Month: September 2017

7 LESSONS FROM MY TIME AT HBS

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My MBA at Harvard Business School (HBS) is over, but I will harbor memories from my two years there for a long time. I had some incredible experiences, met inspiring friends and professionals, visited fascinating places and – last but not least – reflected a lot. It has been a transformational experience not only professionally and academically but especially personally. As I embark to go back to what MBA students usually call “real life” (vs. bubble MBA life), these are the seven key lessons I plan to take with me.

1. Prioritize ruthlessly

As most MBA students learn, especially during the first weeks at business school, the academic, social, and professional activities are so plentiful that it becomes unfeasible to participate in each and every one. It would be great to do them all, but that is not possible. The solution is not easy: learn to say ‘no’, or as a famous poster shown in my office used to say you need ‘ruthless prioritization’. During business school, I learnt to focus on questions like how to prioritize my time, what matters most to me, what is important but not a priority, and to spend my time purposefully. Also post-MBA, I have planned to spend weekly time reflecting on whether I am devoting the right amount of time to the activities and people that matter most to me.

2. Be yourself

During my time at HBS, there were some moments where students shared some very personal stories from their past. Several students cried in front of large crowds. They opened themselves up. They became so vulnerable. At first, I was surprised how they were willing to share their deeper selves. Afterwards, I felt much more connected and closer to them. I felt that they had removed all barriers. They were so authentic. I will not be afraid to show my emotions and who I am. I will not be afraid to also show my weaknesses. I am confident that this is the only way I will be able to be myself. Some people will like it, others will not. However, at least, they will know me for who I am and not someone else.

3. Be patient and persistent

I spent two years applying to HBS. The first time I was rejected and HBS did not even call me for an interview. Had I not been patient, I would not have had the privilege to live such a great experience. The second time I applied, I reflected a lot about the reasons I was rejected and I tried to improve my application as much as I could. It took lots of efforts, time, energy, and patience. If I think about the achievements I am most proud of, I can easily realize that they took time, persistence, and lots of failures. Sometimes we want to have something immediately and I am that type of a person. But that is not always possible. Post-MBA, I want to continue being patient for the things I care the most.

4. Just ask

How many times do you get tempted to ask for something but you do not, due to a fear of rejection? How many times have you wanted to connect with someone but you are unable to do so because you are afraid? How many times have you missed an opportunity because you were shy? It happened to me many times both at work and in my personal life. During a sales class at HBS, a Professor pushed us to “just ask” in order to overcome our fear of being rejected. He suggested that we connect with people we would not have been comfortable reaching out to. That week, whenever I met someone I wanted to talk with, I approached him/her. Sometimes, I was rejected. However, I was surprised my requests were accepted many more times than I thought. That boosted a tremendous volume of confidence. Post-MBA, I do not want to be shy nor afraid of being rejected. Opportunities arise when we’re brave enough to seek them out.

5. Seek out diversity

At HBS you are often asked to work as a team. HBS students tend to be fairly opinionated and their opinions tend to be very different. During group work I was initially certain my way of thinking was the right one. Yet at the end of the project, I realized often that a specific point I had not understood led the project to new directions and ways of thinking. Post-MBA I will seek out diverse points of view both at work and in my personal life. Working in a diverse environment requires lots of flexibility and patience to understand different points of view and adapt to various ways of thinking, interacting, and communicating. However, I cannot emphasize enough how much being in a diverse environment has taught me about myself and about other cultures.

6. Be grateful

Graduation day is a day I will never forget in my life. I was very proud of myself on that day. But even more, I felt very grateful. I felt grateful towards my family. I felt grateful towards so many people who had filled me with continuous affection and support. I felt grateful towards HBS as an institution allowing me to live such a transformational experience. I want to continue manifesting my gratitude towards people and institutions that have given me so much. And even more, I would really like to start impacting the lives of people in a positive way as a tribute to the many people who helped me get where I am today.

7. Dream big and take risks

“I want to create a firm that allows space travels.” “I want to help in reducing famine in African countries.” “I want to revolutionize the way education works.” I have never been in a place where people thought as big as they did at Harvard. They had dreams that are very hard to realize. Yet these are their dreams and they are willing to invest lots of time and energy fulfilling them. They are willing to take risks. Post-MBA I want to dream big and take risks. Taking risks can be pretty daunting. However, not taking risks signifies renouncing your dreams, which would be far worse. **** Now that I’ve graduated from HBS, I hope to continue to apply these lessons in my daily life. And I hope they’ll be helpful to anyone considering applying to Harvard Business School. Credit: Sharing from Marco De Curtis – HBS alumni

Ten tips for perfectly pitched essays

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Blog-28_Cliche-Essays

Essays are an incredibly important part of the application process, says Stacy Blackman, an MBA admissions consultant. Seemingly straightforward questions require a great deal of introspection. Make sure you budget time to draft and redraft, try new approaches and carefully edit so that each line packs the maximum punch 

1 As soon as you know that you are going to apply to business school, you can start to prepare in a low-stress way. Keep a notebook and jot down anything interesting that comes to mind. An inspiring lecture, a disappointing performance review, an enlightening conversation with a friend, a travel experience, running a marathon, a stimulating book—all of these can be terrific material for your essays. Don’t agonise over whether it will make a great topic, just jot it down. You will find that you quickly have a plethora of material to choose from.

2 As you begin to approach essay-writing time, consider putting together a “brag sheet”. Write down all of the things about you that would not necessarily appear on a résumé: languages you speak, all extracurricular involvements, family traditions and more. This can also be mined for essay content.

3 Once you have the essay questions in hand, there may still be a few stumpers. Even with lots of content, when you are faced with answering a question such as “What matters most to you?” it is difficult to decide. Here is an exercise that stops you from over-thinking: set your alarm clock for 3am. When you wake up, ask yourself the question. The first thing that comes to mind might surprise you. Do this for a couple of nights and you may come up with a few options or find that you are building a consensus around a certain topic.

4 Before you actually write the essays, take the final step of mapping out the general topics you will cover in each essay. As you map a topic to a question, check it off on a master list of stories you want to cover. This way, you can make sure that a given school is receiving all of your key stories, and that you are spreading out different stories across an application and not being repetitive.

5 Everyone works in different ways: some work best first thing in the morning, others are night owls. Some need to outline concepts on paper, others go straight to computer. So develop a plan that supports your individual style. Many find that the first application can take around 40 hours of work—brainstorming, drafting, editing, refining. As you approach this process, make sure you have the time. Tackle one application at a go. Do not take work leave or attempt it in a single week. Essays require time to gel. Therefore make sure that you have plenty of time to do it right. You may require six weeks, or you may even want 12.

6 Many applicants are inhibited by perfectionism. They can sit at the computer for hours, unable to generate that “perfect” essay, rewriting so furiously that they don’t get past the first few sentences. It is often easier to edit than to write. So just type. A page full of so-so text is less intimidating than that blank page.

7 It is essential that you research your target schools and understand how to appeal to each of them. Each will have a slightly different ethos and look for something different in their students. But…

8 …you can also save yourself a bit of work. There are certain qualities that all business schools want to see in a successful applicant:

  • leadership
  • team skills
  • ethics
  • communication skills

Just saying “I am a strong leader” is not enough. Every claim you make must have supporting stories that help the reader believe you. You do not need to check off every quality on the list. Select a few that apply to you and reinforce those in an honest and compelling way.

9 Nobody is perfect. The schools know this and you need to show them that you are realistic and self-aware. Revealing your humanity—in the form of quirks, weaknesses and flaws—can often help the admissions committee to like you. A story about how you learned from a failure, improved upon a weakness or struggled with challenges can be compelling. The other side of this is the ability to demonstrate that you can really benefit from the MBA degree. If you know everything already, an admissions committee may wonder why you want to return to school.

10 Get some help. Even the most meticulous writers benefit from a second or third set of eyes. Ask someone to review your essays, look for typos and tell you if you are hitting all of the points in the right way. Is your attempt at humour coming off correctly? Do you seem too humble, too cocky, too serious, not serious enough? After you have been buried with your essays for weeks, a fresh perspective can often help you see the application as an admissions-committee member does: for the first time. Enlist someone who knows about the application process and make sure they are not just reassuring you that all is well, but are actually giving you some quality feedback.

Source: http://www.economist.com