The MBA question archetypes
ARCHETYPE 8: KEY INFLUENCES, MENTORS AND ROLE MODELS 1. Examples
is your personal experience of the passions and emotions that make sports great? It is always fine to talk about competition, adversity, personal battles, team struggles, fears, performance pressure, team bonding and team-mate reliance, split-second decisions, triumphs, overcoming odds, disappointment – and how these experiences have made you or changed you.
ARCHETYPE 8: KEY INFLUENCES, MENTORS AND ROLE MODELS
your choices at work. Who you choose to mentor you says a lot about the kind of person you are aiming to become.
In addition to wanting to understand your influences, Adcom wants to see your ability to form and sustain mentor relationships. If you can form lasting relationships with senior advisors and protectors, you are a much better bet for big career success. Mentors will groom you for big things, promote you when you are ready and help watch your back when the blame-pack goes hunting.
Strong influence can come in inanimate forms as well. If you have a fun- damental shaping experience or source of inspiration and guidance – if you are a performing jazz pianist, or you did your years of Peace Corps service on a remote Pacific island, or you have rebuilt your life in the army – the committee wants to know, particularly if you can say how this will positively affect you in your chosen business career.
4. How to tackle it
Remember, the essay is not about the mentor, it is about you, so you have to be able to say how and why this relationship is important to you and how it advances your candidacy. The familiar questions of self-analysis apply: Why is he a role model for you? Which of her qualities resonate with you? How has he changed or improved you as a candidate? How has she pushed you to profes- sional or personal self-examination and self-learning, or a goal you would not otherwise have achieved? What would not be there in you if you had never got to know this person? How has he changed your worldview or facilitated your development as a manager or leader? In other words, explain yourself through explaining why you chose this relationship or influence and what it has done for you.
Similar questions apply if you are talking about non-human forms of influence. Why is the activity or experience meaningful? How does it nourish you? How has it changed your perspective? How is this relevant to your claim on a place at business school?
The essential elements of this essay are:
a. An anecdote which points to the nature of the mentor (or other influence) and the nature of the relationship (or experience).
b. Analysis, including key qualities of the mentor (or influence).
c. You in action, embodying the principles that you have been influenced towards.
The question may not directly ask for it, but as usual it is better to go with a story: find an anecdote that epitomizes your mentor or your relationship with the mentor. Pick a moment. Where were you, what were the circum- stances, what did you say, what did she say? Or perhaps you were not directly THE MBA ESSAY QUESTION ARCHETYPES 111
involved in the anecdote – maybe you just saw your mentor in action and soaked up the lessons. What happened? Don’t say he was incredible, wise and motivating. Say why.
The essay should also take the reader back to you in action, using the learning and influence you have gained as you make your way in the world.
Give specific examples of how you have integrated the mentoring wisdom into your actions. Perhaps you have even gone further and adjusted and tweaked your mentor’s teaching to suit you? How?
Choosing the mentor
Mentors don’t come too easily, so you probably won’t be spoiled for choice here. If you have to pick between two, choose the one where the discussion will brush up against your themes. For example, if one of your themes is
‘creative technology buff’, you can use your high school computer teacher as an early mentor. But, as we have seen before in choosing stories and events, the choice of mentor is less important than the reasons for the choice. The com- mittee is less concerned with who you pick than why you pick them. Having said that, there are still clear choices of mentor or influence to avoid:
• Don’t choose someone from sports, the movies or popular culture – even if they really have had a great influence on your life. There’s no real relationship, so it doesn’t count. And it looks like you spend your life on the couch, or reading gossip magazines, and that is not the image you want to present.
• Don’t just choose the most senior person you know. You will trigger the questions: How well do you know this person? How well do they know you? How much mentoring really goes on? If you cannot show evidence of a real, ongoing relationship, it will look like you are des- perate to impress. (But sometimes it is justified. On my Gmat prep course, there was a woman who was on Hillary Clinton’s staff in Washington, DC – it was absolutely appropriate for her to cite Hillary as a mentor.)
Generally, you should avoid picking academic mentors, for the same reason you avoid using them as referees. Business schools would much rather you are influenced by the CEO of Hewlett Packard than by your bearded, tweedy college professor. Don’t ring their alarm bells.
Avoiding junior mindset
You are the junior in your relationship with your mentor and that is normal.
But don’t juniorize yourself more than necessary. You learned good stuff from 112 ESSAY MANAGEMENT
someone ahead of you in life or in your field, that’s all. Try to keep it factual and objective, and incorporate balanced criticisms. If you come across as dizzy and star-struck, you might get into cheerleading school but you won’t get into business school.
5. How to flunk this essay
You will mess up this essay if:
• You don’t show mentorship experience or an understanding of the dynamics of such a relationship.
• You choose your influence badly: someone you don’t know well, or who doesn’t fit with the thrust of your application message.
• You don’t have an insightful anecdote about your mentor, or yourself in relationship with your mentor. You don’t give examples and details.
• You develop the analysis of your mentor but not of yourself. You fail to show how your mentor relationship has changed you and facilitated your development.
• You don’t show why what you have learned is relevant to your application or the class you want to be a part of.
• You appear star-struck and lack critical judgement of your influence or mentor.
ARCHETYPE 9: DIRECT PERSONAL INQUIRY (WHO ARE YOU?)