Determining Your Realistic MBA Goals Using LinkedIn
Last month Paul Lanzillotti, founder of Amerasia Consulting, presented a talk for GMAT Club on LinkedIn Presence and Leveraging LinkedIn for your MBA Research. He specifically talked about determining realistic goals using LinkedIn and how to go about it.
Here are a few questions you should ask yourself when doing your MBA research on LinkedIn and are determining your realistic goals:
Who else — from my current (or recent employer) — has gone on to graduate from business school?
What specific MBA programs did they graduate from? When I search LinkedIn, is there a critical mass of business schools? What does this Pareto chart look like?
What title(s) did my colleagues hold before entering business school (pre-MBA)? Does my progression approximate theirs? Is mine better?
For example, is my progression “fast track”? For example, do I have more awards at work? (Don’t worry about the salary for now.)
Be sure to find a good mix of first year students, second year students and young alumni. Older alumni may represent hiring trends no longer relevant at the school, but not always.
Where did these individuals intern as MBA students, what geographic locations — was it in the US or “back home”?
What group(s) within their respective companies? What type of projects did they work on as an intern?
Where was their first post-MBA job — name of firm, starting title and location? What projects did they work on?
Lanzillotti suggests, keep searching for profiles. Try to find as many profiles you can find. If you can’t find a critical mass of profiles that approximate yours (for each b-school targeted), that means one of two things:
Your LinkedIn search game is weak.
Or, your background may not be appropriate for the program you are targeting.
If number two is the case, switch it up.
Either target another business school or change your goals.
I advise changing your goals to match what you see in the LinedIn data.
If no one with your background is pursuing similar goals, it won’t just be a problem at one b-school. Most likely, it will be a problem at all of them. When it comes to appropriate short term goals, these schools aren’t all that different.
For a complete explanation, watch the full presentation below: