Harvard Business School - 05-05-2020

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May 5, 2020 11:37am ET

Applying: Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Northwestern / Kellogg, Stanford GSB, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton

Intake Year: 2021

Pre-MBA Career: Two years at big four advisory, and currently as a data scientist at a NYSE-listed tech company, both with a focus on cybersecurity

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Technology, Entrepreneurship Companies: Accenture , BCG , McKinsey , Amazon , Apple , Facebook , Google , Microsoft

GMAT: 750

GPA: 3.2

Years of Work Experience: 3.5

Location: United States

Post MBA Location: United States but open to opportunities in Asia as well

Notes:

Hi A&G and all, I hope you're doing well. I previously worked as a consultant focusing on cybersecurity solution implementation and was ranked top 10% among the consultant class. And then driven by entrepreneurship and the geeky side of me, I joined an acquired startup to do more software development work and learn how to launch products. As part of the job research, I was also given the opportunity to shadow on some product management work and to manage one work stream. I hope to use an MBA to transition into the management side of the tech world in the short term, and to develop the skills and network required for entrepreneurship in the long term.

Prior to my career in the States, born and raised in Taiwan, I majored in finance at a top university in Shanghai and earned a MS in business analytics (GPA 3.97) in California. Outside of work, I do voluntary analytics work at a homelessness aid NGO in SF for about two years and love to travel overseas for organic farming work (through WWOOF) and meet new friends. I met my girlfriend from Austria on one of the trips to Japan and she has been a huge influence to me in terms of why MBA. By the way I love the podcast as well! Thanks for all the care and insights.

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Show Comments (8) Last: May 11, 2020

stacyblackmanconsulting Verified User. Likes Earned: 47 Love your community activism and global exposure. I recommend looking at your functions, titles, responsibilities in each of your tenures to assess quality, business exposure, and level of rigor. There are so many different types of "consulting to tech" applicants. There are those who come from roles such as risk management or auditing, and they then move onto engineering / software development work at tech firms. This career path is very different than front office advisory work in consulting followed by project management-level work at a tech company. Where you fall in terms of recognizable career path (along with application quality) will predict which MBA programs we would recommend as reach and reasonable. If your role is mid-office, as research/ data roles often are, consider ways to show a strategic mindset and leadership. Challenge the status quo, create meaningful recommendations to affect change, show multi-faceted attributes beyond analytical, influence management priorities with your work, etc. (1)

anon10584 Likes Earned: 3 Hi SBC thank you for the comment and advice! I am happy to share more details on my job function. Similar to the first path you mentioned, my career began as a cybersecurity consultant (under risk management) at big four, followed by my current analytics role at a tech firm. Both jobs are mostly technical and analytics-driven, but I have also worked on multiple projects that enabled me to gain more exposure to the business and management work. For example, at big four I voluntarily worked with the management team to create a dashboard for improving consultants' travel and engagement satisfaction, and presented the dashboard to the global head of cybersecurity practices. On my current job, besides the typical analytics work, I am also highly involved in a client-facing project (i.e. the work stream in my original post), and wearing the PM hat gives me great opportunities to collaborate with engineers, streamline the work and ensure a smooth release. (1)

stacyblackmanconsulting Verified User. Likes Earned: 47 @anon10584: Thanks for the clarification. I would need to look at employer, job titles, responsibilities to give you more feedback. Feel free to email me your resume or linkedin. We had the former HBS and Wharton Admissions Officers on our team recently present on this topic. Here's an excerpt from a SBC training: "top 7 MBA programs will be looking for the star performers from “front of the house” people; if client is in “middle or back of the house, such as risk, auditing or marketing, he or she will need to come up with a very compelling story as to why and what he/she can contribute." So, application strategy is important your profile, as you're going to try to leap over the front office consultants/ PMs that are in the applicant pool. Selecting the right balance of reach and reasonable programs is also important. Candidacy strength is also influenced by demographics, nationality etc. I'm very direct; email me if you're truly open to honest feedback. My email is [email protected] (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1693 Very good feedback. Look at aspects of your profile where you've had impact. That impact can be from your professional career (ideated and developed dashboard, provided xxxx outcomes) and your outside activities. Super GMAT, too. (1)

anon10584 Likes Earned: 3 Hi Esther and Alex, thanks for the pointers! I'll make sure to highlight those aspects in my resume and essay. (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1693 More details on this candidacy in this episode of Wire Taps: https://www.clearadmit.com/2020/05/episode-100-wire-taps/ (1)

anon10584 Likes Earned: 3 Hey A&G, thanks for featuring my post on the podcast! I felt super flattered to receive such a positive feedback on episode #100. I was also glad that my post helped shed more light on how applicants in mid- and back-office positions can stand out by showing initiatives and impact. As an update to Alex's question in the podcast, the dashboard effort was mostly driven by me. The HR team had long wanted to improve retention by tracking consultants' satisfaction, and I raised my hand when they first announced this idea, driving the rest of the work such as POC, data collection, dashboard design, and the final presentation. I liked that project a lot because although it was not a client project and thus did not directly help my performance review, it did allow me to indulge in creating impactful products. Your feedback helped me realize that this passion in products had often been the driver behind my career decisions, and I should weave it into my essay. Also, thanks for recommending Haas (and even picking up on the organic farming detail)! I did not include it in the first place because I had spent most of my career in the Bay and wanted to explore somewhere else. But I will give it more thought. (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1693 Great, glad you found the additional content helpful. For the dashboard project, be cool if you could include some positive metrics, post implementation. (1)