Question from a Listener re: Work Experience before B-School

Every once in a while, we get questions from our listeners asking for personal b-school advice. We try our best to answer them all, and sometimes we post the really good questions on our site. We recently received the following question from a listener and we thought it might be relevant for many others too.

Question: I had work experience of 2 years before college. Then I decided to go to undergrad and I''m graduating this year. I''m planning on going straight to MBA. Would my work experience count?

The question of work experience frequently comes up, especially with the younger applicants who want to accelerate their career early. This is becoming more common, especially for women who want to be able to have a successful career and family life while they are still young.

Most business schools generally say they want applicants with at least 3-5 years of work experience before enrolling. Typically, it doesn't matter what type of work experience you have - just that you have experienced the "real world." I remember I asked this question to a recruiter - he told me that an applicant could have been a bus driver for three years and they would still consider that valuable work experience for business school.

Needless to say, this doesn't mean that applicants with fewer (or no) years of experience can't get in. There are ways to make your application stand out to show admissions counselors you are ready for the challenge of business school. We've produced a couple of podcasts about advice for younger applicants. Here are a few key excerpts that I think will help:

Advice for Younger Applicants

Because the main issue for young candidates is lack of professional experience, Laurie Stewart, Executive Director of MBA Admissions, The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, says the other components of the application should be emphasized. “As one example, if someone has less experience then their academic profile really needs to be strong. Their essays need to really make sense for why their interested in a MBA degree. And I think a candidate as they have an opportunity for an interview has to also really present themselves in a way that shows us that they can sell themselves and it’s obvious that they’re going to contribute and participate in the learning environment.”

Presenting a strong case in your application means you’ll have to have very clear goals. Paul Bodine, senior editor at Accepted.com and author of “Great Application Essays for Business School”, says this could be one challenge for young applicants. “You won’t have had the work experience that helps you decide what your goals are and why you need the MBA. I mean a lot of people use the MBA to make a career change because they’ve discovered that in the career track they chose in college, it wasn’t for them. So if you’re applying right out of college, you haven’t had the work experience that’s helped you decide that that’s not what you want to do and figure out what you really want to do. So maybe they’re going into the MBA not really knowing why they want that MBA. Maybe their goal choice is not as you know tested yet.”

Leadership potential is a crucial quality for young applicants and it can be a bit more challenging to show when you haven’t had a lot of experiences but it can be done says Laurie Stewart, “There are other ways that students with less experience can show leadership. One obvious place is in their involvement on the campus or within the community. And we see great examples of the aptitude for leadership and the impact that less experienced candidates are making and that’s a really good indicator for those kinds of skills over the long term.”

Joining clubs or community organizations can be a good place to find experiences but Paul Bodine says make sure you do more than just be involved. “There has to be some sort of sense that you are demonstrating unusual leadership and by that I mean you know you’re not just for example involved heavily in extracurricular but you are in leadership roles. You know, you’re the class president or you’re the editor and chief of the school newspaper or you know maybe you started a business of your own during the summer you know painting houses or IT consulting or something, I mean those would be indications that you are not a typical applicant, that you’re getting out of the gate fast as it were. And there are other you know less dramatic ways of demonstrating that a typical lesson, you know one could be for example during a summer internship you were given responsibilities kind of above your pay grade as it were and you can talk about those but I think leadership is really the key word there and you can’t just say you are an officer in a club or something like that, you’ve also kind of got to show that that leadership translated into impact so you’ve got to have some stories showing how you’ve changed things. But you’ve got to have that kind of material there I think to have a chance.”

The Best Time to Go For Your MBA: Is Sooner Better Than Later?

Thomas Caleel, Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at The Wharton School, on the other hand, says the extra-young MBA students can bring a fresh, different perspective. “They are eager to learn. They study very hard, and they do contribute to the discussion. It’s a different contribution than someone who can raise their hand and say, ‘Well, I’ve started three businesses,’ or ‘I ran sales for IBM in Beijing for two years.’ They bring an enthusiasm and a fresh perspective. And some of them also bring some interesting summer experience. So to me, it’s a component of diversity within the classroom. It’s a diversity of opinion; it’s a diversity of perspective. And they are integrated very well into our cohort system. Their opinions are valued. They are valuable members of the community. They actually do quite well. And also, life is changing. If you look at college graduates these days, they’ve done a lot more with their lives than college graduates may have done 10, 15 years ago. They are doing real internships. They’re traveling the world. They’re starting businesses while they’re in school. They’re building and leading organizations on campus. So these are our bright, focused, energetic students. They’re not spending their summer on the beach having fun which is a great way to spend the summer, by the way. But they’re actually doing things; they’re trying to make a difference. So why not bring them up and add that diverse opinion to the class?”

Certainly, these extra-young MBA applicants have to be extraordinary. Even though they may not have your typical work experience, they’ve gained experience nonetheless. Wharton’s Thomas Caleel: “If we have an applicant, for example, that’s maybe written a book and gotten that published. That’s tremendous experience. Could you classify that as work experience? Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe they’ve started an undergraduate women-in-business organization and grown that to 600 people over in their time in undergrad. That’s real leadership. As in with all of our candidates, we’re looking for an ability to take a risk. We’re looking for people who are not afraid to do things they’re passionate about and really make a difference. So that’s why there is no formula. Is two years of investment banking critical? It depends on the person. Is two years in the Peace Corps advantageous? It depends on the person.”

Brit Dewey, Managing Director of Admissions at Harvard Business School, says the extra-young candidates will have to meet the same standards as the older ones. “The two things we’re looking for in our process are academic ability, and in that way, someone applying right out of a college is no different from someone applying four years out. We’re going to try to assess your undergraduate transcript, how well you’ve done on the GMAT; kind of the rigor, the analytical, the intellectual, the quantitative rigor of your work. Obviously, with people who’ve been out in the work force, we think about what you’ve been doing on the job in a way that we don’t have that chance with the college senior. But they’ve had several internships and then we’re looking for leadership potential. So for the person who’s been working for a while or for the person who’s applying right out of college, the board starts considering from the time you set foot on an undergraduate campus: What options have you had? What opportunities have you pursued and why? What experiences have you had—either in formal roles or informal roles as a leader? What have you done? What have you learned from these experiences? Frankly, we have to relatively gauge the opportunities that a college senior has had as opposed to what a ten-year-out person has had. But what we’re looking for is potential.”

We hope that helps you understand how to make your application stand out as a younger applicant! As usual, we're always available to chat via Facebook and Twitter! Good luck!