How to Evaluate Your Own Profile

When you begin working on your MBA applications, do not begin by evaluating schools; your first step must be to evaluate your own profile. In this article, we will go over the common mistakes made by MBA aspirants in their profile evaluations, the factors to be considered when evaluating a profile, the best resources to use, and how to properly interpret the related statistics.

Common Mistakes

The most common issue that most MBA aspirants make in their profile assessments is over-optimism, the typical logic versus emotion battle. It is only natural that you might display some bias in your own favor in your MBA profile assessment but you must remember to approach the profile evaluation process rationally and realistically.

Another common MBA profile evaluation mistake is basing your judgments on perceptions rather than facts. There is quite a bit of misinformation on what makes for a strong MBA admissions profile and without the full set of facts, you cannot properly judge your MBA profile.

The final profile evaluation mistake that we will cover here is taking the rankings too seriously. Fairly often, MBA aspirants fall into the trap of thinking that they must do their MBA from a university in the top X percent or it is meaningless. It is important to understand that this viewpoint is not the proper one to approach your MBA admissions with; the real purpose of an MBA is to learn and profile building will follow in time.

Factors to be Considered

When evaluating your profile, a whole host of important factors must be taken into consideration. Some of the most important are:

Academic Acumen - While an MBA is a professional degree and professional experience is given more weight by the admissions committee, academics do carry a fair bit of weight. You must consider your GMAT, GPA, professional/academic certifications, awards/honors/ scholarships, when assessing your profile.

Professional Maturity – Understanding your maturity as a professional is perhaps the most salient aspect of your profile valuation. You must very carefully evaluate your years of experience; your industry and functional area within it; your performance; and the roles, cultures, and domains that you have been exposed to, as they are expressed in your profile. When gaging your performance, pay special attention to any promotions that you may have received and the quantifiable impact of the same. Another very important factor to consider in your profile is your professional stability, encompassing your job switches and the average time spent at each job. The most important element to consider, however, is the duration and scale of any leadership roles that you may have undertaken.

Overall Persona - You must carefully go through your MBA profile, to understand exactly what type of persona it conveys. Closely analyze how your profile illustrates the quality of your communication and interpersonal skills, as well as the dimensions in your profile; these include community service activities, sports, honorary/advisory/voluntary roles, cultural and artistic activities, etc.

Leadership Potential - It is vital that you have a thorough account of all of your leadership experiences, thus far, both within and beyond the professional environment. One important element of your leadership potential is your capacity to make an impact in the times ahead; if in your profile evaluation, you find that there is little to no focus on leadership, you must work towards rectifying the same.

Glossary

The following is a glossary of virtues that are highly prized by MBA admissions committees; please take a minute to look through it and while assessing your profile take note of how many virtues it conveys.

Professional Accomplishments | Academic Bent | Versatile Persona | Diverse Background | Leadership Potential | Global Perspective | Achievements Early for One's Age | Vision to Make an Impact | People Management Skills | Communication Skills | Subject Matter Expertise | Analytical and Quantitative Skills | Perseverance | Honesty, and Work Ethics | Initiative | Crisis Management Skills | Delegation | Training and Mentoring Skills | Strong Sense of Commitment | Ability to Overcome Adversity | Cross Functional Expertise | Project Management | Eye for Details | Coordinating and Liaoning | Multitasking and Time Management Skills | Training and Adaptability | ...

Recommended Resources

The richest resource for understanding how a school will evaluate your MBA profile is the school's website; go through it carefully to understand the pedagogy of and structure of the program, concentrations offered, class profile, and placement records/ trends, as per your industry and domain. Also, be sure to understand what type of careers that school's ecosystem is conductive for; this ecosystem can be determined from the student clubs, centers of excellence, etc. that the school has. Another resource that you should be sure to consider are the rankings; however, do not place too much value on these rankings; remember that a school that is relatively lower ranked may turn out to be a better fit for your profile than a higher ranked one. It would be better for you to consult regional rankings rather than global ones because MBA programs from one country cannot easily be compared to MBA programs in another. For the US schools, consult the US News Rankings and for European schools consult the Financial Times Rankings; while there are no such reliable rankings for the Australian, Asian, and Canadian schools, Experts' Global's MBA admissions team has put together a comprehensive ranking list that you can take a look at.

Wise Use of Statistics

While consulting the various resources, in order to understand your MBA profile, it is important to be clear on how to interpret the statistics provided. The key point to remember is that the median statistics only apply to median candidatures; factors such as your work experience, nationality, leadership quotient, and extra-curricular activities will affect how competitive your admissions will be; if you belong to an over-represented pool of candidates your competition will naturally be higher. Please keep all these factors in mind, while evaluating your profile and remember that a thorough MBA profile evaluation is a critical first step in the admissions process. For more useful information on the MBA application process please see the other articles prepared by Experts’ Global’s MBA admissions consultancy team.