For each specific MBA internship and full-time job opportunity, there are a slew of technical skills, experiences, and capabilities that an MBA candidate needs to possess and highlight during the job search process. Yet, there are also a set of high-level, universal traits that a student has to display in order to be the one to receive the job offer, given that there are always more candidates who meet the criteria required to do a job well than there are candidates hired to do that job. Over the years that I’ve worked in MBA Career Management, I’ve encouraged students to shape their candidate profiles using a framework I call the “Four Dimensions": Performance, Behavior, Capabilities, and Smarts.
The Four Dimensions exist and are exhibited in all types of jobs and situations. They are broader, for example, than a capacity such as “teamwork," which applies only in instances when people work together on a shared project or goal. Because the four dimensions encompass many different contexts and modes of work, they can be used as a universal short-hand, a narrative framework, and as a measuring stick across industries, functions, levels of seniority, organizational objectives, and so on. They encompass a wider, more holistic set of individual character traits possessed by a job candidate or employee – most organizations simply focus on different gradations and qualities of “performance” – as well as attempt to capture not only existing skills and capabilities, but future potential and the ability to learn and grow as a professional.
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