What Did You Actually DO?- Getting Specific in the MBA App - 工管

Not unlike The Transformers, thereˆs more than meets the eye in explaining
your responsibilities for work experiences. What you tell your friends or
colleagues is not the same info the AdCom needs to read about. Youˆre not
passing info from one side of the table to the other, you are promoting
yourself. Itˆs a pitch.

And that pitch needs to be carefully crafted. And exact. And very, very
specific.

Letˆs look at an example thatˆs not so hot:

Responsible for internal business communications and external media relations
by working closely with Company X.

While it sounds kinda nice, we donˆt actually know what the applicant DID.
None. Ask yourself: What does it mean to be responsible for internal business
communications? Does it take an hour a week? Four per day? Is the person
sending out a dozen emails, making 100 phone calls? When he says he is
responsible does it mean he is leading others or just polishing the shoes of
the other guy whoˆs doing the leading? Managing an office? A budget? All of
these things are super important for the AdCom to understand what you are
actually doing. Otherwise, itˆs management speak, the kind that David Brent
resorts to.

And a second not-so-hot example:

I spent a significant amount of time on marketing this service.

What does it mean to ¨market a service〃? Is the person writing
presentations? Making them? Again, by using jargon and business lingo, the
applicant is actually making it MORE difficult to understand what he actually
did. Just as problematic in this example is the phrase ¨significant time.〃
Say what? For someone who hasnˆt worked in the group in the company it
could be anything from a day to two years.

In order for the AdCom to understand what is actually going on, this needs to
be contextualized. We need to know how long. But thatˆs not enough either.
After all, we all work for different companies in different industries, so it
ˆs also helpful to know how long you spent relative to other company
projects.

By contextualizing the information and actions you are doing, you allow the
AdCom to know what you are actually doing, and that youˆre not just ¨
heading the project down the oh-so-vague path to unproven success.〃

And now for a GREAT example:

Taking on end-to-end responsibility for our flagship summer event, I led the
executive committee in conducting a fund raiser show featuring a professional
theater troupe from China for a sold-out crowd of more than 400.

Specific.
Clear.
We can PICTURE it. And weˆre impressed.
Solid.

See the difference?

Jon Frank
HBS 2005
Founder Precision Essay
http://www.precisionessay.com

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