12 posts tagged “career”

Can You Evaluate Your Own Abilities?...omg! its undoubtedly one of the toughest question to answer and also one of the hardest thing to implement in real life...isn't it?

A Cornell psychologist explains why it’s almost impossible to judge your own competence -- and how to overcome the blind spots

• Employee Engagement
• Performance Management

A GMJ Q&A with David Dunning, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Cornell University

Here it goes....

How good of a driver are you? Pretty good? Pretty great? Maybe the next Jeff Gordon, if you only had some training and a jumped-up Chevy? Well, perhaps -- but probably not, and you'll probably never know.

It's difficult, almost impossible, for us to accurately evaluate our competencies. So says David Dunning, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Cornell University and author of several books and papers on accuracy and illusion in human judgment.

Dr. Dunning focuses on the difference between people's perceptions of their abilities and reality -- a gap that can make all the difference in business. Why? Because our own incompetencies blind us to our incompetence. Employees are often asked to tackle something new at work; some will excel while others will fail. Is there a way to predict that failure in advance and avoid it? Furthermore, decision makers must have confidence in their fundamental ability to do their job, but when that confidence is misplaced, even once, the whole organization can suffer. Most business missteps and mistakes are essentially errors in judgment of judgment.

There are ways, however, to objectively evaluate your competence before you fall on your face. In this interview, Dr. Dunning discusses how to work around blind spots, how to make critiques more effective, and what to do when a coworker fails to accurately assess his or her competence.

GMJ: Why do people tend to overestimate their abilities?

Dr. Dunning: There are many, many reasons. The first is the spin we tend to give the feedback we receive about ourselves from the outside world. That is, we claim credit for our successes and lay blame for our failures elsewhere. Second, what people tell you to your face is never exactly what they're saying behind your back. That will give you an inaccurate idea of your abilities. And finally, people just don't have all the information they need to be able to see themselves accurately, and what they miss tends to leave them overconfident.

When we're incompetent, we're not often in a position to recognize that incompetence. Often we make errors of omission because we're not aware of how we could have done a task in a better or a different way. But because we are unaware of these alternatives, we think instead that we've done just fine.

So there are just a whole host of reasons why people generally, but not always, are left with a sense of confidence that may not be justified.

GMJ: There's a lot of research into gender differences in self-appraisal of competence. For example, some research shows that men tend to overrate and women under-rate their ability to pick stocks. Both views are inaccurate, though. Is that same gender dichotomy true in other aspects?

Dunning: No. At least in American culture, you find that both genders tend to be overconfident, but the tendency will differ depending on what area of life you're talking about. So it may be true that men are overconfident about their ability to pick stocks, but if you move to, say, knowledge about literature or aesthetics, the gender difference may go away or reverse.

If you take a look at teenage kids, boys will be more positive and overconfident in their ability to deal with science than girls are. But if you move to English, that gender bias goes away. In the North American culture, if there's going to be a bias that people on average tend to have, it's to be overconfident, though that obviously doesn't happen all the time. And that's not necessarily true in other cultures.

GMJ: What's the danger of being overconfident? What's wrong with being wrong?

Dunning: There are some areas where it could be right to be wrong, but I think we all can easily imagine areas where overconfidence can certainly get you into trouble. I wouldn't want to be an overconfident gambler. I wouldn't want to be an overconfident airplane pilot. I wouldn't want to be a doctor who doesn't know when he or she has to call in a specialist for a consult.

There are a number of areas where overplaying your expertise can have bad effects for you and the people around you. Now there might be some areas, and I think this is under explored in psychology, where being overconfident and being unrealistic may actually be helpful. Those areas tend to be where people are facing the extremes of life -- like you're putting your life together after your country has gone through a civil war, or you're facing a cancer diagnosis.

GMJ: Shelley Taylor [a professor of social psychology at UCLA] recently won the Clifton Strengths Prize for, among other things, researching just that -- she studied breast cancer patients and found that positive illusions are enormously therapeutic.

Dunning: That's right. I think the way to think about psychology is that everything is true -- but only in its specific context. So my take is that there are areas where overconfidence may be helpful. Something that energizes you, even if it's unrealistic, would be good for you in a difficult situation.

On the flipside, though, there are other contexts or situations where the exact same tendency is not something you want to display. I would not want to be a person with foremost confidence in my poker ability going up against a professional like Gus Hansen, for example. That's a situation where you're much more likely to be dead money than a winner. The consequences of overconfidence do depend on the exact situation or the exact task you're facing.

GMJ: People need to accurately judge their abilities, sometimes more than others, as you said. How can you figure out what you can't figure out?

Dunning: One of the pet phrases I have is "The road to self-insight runs through other people." Other people can often give us invaluable feedback that can really correct an illusion that we're suffering from.

One of my favorite, but most chilling, findings is from a study that surveyed surgical residents. They were asked about their surgical skills, and then they were given the standardized board exam. The residents' views of their skills didn't predict at all how well they did on the exam. But the impressions of their peers and their supervisors strongly predicted how well they did. Thus, there are times when what other people think of you can be an invaluable source of what you need to work on and what you're already good at.

And it can happen in different ways -- you don't always necessarily need formal feedback. If you just observe other people and see how they handle situations that you come across as well, you can more accurately judge your own skill in that situation. It's called benchmarking. I mean, it's no secret. Often you find different or better ways to deal with situations that you just hadn't thought of.

As I mentioned, people can't be expected to be aware of their errors of omission. But if you see how other people handle the same situation, it may clue you in to things that you didn't know you didn't know. And that can make you more accurate about yourself and more competent.

GMJ: Are there other ways to become better at self-evaluation?

Dunning: You can self-test, though it's easier to do it in some areas than others. When you're doing a task, evaluate yourself, and then try to get an evaluation from some outside source just to see if your evaluation agrees with more objective evaluations from the outside world.

One interesting thing for organizations to consider is, when employees are being trained, such as in technical skills, give them tests to evaluate their progress, but also have them estimate how well they did on the test. That may go a long way to alerting people to deficits that they didn't know that they had -- both in their skills and their ability to judge those skills.

You really do need some outside agent to point out that you have a deficit that you weren't aware of. You can't depend on your own devices; you really do have to seek help to get a better, accurate image of where your shortcomings lay.

GMJ: When you critique others, particularly people who work for you or maybe even peers, what do you do? Do you give an accurate critique or a tactful one?

Dunning: Giving feedback is a tricky business, and nearly 40% of feedback programs actually demotivate people. There is a skill to be learned here, and there are two things we can do to give feedback that's motivating, accurate, and tactful. The first thing is to give feedback that is concrete, as opposed to feedback that's about the person's character. You want to talk at the behavioral level. Feedback should not feel like a character attack, but rather a helpful suggestion. The other thing is to not only point out the bad, but point out the good, at a behavioral level.

So when you give people feedback, give them feedback that's both positive and negative. If all the feedback is just negative, negative, negative, they might develop some psychic calluses against that feedback.

The last thing I would mention, though, is that feedback becomes more risky and the consequences are higher if you receive it only rarely. Instead, to the extent that feedback is a small event that happens frequently, every piece of feedback carries less of a threat. You don't want managers and employees to be giving everybody feedback every five minutes, but giving feedback often and in small doses removes or reduces the threat level associated with it. You might want to spend more time with employees, giving them explicit goals for the week, the month, and the year.

GMJ: Because everybody hates annual reviews, right?

Dunning: Oh, everybody hates reviews -- giving as well as receiving them. And that creates a problem that managers have to avoid, which is waiting until you're angry to give the feedback you really want to give.

Think of what it's like to hear feedback from an angry person. Why on earth would a person listen to you when you're yelling at him? You're a crazy person; you are not giving objective feedback. One of the reasons to give feedback in frequent small doses is so you're not waiting until you blow.

GMJ: How do you measure improvement in subjective areas? How can you tell whether you're getting better at things like social situations or thinking creatively?

Dunning: That's a very good point, because social situations are subject to a lot of nuance. Those are inherently difficult areas to judge yourself, but even a little feedback can be tremendously helpful. And so even in these difficult situations -- and they are difficult, and people should just recognize that they're difficult -- getting outside feedback can still be very, very helpful.

Ninety-five times out of one hundred, seeking outside sources of feedback probably is going to be more helpful than confusing. Now, mind you, it's not going to work in all instances, but over the long term with a lot of people, it will be helpful. Even though it's stressful to go through, it can be some of the most useful information that we ever receive.

Nothing is ever going to be a panacea that works perfectly in all subjective circumstances. But we have things that can, even in the face of all that, make us better and make our situation better.

GMJ: How should you deal with someone who has gravely overestimated his or her own abilities and made a horrible mistake?

Dunning: Avoid something that can be read as a character attack. We're all prone to see a character attack -- that's a human tendency -- even if none is meant. You want to talk about the specific behavior, the specific consequences it created, and then point out, unless you're firing them, what they can do differently in the future. Suggest a way of improvement or a way of repair.

Some mistakes are so big that the person has to be fired; there's just no way around it. But if you're going to keep the person on, don't wander into character attack, especially if there's an angry undertone to your voice. I think the thing that you want to do is be concrete and behavioral as opposed to, "My God, you really screwed up big, didn't you?" That just won't do.

-- Interviewed by Jennifer Robison

IN DEFENSE OF MBAS Businessmen grouse about them, but the best ones have financial skills that corporations badly need.

Dumping on MBAs has become increasingly popular in recent years, both in the popular press and in specialized publications such as the Harvard Business Review. Newly minted MBAs, the critics say, are too ambitious, too impatient, and not worth the high salaries they command. I often hear similar complaints from senior managers and corporate directors. My short answer to these criticisms is that MBAs need no defense because their offense has been so successful. The marketplace has spoken: new MBA graduates with a few years' work experience command salaries as high as $70,000 a year, and even without on-the-job experience the top graduates from the premier business schools start at around $50,000. Consulting firms, investment banks, commercial banks, and large industrial companies presumably court these MBAs with such princely offers because their predecessors have proved to be worth it (and, presumably, because employers aren't really eager to find patient, unambitious young managers). My free-market orientation convinces me that this rebuttal is correct, yet the disappointment with MBAs is obvious and widespread. Why all the grousing from the managers paying these big salaries? I suspect that it arises from experience with the mediocre graduates who come out of even the best schools, and with the legion of MBAs churned out of lesser institutions. Some employees always prove disappointing, whether they have MBAs, B.A.s, or engineering or law degrees. But the smart students coming out of the top schools are equipped with new financial skills that can help any company improve its performance. How can employers monitor the quality of business education and identify the MBAs who deserve the accolades and the dollars? The easiest way is to stick with graduates of the schools that have been primarily responsible for disseminating the new learning in finance that has developed over the last two decades. By my lights, these schools are the University of Chicago, MIT's Sloan School, the University of Rochester, and UCLA. Moving strongly in this direction are Stanford, Wharton, Berkeley, Northwestern, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, New York University, and Harvard. The different ways that business schools train managers explain why MBAs are not created equal. Most business education falls into two broad categories. The first has a descriptive, institutional bent. Its purpose is to provide students with knowledge of current business practices, conventions, and -- though certainly not the intent of its proponents -- popular myths. This approach, which prevails at most state universities and many other schools, often is combined with an excessive reliance on the case study method pioneered at Harvard. Case studies, which force students to work through abbreviated versions of actual business situations, are designed to produce experienced decision makers. The exercise of making decisions under pressure is supposed to generate the best managerial talent, regardless (so it seems) of the validity of the reasoning underlying the decision. Business schools copied the case study method used in law schools, where it has long been extremely useful. In law schools, going to past cases means going to original sources, just as rigorous historians go to original documents. But, as Professor James Lorie of Chicago has pointed out, the use of cases in business education is little more than a vicarious and attenuated apprenticeship. And apprenticeship ceased long ago to be the predominant mode of education in almost all serious disciplines. By contrast, the second category of business education is fundamentally scientific in its methods. Known as the Chicago school or quantitative approach, it attempts to imbue the student with a valid theoretical understanding of business decisions -- not only of how such decisions usually are reached, which is where the institutional approach usually leaves off, but how they ought to be reached. The quantitative approach begins with the assumption that those business practices that have survived the test of time have good economic justifications. It then attempts to separate the real economic reasons from the popular myths. THIS APPROACH recognizes that before the student can adapt decision-making skills to specific, unforeseeable situations, he or she needs a solid grounding in such disciplines as economics, statistics, and accounting. The goal is to provide the student with a coherent body of objective, broadly applicable principles. Such principles are not based on ad hoc conclusions generated by a set of hand-picked cases or a collection of war stories passed down by successful veterans of the business world. They are the product of applied economic logic supported by empirical tests. Armed with scholarly studies subjecting masses of data to rigorous analysis, the student comes away with a reliable guide to how a variety of decisions can be expected to affect stock values. To illustrate the fundamental difference between the two approaches, consider one of my favorite managerial conundrums: what is the best dividend policy? Practitioners of the institutional approach usually impress upon their students the conventional wisdom that, given a fixed level of earnings, investors prefer that corporations distribute more of those earnings as dividends. All things being equal, higher payout ratios supposedly mean higher stock prices. After all, it doesn't take a financial wizard to determine that the market responds favorably to dividend increases and unfavorably to decreases. A business school with a scientific orientation approaches the question quite differently. First, the student reads a classic 1961 paper by Franco Modigliani of MIT and Merton H. Miller of Chicago putting forth the proposition that dividends are irrelevant to how the market values a stock. The student then reads an extensive body of empirical tests supporting that theory, and supporting the proposition that increases and decreases in dividends matter simply because they convey information about management's assessment of future earnings. Where does all this theory and evidence leave the future corporate decision maker? The purpose of the exercise is to foster a propensity to distinguish between financial illusion (in this case, the popular view that investors prefer dividends to capital gains) and market reality. After all this you might say, ''OK, Stern, this is well and good. But we need only one MBA to make your case, and we only deal with dividends in January. Should I hire just one and send him on vacation for the rest of the year?'' My answer is that, especially in finance, the kind of training pioneered at the University of Chicago has implications for a broad range of decisions. A revolution in the theory of corporate finance has been under way since the early 1960s. The study of finance, grounded in sound economic logic and bolstered by sophisticated statistical methods, has made steady progress toward achieving the predictive power of a hard science. Finance scholars are challenging much of the accounting-oriented intuition that continues to pass for the collective wisdom of Wall Street. Properly applied, the new insights can provide managers with a more sensible basis for setting corporate goals, evaluating divisions and subsidiaries, choosing among investment opportunities, pricing acquisitions and divestitures, structuring incentive compensation plans, finding the ideal capital structure, and communicating with the investment community. The modern theory of corporate finance is, at bottom, a change in the theory of valuation. To the extent that managers view their function as providing the maximum returns for stockholders, all financial decisions are grounded in some theory of capital-market pricing. How managers use the assets at their disposal and what they tell investors depend on their understanding of how the stock market works. The rise of modern finance theory has brought about a confrontation between two very different views of how the capital markets value securities. This, in turn, has given rise to two distinct philosophies of management. The traditional view holds that stock prices are determined primarily by reported earnings. Executives who subscribe to this ''accounting'' model of the firm see their goal as maximizing reported earnings per share. The rival view, the ''economic'' model, holds that the market value of any security is determined by the after-tax cash flows it provides. That is, the tricks that accountants can play with things such as inventory valuations don't really matter to the stock market unless they affect some real variable like taxes. According to this view, accounting profits offer a good measure of performance only insofar as they reflect real cash profits. When reported earnings differ significantly from cash flows, they distort performance and provide an unreliable guide to value. RESEARCH IN FINANCE and accounting has produced a large body of evidence attesting to the ability of the stock market to penetrate accounting fictions. The first implication, which business students schooled in the quantitative approach well understand, is that earnings per share don't count; cash flows count. The second implication is that public corporations should be run exactly as if they were private -- to maximize not earnings but cash flows. When a company properly communicates this approach to the market, the sophisticated investors whose assessments have the greatest influence on share prices take good care of the company's stock. The scientific revolution in finance is steadily winning converts in the corporate world. But much corporate practice still betrays the strong influence of accounting considerations and an unwillingness to believe what the market is saying. The prevalence of accounting-based management is the greatest challenge for the modern business school, and its greatest opportunity. The lessons of modern finance offer a great opportunity for managers to improve their service to shareholders. The MBAs who carry these lessons from the premier business schools into the next generation of senior management can be expected to provide great benefits for stockholders.

*  Originally this article was listed with  (FORTUNE Magazine) –written by   By JOEL M. STERN  

IN ACADEMIA, he was the man who could come up with an acronym for anything and everything under the sun, the moon, the stars, the galaxies and the not-so-Milky Ways. He was the ultimate matrix- master when it came to coining acronyms out of stale air. All of which earned him the directorship of the Indian Institute of Acronym Management, IIAM in short. “Gentlemen,” he told a bunch of students on their first day at IIAM, “the key to all success is BULLSHIT.” Nervous students thought they had heard it wrong, a front-bencher wondered whether he should score points for CP (class-participation) by guffawing and then decided to wait and see how it all went.
  “BULLSHIT,” the IIAM director elaborated, “is the latest in management education. The ‘B’ stands for baggage, the U for unlearning, the first L for learning, the second L for learning again, the S for strategy, the H for honing, the I and T for information technology. I and I alone have developed this matrix- model. What it means is that you first have to unlearn the baggage of the past, then learn from the present, learn from the future, then hone your strategy through information technology. That, gentlemen, is all it takes to become a SUCCESS.”
   The front-bencher beat the rest of the class in applauding this in-house IIAM directorial gem and the director mentally took note and decided to award him an A-plus for CP. “Wait, gentlemen,” he said, “Wait! SUCCESS stands for the following: S for strategy, U for unlearning, C for clarity, C for coherence, E for empathy, S for symbiosis and S for synergy. That, gentlemen, is my SUCCESS model for success in any and every sphere. I commend it to you and to posterity.” The director then took up a piece of chalk and asked the assembled class what it stood for. “Chalk,” said the front-bencher, “but I’m sure you know best, Sir.”
   The director beamed at his protege. “It’s not chalk but CHALK. The C stands for cogency, the H for honesty, the A for appropriate, the L for learning and the K for knowledge. The CHALK within you can be developed to promote your growth and the growth of whichever organisation is fortunate to employ you after I have taught you,” the director said. 

                                            
   “Sir,” said the front-bencher, “If the rishis of yore had developed your felicity in communicating profound ideas with utmost simplicity, India would still have been a great nation and not just another Third World country.” The director smiled and said, “GREAT and not just great — G as in god-fearing, R as in rapport, E as in elucidation, A as in analysis and T as in telepathy.”
   This time, the students were too stunned to even react. Just then the bell rang and everyone got up to leave. “Where are you going,” the director asked a pretty young thing. “For a snack,” she replied. “S as in savoury, N as in nutritious, A as in appetising, C as in crunchy and K as in Canteen”

The important role of motivational books was cited by nearly all the comeback small business owners interviewed for "The Great Comeback." (At least one, Dave Ramsey, is a best-selling author himself.) To see what magic they unlock, My Business columnist Harvey King spent a weekend sampling some of the genre's best-known titles. Here is some of what he discovered:

If you think misery loves company, forget it. Misery loves the company of someone who's left misery far behind. At least that appears to be the secret of successful success books.

Together these books contain dozens of lists of steps, habits, guidelines and principles for reaching business and personal goals. Synthesized, their collective philosophy of fulfillment boils down to this Top 10 list of truths:

1. Despite your defeats, you are not defeated until you believe you are.

2. You are not lazy, you are uninspired.

3. Whether you think you are going to succeed or fail, you will.

4. Too many people with far greater limitations than you have proven wrong the reasons you accept for why you can't succeed.

5. Be honest and admit you know what you really want, then put that specific goal down in writing and develop a plan to achieve it.

6. Never forget your written goal. Each day, remind yourself of it and renew your commitment to it.

7. Anything worth having (or being or doing) will come only as the result of hard work, persistence, continuous learning and, likely, specialization.

8. Follow the Golden Rule (the real one, not: "He who has the gold, rules.")

9. Passion is the key to fulfillment. Other required traits are flexibility, confidence, optimism, commitment and persistence.

10. Start right now.

Despite their similarities, each book has a unique twist--a secret sauce that helps differentiate it from the sea of other books in the genre. Except for Who Moved My Cheese, the books are neatly divided into a series of lessons or essays easily read in daily chunks. (Cheese is so short, it's already a one-chunk--or slice--read.) Each book depends upon a unique metaphor demonstrating that success, achievement and fulfillment do not result from passivity, but require active journeys up steps, down highways or through mazes.

Each, in its own way, brings hope and inspires action. Each, in a strange and inexplicable way, seems based on the movie Rudy.

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Steven Covey
Simon & Schuster
(June, 1989), $25.00*

Who Moved My Cheese?
Johnson and Blanchard
Putnam Publishing Group
(September, 1998), $19.95*

See You at the Top
Zig Ziglar
Pelican Publishing Co
(June, 1982), $22.00*

Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill
Renaissance Books
(October, 2001), $28.95*

What Should I Do With My Life?
Po Bronson
Random House
(December 24, 2002), $24.95*

*price of hardback edition

This article originally appeared in the April/May 2003 issue of My Business magazine.

WHEN THE LION ROARS , what the Poor CAT can do...! it has to surrender :) nothing more than it could do...:)

well...finally, i'm slowly getting on to the Track...with preparation. Thanks to the my job work...which actually inspiring me to prepare as hard as i can, beacuse i just don't wanna stick to the chair and get glue over the Flat monitor...! daily...for hours i won't.  this single reason will be enough for me to get chargedup for the big see~V~saw battle between  the 'Tiger' and 'CAT'....J

Let's Wait and Watch....!               

Well…at last, I’m done with my PlanJ  for my Mission’08.

I was decided on Friday evening in the office, about preparation for PLAN…which has to be done on weekend .yes, I finally prepared it for my preparation.

After all, Failing to Prepare Plan is, Preparing to Fail…isn’t it? That’s the only thing I don’t want…’Fail’.

Bythway my preparation is goin – on, sometimes…little delay because of my deliverables in the Office…L but it’s ok…I’ll manageJ

 This is an article collected from here . it's very important for people who wanna go for Global MBA...

"DOES YOUR PAPER PROFILE LOOK LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE'S? STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF IN TERMS OF STEREOTYPES AND START EMPHASISING YOUR UNIQUE TRAITS "

After Akshay Mansukhani scored a 710 on his GMAT, he knew he could retake it and get a 750 and climb to the 99th percentile. But to score a spot at Wharton (which last year had a median GMAT score of 710), he took the advice of a professor he had while a student at Wharton’s undergrad program and instead chose to spend his time perfecting the essay portion of his application. “The way the Indian education system is set up, grades mean everything,” says Mansukhani who graduated in 2004. “But applying to B-school is like building a house. Your scores are only one pillar, if it doesn’t have the other pillars it doesn’t stand up properly.”
          For international students like Mansukhani, being from a country where large numbers of students are also seeking a US B-school education can make it more difficult for your application to stand out from the pile in the admissions office, even with top-notch test scores. And it’s not just where you’re from, it’s also what you’ve done that can put you into the one-of-a-crowd category. In other words, it’s not that you’re not right for business school. For business schools seeking diversity in their classes, you’re too right. So—when you can’t change who you are—how do you make your application something more than just one of many? 

Stop Stereotyping Yourself    

First of all, say the experts, stop stereotyping yourself. Obviously, with background and experience a large part of the application process, it’s important to realise that others have had similar experiences, says Thomas Caleel, Wharton’s director of admissions. But that’s just a starting point for building your own application personality. “Identifying with a (pool) is different from being in a pool,” Caleel adds.
Taking time to reflect on what you’ll say in the application essay can show that you’re not just following the pack, Caleel adds. “Once you really start to drill down on an individual, there are 20 pools that we can put you in,” he said, such as “where they’re from or what industry they’re working in or what company they’re working for.” In order to dig deeper, Caleel recommends examining the purposely vague essay questions and using them as a vehicle to cover various facets of your life including hobbies, personal experiences, leadership roles, and favourite activities. Coming across as genuine in essays is vital. And officials agree that the main reason applicants get rejected is because the application is based on what they perceive admissions people want to hear instead of being truly authentic.
   
Mixing Up the Essay    

Those inside admissions offices at top B-schools acknowledge that while potential students are all held to the highest standards, applications are looked at on an individual basis. “If we get an entrepreneur from Kenya, his application is going to be less polished then a McKinsey consultant from New York,” says Caleel, adding that this way of considering applications gives an opportunity to assemble a diverse entering class.
   Admissions consultant Jeremy Shinewald, the founder of MBA Mission, is straightforward, warning his clients that they’re in a “high-risk group that faces strong competition, either because of ethnicity, country of origin, or work history. To demonstrate individuality, Shinewald recommends writing the essay out of chronological order by skipping the traditional introduction. “A lot of people can write, ‘When I started as an analyst at Morgan Stanley,’” says Shinewald. “If you were to say, arriving in Minneapolis, I rushed to meet the CFO of Best Buy,’ it’s a much more gripping way of introducing yourself.”
But having a career similar to other B-school applicants can also have its upside. If you’re applying from an area of business that’s heavily represented in b-schools, chances are your higher-ups will often have an MBA. Matt Milanovich, a first year at North western’s Kellogg and a former consultant, took advantage of these available resources before applying.

Connect With People, Not Web Sites    

           Who says you can only make statement with words…

  But it’s right here below..! 

MyJourney

 NOW THAT you’ve weighed the consequences, done the math, and finalised your plans of doing an MBA, it makes sense that you figure out where you’re going to go. Most of us dream of going to Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg or Yale, but let’s be honest. But that’s usually not feasible.
   Again and again, people tell us how important it is to choose the right B-school. If you are going to be spending two years on your own, you want to make sure you are happy. This means looking at everything from academic offerings to leisure options when you’re considering schools. The business school that you choose to attend will have a huge impact on your future and your career. 

Think about it...!

   An MBA is a critical for many career paths, but also a serious investment of time and resources so you need chose carefully! Among the important things for candidates to consider are the size, location, industry focus, teaching methods, and type of program. All of these factors - among others - influence the culture of the school.
   However, when it comes to top B-schools there is no way one can go wrong. With some of the brightest minds as your batchmates, world class faculty, cutting edge technology, there is no right or wrong. But the point here is to get a B-school tailored for your needs.
   One can ask a dozen of questions from admission counsellors but the only question that can help identify the best fit B-school is, what is it that they hope to do after B-school. “Fit is key for selecting a school. Candidate should consider what is important for him in an education and a career after,” says Janet Shaner, director, MBA marketing, IMD.
   Self-assessment is another way of identifying what will better suite the requirement. One needs to step back and look at the timeline between your undergraduate years and your current experience. Looking back at the high times and low times in your life can help understand who your are and what are your goals. “Students should get a sense of whether the school seems aligned with their own personality and interests. He should think about why he wants to get an MBA and how the program will help them reach their career goals and should be able to articulate concrete answers to these questions,” says Bruce DelMonico, admissions director, Yale School of Management.
   The question is really how the applicant sees himself getting the most out of, and contributing the most to, the program. Agreeing to it LeAnne Dagnall, associate admissions director, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland says, “If a person has a strong interest in entrepreneurship as a career, then he will want to first focus on schools that have a strong entrepreneurship focus and then decide
where he fits best”.
   One element that people at
times overlook, but can be a substantive consideration is location of the school. Would you prefer to go to a B-school in a bustling urban city? Or in a suburb? Or in an industrial township? “When selecting a business school, candidates should consider where they want to work after graduation in conjunction with a school’s network in that part of the world. They should also think about the cost of living and quality of life,” says DelMonico.
   Lydia J Price, academic director MBA program, China European International Business School says, “We have a strong general management focus, with special interest in China as a part of the global economy. That means every student is trained for high level management, particularly within businesses that have China operations or interests”. Substantiating it with Smith’s example, Dagnall says, “Geographic location is one of the Smith School’s strength, as we’re located less than 10 miles from Washington, DC, with all of its contracting, government, consulting, technology and Fortune 500 employers, and in close proximity to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York”.
   Contradicting this view point Thomas R. Caleel, director, MBA admissions and financial aid, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania says, “Location is important from a lifestyle consideration, but given the global economy, a top MBA will provide opportunities worldwide.”
Growth in executive education programs makes the task of choosing a B-school all the more difficult. So what are some of the considerations that go into deciding between a full-time or a part-time program. “When you’re talking about executives that are continuing their demanding careers while they study, there are a number of considerations: schedule, curriculum, practical vs. theoretical, profile of the class. Candidate should consider what is important for him and select a school that can provide those elements,” says Marianne Vandenbosch, executive MBA program manager at IMD. Candidates need to determine whether they should invest in a full-time or part-time program by evaluating their career goals. “Generally students will look towards full-time programs if they’re looking to switch industries, whereas someone who is looking to move up in their current position may get what they need from a part-time program,” says DelMonico who feels career goal influences the decision.
For Dagnall, money is the biggest consideration. “The biggest factor is money — can a person afford to quit his or her job for two years to return to school? Once that decision is made, the full-time versus part-time option is much easier,” she adds. As the 21st century progresses, globalisation is having a huge effect on B-schools that are striving to become more global in focus by encouraging diversity in each class. In such a case, international students find it hard to choose a B-school not only because of the amount of money involved but also because of the distance. They have the disadvantage at times of not being able to visit the schools in person before they begin classes to determine fit. However, with the advantage of technology using blogs, chats and e-mail, international students are able to connect with the school and current students to get a sense of the school.
“Having been an expatriate myself, I know that a new country can pose a variety of challenges. Candidates should look carefully at the community. Are they one of a few international students, or is there a large community that will make the transition easier. At Wharton, we have a large, diverse community, but we also welcome everyone to the Wharton culture, so everyone has a new set of norms and expectations they must adapt to,” says Caleel.
And what could be some of the wrong reasons? Percieved ranking of the school. “The most common reason is that students can pick a business school because of the name. If students choose a school because of a ranking or perceived reputation only without finding out if they truly like the school and its personality, then students often regret their decision,” says Dagnall.
Conversely, another mistake can be going to a particular school solely because you get the most money in scholarships and fellowships from that school. A candidate could get a full ride to a low  ranking school, but that might not be the best fit. Getting an MBA is a once-in-a-lifetime degree and compromising based only on money can be a wrong reason to pick a school.
At times people say, well, this person attended that school and seems like it was good for him, so it must be good for me too. “What might be the right choice for one person could be completely the wrong choice for another,” adds Vandenbosch.
One last but the most influential factor while deciding a B-school should be the alumni network. “One has to have a sense that you can be a part of the institute. How alumni feel for their institute and how closely they are associated with it speaks a lot about the school culture,” says Anant K Sundaram, faculty director, Tuck School of Business. Each person will have different needs in terms of fit. “What learning environment suits you best? What are you hoping to gain from an MBA? What are your strengths and weaknesses? The important thing is to go beyond the ‘conventional wisdom’ and brand to find the right match for you,” says Caleel. Always bear in mind that it is not the lifeless walls that make a institute what it is. It is the people there, the buzz they create and the experience they provide by just being themselves.

The MBA bug bit me around in year 2002. I was doing my Bachelors in Technology, in at that time and had a fair bit of time to introspect and to think about the future. Initially it seemed of with a whim, as if I had taken fancy to a random idea. However, the idea kept on revolving around my head as if it was a jigsaw. I won’t say that I have figured it out completely, but my ideas have crystallized quite a bit since year 2002 after my 2^nd year 2^nd semester exams...
Why an MBA?
I have progressed a fair bit at a fast pace without an MBA. But, I do not want to rest on my laurels and want to ensure that I do not run into a dead end in the short or long term future. First and foremost, I want to ensure that I am prepared for future roles and am able to perform the roles effectively.
I feel that as a beginner learning on the job is the norm and is acceptable. This learning may be through:

• Formal training organized by the organization
• Coaching by immediate supervisors
• Observing peers
• Process of trial and error

However as one moves up the career ladder avenues of training dry up, finding a coach / guide becomes difficult (if not impossible), opportunity to observe others performing same / similar role are limited, and the cost of learning by trial-and-error is extremely high. An MBA will not teach you how to perform a job, but it equips you with frameworks and toolkits to evaluate situations and weigh options. In itself this is a tremendous benefit.
Second, I want to broaden my horizons. Till now my experience has been centered on people management, project management, and a technical domain. Exposure to business domain has been limited to client interaction, and contract discussions. I feel that the exposure gained through interactions with people from various educational backgrounds, and diverse industries will broaden my horizon and allow me to look further into it.
Finally, the network one can build will prove to be extremely useful.

Oops…I forgot to share one more very important aspect for opting MBA is to match my skill-set to meet 21^st century requirements for ‘Entrepreneurship’ where the Margin-of-error is very minimal, So,MBA is mybet.. it definitely groomes me for my future goals.