How to Write a Career Vision Essay for MBA Applications
You can’t get through an MBA application without being asked about your career goals, but a lot of applicants struggle to answer the question convincingly. This post is dedicated to helping you do just that. I’ll not only be talking about the keys to writing a convincing career goals essay, but I’ll also be using my own career goals essay from my HBS application to illustrate my points.
Ultimately, a good career goals essay is five things: it’s clear, it’s specific, it’s genuine, it’s ambitious, and it’s congruous. Let’s take each of the five in turn.
Be Clear. State your goal unambiguously and immediately. No one ever got admitted to business school for a beautifully written and captivating introduction, but plenty have gotten dinged because admissions committees couldn’t understand what exactly the applicant’s career goal was. My advice to applicants is always the same: lead your essay with a clear statement of your career goal. Here’s the first sentence of my HBS career vision essay:
“My career will focus on launching and managing social ventures that can provide innovative private-sector solutions to public problems.”
It’s simple, straightforward, and most importantly, it isn’t hiding amidst paragraphs of cliche prose and wannabe poetry.
The one ding I’d give myself is that, by itself, it’s a little broad, which is why it’s also important to quickly get very specific…