The decision Between Exec. MBA vs. Full-time MBA - Part 2

Here is continuation of the part 1 of the discussion on Exec. MBA vs. Full time MBA decision

The problem of entry level positions:
Realize that most of the jobs available to full-time MBA are entry level positions especially if you are changing careers. So unless you have an appetite to take orders from somebody who is at least two or three years younger (even more in banking) don't even venture there. This is true for all career changers - whether you are in full-time or Exec MBA does not matter. Having said that I know two Exec MBA guys who directly transitioned to a VP level position into a VC firm post-MBA. This is never going to happen for a full-time MBA program student unless he/she has prior PE/VC experience.

I believe the decision between Exec. MBA and full-time MBA or even an MBA really boils down to what you want to do next in your career. If you are a techie who has stagnated in his/her current engineering position and if your goal is to move to general management position in a different industry/management consulting position roles - earlier your only option was to do a full-time MBA. However there are multiple options available to you that I suggest you consider (each of these options are based on specific examples I have seen and are ordered based on the level of difficulty in implementing each of these options)

Easiest - Try moving into a non-engineering/managerial position such as Product Management/marketing within your own company. This option does not even require an MBA. One or two years in such a role will tremendously increase your marketability for other general management roles across a diverse set of industry - This is from my own personal experience - when I transitioned from an engineering role in Telecom equipment company to Product Management role. Two years later I started getting calls for PM roles in very different verticals within the Tech industry such as internet (Google/Yahoo to be specific) and I didn't even have an MBA till that point. You will have even more opportunities across very diverse industries if you supplement this with an Exec. MBA. Think from the perspective of a prospective employer - would he prefer to hire somebody who has two-three years of general management experience + Exec MBA or simply a fresh full-time MBA with almost no general management experience!

Slightly tougher: Increasingly firms are realizing that there is a vast pool of available talent in engineering roles that is eager to venture and try out other general management roles. For example, McKinsey which already hires 30% of its associates (experienced hires) from non-MBA background is planning to increase it to almost 60% in coming years. Also firms such as Intel, Cisco etc are increasingly hiring non-MBAs for general management rotational positions.

Difficult: If you are not into transitioning into general management roles but into totally different industries such as banking, hedge funds etc, yes a full-time MBA makes sense. Because it is difficult to make that transition from engineering roles to these roles without a full-time MBA. As I stated above, there are few cases of people who have made the same transition from an Exec. MBA but for that you will have to be very committed.

Very difficult: Looking for that elusive VC job: First of all who said that going for a full-time MBA is the only way to get into VC. It may be definitely so for an entry level position but increasingly a lot of VCs (especially the early stage ones) are hiring for mid to senior level positions directly from the industry - the reason being Industry experience and contacts are much more relevant for being a successful VC than that MBA degree from top B-School. Your MBA degree is relevant to the extent your network from that school is useful. But for that you don't need a full-time MBA - Exec. MBA should suffice.

Hope this helps. I might sound too negative here for full-time MBA (after having completed a two year full-time MBA program) but I am taking this position for a reason - so many times I have seen the debate between full-time vs Exec MBA is so one-sided in favor of full-time that I thought somebody needs to bring in some balance here!

The decision between Exec. MBA vs. Full-time MBA: Part 1

This is a critical decision point for people with significant work experience. I was in a similar situation when I was applying for an MBA program. Having recently completed a full-time MBA program from Wharton and I thought I should revisit the topic to see if I could help others who are tackling the same issue using the benefit of hindsight. Please note I am not comparing Part-time MBA to full-time MBA. I am refraining from commenting on part-time MBA as I don't have enough reference points to make a good call on that issue (Wharton does not offer part-time MBA program).

Here are the top concerns for somebody who is trying to make such a decision:

Career Change:
If you are looking for a significant career change - into a different industry/role - than full-time MBA has been touted as the best choice for sometime now. However, my experience tells me that quite a few Wharton Exec MBAs successfully transitioned into very different careers - this is especially true if the economy is doing well. I feel that as an Exec. MBA if you are 100% committed to a career change, you will standout from the rest of the Exec MBA crowd (who are usually not that committed) thereby increasing your chances of success in making the transition. Compare that against your full-time MBA peers - almost 100% of who are looking for a career change. Also don't forget that two years of no-work/no-pay will financially constrain you and restrict some of the career options you might want to pursue post Full-time MBA.

Quality of Education:
Well I do not believe there is a material difference between the quality of education between Exec MBA and full-time MBA. Even if there is - you will soon realize that whatever you were taught at B-school was all crap anyway - so how does that matter! Really, tell me how much of your undergraduate education was immediately relevant to your first few jobs. The B-school education teaches you some good frameworks to analyze problems and the rest is just details. And you will learn those framework just as good as in full-time as you will in Exec. MBA. So please don't overestimate this aspect. Also, I believe two years of full-time classes is a little excessive- there is just too much time to party! - that leads me to my next point.

Looking for that someone special!
Well, who said that "enhancing career" is the only reason people go for an MBA. However, if you are happily married - (happily is the keyword here) full-time MBA might not have the same appeal for you as for someone who is "single and ready to mingle". I got married during my MBA and I got to see both sides of the story. I can say for sure that the people you socialize with, friends you make and the type of parties you would go out to definitely changes once you get married - (regardless of the social skills of your spouse)! Since most of the potential candidates for Exec MBA are happily married - full-time MBA might not be that appealing from this perspective - and I am not even talking about distractions due to temptations!!

Please look at part 2 for more details..

MBA application - Round 1 or Round 2?

Another common query around full-time MBA application time is - when to apply? In round 1 or 2 or even round 3? First, avoid applying to round 3/final round if possible. The reason is pretty obvious - most the admission decisions have been taken by then so you are fighting for the last remaining seats. But what about between round 1 and 2? Well, here the reasoning is a bit fuzzy and you will get different answers from different people biased on which round they themselves applied.

I strongly believe that you should apply/or at least plan to apply to your most preferred schools/dream schools in Round 1 and leave the remaining schools for round 2. My reasoning is based more on practicality rather than some myths that are floating around.

One common myth is that a lot of "strong candidates" apply in Round 1 and so if you are not a strong candidate you should apply in Round 2. Well, first of all what is a strong candidate? Who knows -there is no clear definition of it because I have seen a lot of so called "strong candidate" get rejected. Second, if everyone knows about this myth than people will accordingly adjust their application rounds over time to falsify this myth. Also do you seriously believe the admission committees of top schools will take in sub-par candidates in round 2 over round 1 just to fill the required number of seats.

Here are my real reasons for applying in round 1:

- MBA applications take much longer to put together than you anticipate. So if you plan to apply in round 1 and in case you are not able to finish the application in time, you could in the worst case push the application to round 2. You don't get that luxury in round 2

- If you get rejected from your most preferred school, you get a chance to realign your own expectations and really plan on what schools to apply in round 2 for a successful outcome. You don't get that luxury if you apply to your best schools in round 2.

- If you get accepted in your preferred school, you don't have to apply anywhere else in round 2! Once you know how much time/energy it takes to put together one app, you will realize that this reason itself is a good enough reason to apply in round 1.

- In case you are borderline candidate, schools will put you on a wait-list after round 1 to see how the round 2 applicant pool shapes up. After they have reviewed all the round 2 applicants, they compare the round 1 wait-listed candidates with round 2 candidates to make the final decision. So in a way you are getting two reviews/chances for admits if you apply in round 1. You don't have that luxury in round 2.

Getting into a top MBA program

Lately so many people have asked me how to get into a top MBA program that I am going to just summarize what I tell others.

There are five key decision points around which an admission committee makes it's call:

- Intellectual Ability - Mostly manifested through your Academic performance/GMAT etc

- Professional Achievement - Some good indicators of this are #promotions, level of responsibility relative to your peers in the same profession

- Clarity of Future Goals/aspirations - Mostly reflected in the Why MBA? Why now? kind of questions - Again it is important to show a continuity of thought process in setting goals/aspiration from pre-MBA to post-MBA - even though these might be two different industries/career

- Personality - Who you are? What type of person you are? Are you a good person to work with?- These aspects are mostly reflected in your essays, choice of topics of your essays, recommendations and personal interview

- Quality of Recommendations - How others perceive you and how does that triangulate to your description of you that comes across in your essays/application. Consistency from all reference points - from essays to recommendation to personal interview is key here.

Apart from the above list, each school adds a slight variation/color to its selection process. It is best to get a good feel of that by talking to students from that particular school. About Wharton I could say these points - The list below is in no way exhaustive and is just IMHO:

- Wharton definitely gives a lot of importance to Intellectual Ability/Rigor - so your academic record/GMAT are critical

- Clarity of your future goals/Aspiration is critical

- Wharton tends to be more "Brand crazy" than other schools - For example, Wharton would admit a "slightly OK" candidate with an experience in a branded company such as Microsoft, Goldman etc but reject a "Slightly Better" candidate from a non-branded company/startup.

- Wharton is definitely lot more open to people with more than 5-6+ years experience than other schools

Kellogg vs. Wharton

Came back from a 10 day trip to Chicago. Was there to attend the Day at Kellogg (DAK) event. The DAK was a fun. Met really interesting people. I am amazed at how much effort students put in organizing this event. Since I am deciding between Kellogg and Wharton, this was my due diligence trip. Few points that stood out
- Kellogg culture is definitely casual, friendly and down-to-earth
- Students play a big role in running the school
- The school's strength is clearly in Marketing. Second could be general management.
- The school has a pretty good focus on entrepreneurship (to my surprise).
- The school is trying to better its focus in finance.
- As compared to Wharton, Kellogg has less international students. A lot of the students I met were from Chicago/mid-west.
- Kellogg definitely makes an effort to not to be very quantitative in its approach to business education. During DAK, we had a mini-class on statistics and the professor teaching the course said that he tries to avoid using equations as much as possible. He is apparently one the most popular professors. Statistics without equations - hmm - something hard to digest for me. So Kellogg lives up to its reputation of being a non-quant school.
- Placement scene seems to be good - Mckinsey made some 55 offers (10% of the class) last year. Most of the reputed companies in consulting, finance, banking were well represented.

I definitly came back impressed. However, not enough to swing my decision in Kellogg's favor. I am eagerly waiting to attend the Wharton welcome weekend.