Questions To Help You Craft Your MBA Leadership / Achievement Stories

Achievements. Achievements. Achievements. These are the building blocks of your MBA applications, from your resume to your interviews. But maybe your achievement stories are complicated, involving many people or steps or taking place across multiple borders and cultures. Maybe it started and stalled repeatedly. Or maybe it ended in failure, though your impact was still important and noteworthy. To be honest, most MBA applicants struggle to relate even simple achievements in a way that would appeal to MBA admissions committees, and complicating factors like those above make the storytelling process even harder.

The biggest problem I see is applicants using 80-90% of their essays to describe the background of the project and the difficulties it entailed before wrapping it up cheaply with a vague and bland paean to “hard work and perseverance that saved the day.”

Yawn.

To craft an outstanding essay, you must dig into the details of your experience, be it personal or professional. To help my clients cut through all the unnecessary background and find the heart of their stories, I always ask them, “What was the biggest challenge you faced and what actions and decisions did you take to overcome it?”

Almost always, the conflict revolves around a person or persons who opposed my clients’ efforts. So then the question becomes, “Who was the most difficult person you needed to persuade and what did you say and do to convince them?”

If you find yourself struggling, ask yourself these questions to isolate the parts of your experience that will reveal your most important impacts on and contributions to the project, as well as the core strengths you demonstrated in doing so.

If you’re still struggling, sign up for a free trial consultation and I will help you develop a deeper understanding of your own experience and how it relates to the rest of the MBA application process.