I have faced this question a lot of times.
Questions such as:
"How do I start preparing for my GMAT?"
"How important is QA? DS?"
"What about that new section, does it matter?"
"English can be tough for someone from the Indian subcontinent, how should I approach English?"
Well, I will attempt to present a strategy to lay those doubts to rest. And hopefully after reading this, you will have a perspective on how to go about it.
The key success factor (KSF) to be a good leader (I omit the word business before leader) as I have found is to ask the right kind of questions.
I urge you to take a weekend off any thing that plagues your mind and think along these lines.
1. Where am I and what am I doing?
The answer to this question will probably help you develop a deeper insight into what you really are doing.
For example:
1.
I am an IT-Engineer. I test code. Essentially my company pays me for generating reports and sending emails. I know a tool or two that is really critical to the project/ product I am working on.
My bosses seem to like the work I am doing, but I don't know what is next.
I am in this peaceful city where I know where the best pubs are at. I know all the best eateries, and all the best places for camping and travelling within a 300 km radius (for the rest it is approx. 190 miles)
But I am kind of bored of this place, and I want to move out of this place.
2.
I work for an FMCG company in their sales division. Every month end, I meet my manager to tell him how much of the sales target I accomplished. I have to meet distributors on a weekly basis to urge them to buy my company's products and I have to somehow squeeze money out of the retail outlets to show revenue inflow.
I have travelled extensively, but somehow I do not see myself doing anything different in the next two to three years.
...once you are done with such an analysis, it is time to take your thinking to the next level.
2. Why do I need/ want an MBA?
This can be a killer question. And will decide whether you want to appear for the GMAT or not.
Typically there are three broad categories of people who wish to take up the GMAT.
a. The ones who just want to enroll in an MBA program for the heck of it. (could be peer pressure).
I am quite convinced that some of us have friends who keep telling us stuff like:
"Wow, you are cut out for an MBA."
"You should totally do sales and marketing"
"You are so good with numbers, you should study finance, get into investment banking or something"
My suggestion to you. STOP.
Pause for a second and see whether an MBA is the right means to this end.
For example, if you are really good with numbers, why not look at doing an MFA, or an MS in Mathematics or study some more of statistics? An MBA is not just sales, marketing, numbers, finance. True it does touch upon all of that, but it does not touch JUST that. It looks at a whole lot of other stuff.
b. The ones who want to earn more money.
I know there are those among us, who think life after an MBA is driving in a luxury sedan, living out of suitcases, flying to different airports, having corporate brunches, dinners, and having the company of fine women/ men
STOP. Life after an MBA might not be as rosy as it may seem. The harsh reality is that, MBAs are in demand, sure, but the picture that an MBA brought with it is changing. These days, there are MBAs from top notch schools who have to ride on a jeepney to go meet a distributor in a remote part of some country and convince him in a language that perhaps might be unknown to buy SKUs of that shampoo that you think is the best in the world.
OR worse, you might be recruited by an IT company and be made to write test cases for a project that might already have 20 test engineers.
c. The ones who might really think that an MBA will add value, thus taking up the GMAT makes sense.
Now if you belong to the third category of people, you might either have already thought about the target industry you want to get into, the target roles you want to get, the target salaries that you might want to draw post your MBA.
This category could include people who wish to change their career tracks, to make a difference to this world and/ or just take a jump along the management ladder.
Quite frankly, such people are rare. But such people exist.
I know most B-schools in their application essays ask you why you wish to do the MBA, but honestly, very few people REALLY wish to study in an MBA program.
This is a cold and hard fact.
3. Now that you have figured out why you really need/ want an MBA, it is time to think about your GMAT.
Here you look at what kind of money you have with you to pursue an MBA. Needless to say, there are schools that have scholarship programs, but practically what are your odds? Do the math. I am sure, or to put it in QA terms, I am 95% confident to say that the chances of you getting a scholarship are extremely low.
Once you have a target budget in mind, look at the schools which you wish to apply to with that kind of budget.
There are good schools in all budget ranges. So if you wish to find any, just keep looking. You will find the right websites.
Once you are done with looking at schools you can afford. Look at where you want to be in future.
For example:
Adam wants to get into a marketing role with Johnson and Johnson in the state of California. He has can spend up to $ 40,000 on his MBA. He saw the prospective list of colleges he can cover within that budget.
Once sorted Adam ought to look at colleges where J&J has recruited for a similar profile.
Once he narrows his list down, he ought to look at the GMAT and work experience requirements.
Now with that demographic, he has his master lists of say 20 colleges ready.
With that list, look at the money you have now to spend on forms.
If you can afford only say 5 colleges, there are two things you ought to do.
1. Try visiting the colleges where you think you would have the most fun living around.
2. Try talking to the professors and students of those colleges about the student life, and culture.
Then you think about GMAT.
PLANNING FOR YOUR GMAT
With the GMAT requirement of your target colleges sorted, here is how you may want to start.
Before preparing, just take a mock up of the real GMAT.
If your scores are awfully low, then start practicing stuff that you feel you are the least weak at.
The formula for cracking the GMAT is quite simple.
PRACTICE. PRACTICE. MORE PRACTICE.
The simplest way to crack the GMAT is practice enough to get above 20% of the cut-offs from last year's average scores.
There are different schools of thoughts on whether the mock ups are a good representation of the GMAT scores. Truth be told, you need to take a minimum of 30. With the 30 scores, you find out what is the range your score lies in.
Armed with that number, you can almost accurately (with an error margin of about 10) predict what your actual GMAT score will be.
I will put up the working of such a method in my future post. But for now, lets just stick to that hypothesis.
The rest as they say is up to you.
..........more later.
Questions such as:
"How do I start preparing for my GMAT?"
"How important is QA? DS?"
"What about that new section, does it matter?"
"English can be tough for someone from the Indian subcontinent, how should I approach English?"
Well, I will attempt to present a strategy to lay those doubts to rest. And hopefully after reading this, you will have a perspective on how to go about it.
The key success factor (KSF) to be a good leader (I omit the word business before leader) as I have found is to ask the right kind of questions.
I urge you to take a weekend off any thing that plagues your mind and think along these lines.
1. Where am I and what am I doing?
The answer to this question will probably help you develop a deeper insight into what you really are doing.
For example:
1.
I am an IT-Engineer. I test code. Essentially my company pays me for generating reports and sending emails. I know a tool or two that is really critical to the project/ product I am working on.
My bosses seem to like the work I am doing, but I don't know what is next.
I am in this peaceful city where I know where the best pubs are at. I know all the best eateries, and all the best places for camping and travelling within a 300 km radius (for the rest it is approx. 190 miles)
But I am kind of bored of this place, and I want to move out of this place.
2.
I work for an FMCG company in their sales division. Every month end, I meet my manager to tell him how much of the sales target I accomplished. I have to meet distributors on a weekly basis to urge them to buy my company's products and I have to somehow squeeze money out of the retail outlets to show revenue inflow.
I have travelled extensively, but somehow I do not see myself doing anything different in the next two to three years.
...once you are done with such an analysis, it is time to take your thinking to the next level.
2. Why do I need/ want an MBA?
This can be a killer question. And will decide whether you want to appear for the GMAT or not.
Typically there are three broad categories of people who wish to take up the GMAT.
a. The ones who just want to enroll in an MBA program for the heck of it. (could be peer pressure).
I am quite convinced that some of us have friends who keep telling us stuff like:
"Wow, you are cut out for an MBA."
"You should totally do sales and marketing"
"You are so good with numbers, you should study finance, get into investment banking or something"
My suggestion to you. STOP.
Pause for a second and see whether an MBA is the right means to this end.
For example, if you are really good with numbers, why not look at doing an MFA, or an MS in Mathematics or study some more of statistics? An MBA is not just sales, marketing, numbers, finance. True it does touch upon all of that, but it does not touch JUST that. It looks at a whole lot of other stuff.
b. The ones who want to earn more money.
I know there are those among us, who think life after an MBA is driving in a luxury sedan, living out of suitcases, flying to different airports, having corporate brunches, dinners, and having the company of fine women/ men
STOP. Life after an MBA might not be as rosy as it may seem. The harsh reality is that, MBAs are in demand, sure, but the picture that an MBA brought with it is changing. These days, there are MBAs from top notch schools who have to ride on a jeepney to go meet a distributor in a remote part of some country and convince him in a language that perhaps might be unknown to buy SKUs of that shampoo that you think is the best in the world.
OR worse, you might be recruited by an IT company and be made to write test cases for a project that might already have 20 test engineers.
c. The ones who might really think that an MBA will add value, thus taking up the GMAT makes sense.
Now if you belong to the third category of people, you might either have already thought about the target industry you want to get into, the target roles you want to get, the target salaries that you might want to draw post your MBA.
This category could include people who wish to change their career tracks, to make a difference to this world and/ or just take a jump along the management ladder.
Quite frankly, such people are rare. But such people exist.
I know most B-schools in their application essays ask you why you wish to do the MBA, but honestly, very few people REALLY wish to study in an MBA program.
This is a cold and hard fact.
3. Now that you have figured out why you really need/ want an MBA, it is time to think about your GMAT.
Here you look at what kind of money you have with you to pursue an MBA. Needless to say, there are schools that have scholarship programs, but practically what are your odds? Do the math. I am sure, or to put it in QA terms, I am 95% confident to say that the chances of you getting a scholarship are extremely low.
Once you have a target budget in mind, look at the schools which you wish to apply to with that kind of budget.
There are good schools in all budget ranges. So if you wish to find any, just keep looking. You will find the right websites.
Once you are done with looking at schools you can afford. Look at where you want to be in future.
For example:
Adam wants to get into a marketing role with Johnson and Johnson in the state of California. He has can spend up to $ 40,000 on his MBA. He saw the prospective list of colleges he can cover within that budget.
Once sorted Adam ought to look at colleges where J&J has recruited for a similar profile.
Once he narrows his list down, he ought to look at the GMAT and work experience requirements.
Now with that demographic, he has his master lists of say 20 colleges ready.
With that list, look at the money you have now to spend on forms.
If you can afford only say 5 colleges, there are two things you ought to do.
1. Try visiting the colleges where you think you would have the most fun living around.
2. Try talking to the professors and students of those colleges about the student life, and culture.
Then you think about GMAT.
PLANNING FOR YOUR GMAT
With the GMAT requirement of your target colleges sorted, here is how you may want to start.
Before preparing, just take a mock up of the real GMAT.
If your scores are awfully low, then start practicing stuff that you feel you are the least weak at.
The formula for cracking the GMAT is quite simple.
PRACTICE. PRACTICE. MORE PRACTICE.
The simplest way to crack the GMAT is practice enough to get above 20% of the cut-offs from last year's average scores.
There are different schools of thoughts on whether the mock ups are a good representation of the GMAT scores. Truth be told, you need to take a minimum of 30. With the 30 scores, you find out what is the range your score lies in.
Armed with that number, you can almost accurately (with an error margin of about 10) predict what your actual GMAT score will be.
I will put up the working of such a method in my future post. But for now, lets just stick to that hypothesis.
The rest as they say is up to you.
..........more later.
Solidly written post, with good advice. Even for life in general, I keep telling people how important it is to take the time to introspect and figure out where you are, where you want to go, and what you need to do to get there.
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