Why Brilliant Candidates Fail? - 工管

Jane is a young Taiwanese professional seeking admission to an Ivy League MBA

program. She’s more than qualified – with impeccable undergraduate college

performance, impressive work experience after college and glowing

recommendations. Her GPA, GMAT & TOEFL scores are well above the threshold

for any Ivy League MBA program. What’s more, in her admissions essays,

she’s going to dazzle the admissions committee with her brilliance and

mastery of business English – through clever turns of phrase and

impressive vocabulary.

Everywhere Jane might have used the word“get”she will substitute

“obtain.” Where she would have written“use”“utilize”“take advantage of”

or “exploit”she will change the word to“leverage”– because that’s the

cool business-insider lingo.She will liberally sprinkle words and phrases like “facilitate,”

“proactively”“pivotal”“business acumen”“skill sets”“deliverables”

“incentivise”“key points” and “core competencies”throughout her essays.

Where previously she “helped” she will now “actively

participate in the facilitation of…”She’ll make long, complex sentences to

demonstrate her elegant mastery of English and employ passive verb constructions

wherever possible because that sounds more “professional.” Where she would have said,

“I closed the deal,” she will now say:“The successful consummation of the

deal resulted from my leadership and initiative to proactively leverage

my skill sets and core competencies toward the ultimate goal

of achieving consensus and facilitating a mutually favorable agreement.”

That will be Jane’s undoing. By the end of the first paragraph,

the admissions officer reading Jane’s essays will be mildly annoyed

at the unnecessary complexity of her writing but will maintain patience,

knowing English is not Jane’s first language. By the second paragraph,

the admissions officer will have realized that Jane’s convoluted writing

(and thinking) is an intentional attempt to show off, rather than an accident

of writing in a second language. By the third paragraph, the admissions

officer will have formed a solid impression that Jane is too immature for any

leadership role and will set Jane’s entire admissions package in the

rejection pile – relieved at not having to read her pompous and

unintelligible writing any further.

Where Jane thought she was demonstrating “Outside-the-Box” thinking,

she was, in fact, demonstrating inside-the-box conformity.

Where she thought she was demonstrating leadership,

she was actually demonstrating followership.

Rather than using her own words and expressing her own unique “voice”

in her writing, she imitated the language patterns of others.

Rather than employ her creativity or her whole vocabulary,

Jane restricted her thinking and vocabulary to a tightly conforming pattern

of buzzwords and “business-speak” that sounded (to the admissions committee)

indistinguishable from hundreds of other candidates who will also receive

rejection notices.

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EditEnglish.Asia Communicating Excellence Globally
David Rutledge (洛大衛)
15 year of English Editing Consultancy
[email protected]
http://www.elcc.com.tw/


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