive significant scholarships.

If you’d like to learn more about how to optimize each of these components, book a free consultation today with us at MBA Reveal. We’ve helped students apply specific strategies and frameworks resulting in full scholarships offers from M7 programs. Let us know how we can help and let’s get to work.