Highlighting International Experience In Your Application

International experience is always a plus on an MBA application.

But international experience doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve traveled to a number of countries. Rather, experts say, it’s about having an open mind to diverse perspectives and backgrounds.

Stacy Blackman, founder of Stacy Blackman Consulting, recently wrote about the value of international experience and why diverse perspectives are highly valued in the MBA world.

“While most schools do not have an explicit international experience requirement, MBA admissions committees seek curious, open-minded applicants who are eager to learn about the world at large,” Blackman writes.

DIVERSITY IN MBA PROGRAMS

Typically, MBA programs thrive best when they take in people from a variety of backgrounds. Having diverse perspectives on campus helps to enrich the MBA learning experience, both on academic and networking fronts.

“Having a broader perspective of global business issues in your arsenal means you bring a unique viewpoint to class discussions and team projects,” Blackman writes. “It also expands your network as you tap into professional associations with your contacts in other countries.”

HIGHLIGHTING INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

As an applicant, you’ll certainly benefit from highlighting international experience – whether it’s in the form of traveling abroad or working in an unfamiliar environment.

“If you don’t have the time or money to volunteer abroad, you can choose a volunteer opportunity that allows you to work with people from another culture,” according to Top MBA. “Youth hostels and immigrant organizations are examples of cross-cultural organizations that take volunteers.”

The aspect of working in an unfamiliar environment can be especially fulfilling and impressive on an MBA application.

“You demonstrate real leadership skills when you break through communication barriers,” Blackman writes. “And when you learn how business practices work in an unfamiliar environment, you adapt to new social and business norms and go beyond your comfort zone. These skills are a crucial differentiator in a competitive MBA applicant pool.”

Sources: Stacy Blackman Consulting, Top MBA

Students in an Executive MBA Class

3 Differentiators of the Executive MBA

If there’s one thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us, it’s that people are placing higher value on more flexible and hybrid models of learning and working.

In the MBA world, the EMBA degree offers a flexible, part-time model of business education for seasoned business leaders and managers.

Bill Kooser, Director of Fortuna Admissions and former Associate Dean of the University of Chicago’s Booth School, recently discussed key differences between the traditional MBA degree and the EMBA.

PART-TIME LEARNING

One of the key benefits of the EMBA is the part-time format that it provides.

“It is organized so that students – already mid-career, seasoned professionals – can continue to work while they pursue the degree,” Kooser writes. “In most cases, classes are taught on weekends – either Friday and Saturday or, in some cases, Saturday and Sunday.”

Often, EMBA programs are customizable to fit the working lives of business professionals.

“These are programs that are designed so that working professionals can fit them into their lives, so you’re not going to go on campus during the day four or five days a week,” Michael Desiderio, executive director of the Executive MBA Council, tells US News. “There’s a myriad of formats: everything from meeting monthly for three immersive days to meeting biweekly for one or two days.”

AVERAGE AGE: 38

EMBA students tend to be older when compared to traditional MBA students. This is due to the fact that the EMBA is designed for those in management or leadership positions.

“Executive MBA programs typically have an average age of 38, with some 14 years of working life behind them,” Kooser writes. “The greater experience of the students provides a richness and a diversity of experience that can’t be matched in a traditional program. Students often learn as much from one another as they do from the faculty.”

DIRECT WORKPLACE APPLICATIONS

Since EMBA students are often working as well, they are able to apply their learnings from an EMBA directly into the workplace

“Because you are going back and forth between classroom and workplace during the course of your EMBA, you get to apply those new skills and tools immediately,” Kooser writes. “So by Monday you can put into place something you learned the Saturday before in class. It’s immensely gratifying to practice what you’re learning in real time.”

Sources: Fortuna Admissions, US News

Benefits of an MBA Degree

MBA graduates from the top 50 business schools in the U.S. earn a median cash compensation
of $5.7 million after graduating and working for 35 years – nearly $2.3 million over those with just an undergraduate degree.

It’s no doubt that an MBA degree has great value, but how exactly does the degree help you advance outside of monetary value? Ilana Kowarski, a reporter at US News, recently discussed how an MBA can help you advance in your field.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

An MBA can offer a pathway to a higher job title. For one, the MBA education emphasizes leadership development with tangible skills and experience.

“A lot of times one of the key things that you are doing that gets harder and harder as you move up in an organization is the difficult conversations stuff, the things that you could have punted over to someone else when you were lower down in the organization, that you could have avoided,” Noam Wasserman, dean of Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business in New York, tells US News.

Along with key leadership skills, the MBA education also imparts students with important soft skills, such as effective collaboration.

“In addition, an MBA teaches them how to enhance their contributions by working effectively with others, leveraging collaboration,” Gerardo Okhuysen, a professor of organization and management at the University of California—Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business, tells US News. “These are the primary ways in which an MBA helps students accelerate their career within their profession, because they can begin to take on more complex challenges at work as they learn about the different parts of business.”

Soft skills, from effective collaboration to leadership, are growing in importance. According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends report, 92% of talent and hiring managers rate soft skills just as highly, if not more important, than technical skills.

VALUABLE NETWORK

One of the biggest benefits of business school is the network to which you gain access.

“If people are leveraging their network well, it can lead to opportunities in the future,” Heidi Pozzo, an MBA alumna of the Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business, tells US News. “There are gaps in knowledge that get rounded out through the MBA program,” she says. “And it is a way to challenge ideas and learn from others what worked well and what didn’t in their companies.”

In fact, experts say that the MBA network is perhaps the most valuable part of the B-school experience.

“As most incoming MBA students know, the network you cultivate during business school is likely the most valuable part of the experience,” Stacy Blackman, founder of Stacy Blackman Consulting, writes. “In addition to making those two years a whole lot of fun, these relationships will also become a lasting set of connections that have the potential to change the course of your professional life forever.”

Sources: US News, Stacy Blackman Consulting, LinkedIn, P&Q

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