Five Years to B-School: The Third Year

On the way to B-school, Year Three is a turning point. Prospective MBAs must show career progression and hit books to prepare for the GMAT

By Francesca Di Meglio

To help you, BusinessWeek.com is launching a new series: a five-year planner for business school. The five-part series—this is the third—will provide a year-by-year guide to what you should be doing and thinking about in building the sort of résumé and skill set that will be attractive to MBA admissions committees.

In Year One, you learned about getting your feet wet at work and finding a mentor. In Year Two, you took on greater responsibility and initiative and started to prepare for the academic rigor of an MBA program. Year Three is the turning point in your five-year plan. You are on steadier ground, and you're much more removed from your undergraduate life. There are no more late-night philosophical discussions or keg stands left in you. In Year Three you must show actual movement in your career and either move to another company or earn a promotion where you are. This is the year you must prove yourself, so let's get right to the point:

IT'S PROMOTION TIME

Not everyone was promoted in Year Two, when it was possible to get by with a bit of initiative and greater responsibility. Now, however, things are different. You must have a change in title in the form of a promotion, or you have to move to another department or company. "Admissions committees don't want to see you doing the same job sitting in the same position for the third year," says Stacy Blackman, president of Stacy Blackman Consulting in Los Angeles. It's critical, she adds, that you wisely choose your next move and that it is something that enhances your résumé and shows progression in your career.

What kinds of work should you be doing in this new position? Well, you should have more responsibilities and new projects, and ideally you should be managing and/or recruiting others. Your two years of training are complete, so you should help to make change and give direction to the company. If you can't find those kinds of opportunities where you are working, then you should move on, which may be difficult given the state of the economy. In Year Two, you should have looked into all possibilities; now it's time to seriously pursue those other positions.

Ideally, you'd like to be in charge of something. For example, if you are in engineering, you should be a project manager who controls a budget and has at least one other person reporting to you, says Jay Bryant, assistant vice-president of qdmissions and recruiting at Thunderbird School of Global Management. Admissions committees want to see that you are a leader with great potential—and you'll need specific examples to prove that as fact.

At this point, says Bryant, you must have a narrow list of what you'd like to be doing post-MBA and how this career path (even if it's not in the field you'd eventually like to be in) is going to get you there. As you make decisions about positions to take, you must keep this ultimate goal in mind. In business school applications, you'll have to be explicit about this plan and how your current experiences will help you achieve your goals. For example, if your in marketing and your post-MBA goal is to launch a business, your new position might involve helping launch a startup, perhaps as the company's vice-president of marketing.

BECOME A MENTOR

Now that you have two years of work under your belt, you can start mentoring others, says Blackman. The benefits are twofold: By serving as a mentor to an up-and-coming young person, you are building your network while that person is gaining valuable advice to advance his or her career. Blackman says you can even approach young people in your office who show promise and offer to mentor them. This is yet another way to show initiative in your life—a great characteristic if you're seeking an MBA, and one you'll need to demonstrate in your B-school applications.