The MBA Student Voice

Student Spotlight: Katherine Ozmeral

This post is a part of the Student Spotlight series where we highlight a current Anderson student and learn about their experience at Anderson. We will also get hear about their favorite Anderson memories and get their advice for current and prospective MBA students.

Today we are featuring Kathrine Ozmeral '17.

 

Tell us a little bit about your background.

I majored in Finance & Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following school I started working at an insurance company where I sampled different areas finance: including investments, accounting, business strategy, and internal audit. Looking to transition into the retail industry in a marketing or merchandising capacity I decided to start preparing my MBA applications. While doing so, I moved to Thailand where I taught English & volunteered for the year leading up to my start at Anderson. Now that I'm here, I'm hoping to combine my passion for retail with my "social good" attitude.

 

What has been your favorite thing about Anderson so far?

The people. I was really sensitive to culture when looking for an MBA program - my undergraduate business school was very congenial; however, my first job had a very competitive culture which didn't fit my personality.  At Anderson, I've noticed that "Share Success" isn't just a saying, but a notion that every student lives and breathes. When interviewing for internships, I didn't have a shortage of alumni, second years, and even fellow first years sharing helpful tips and performing mock interviews with me. You spend a lot of time with your fellow classmates, so it's important that you enjoy their company!

 

Few Tips On How To Create a Stunning B-school Application Resume

The significance of a good resume in the MBA application process cannot be overstated. The general tendency with most applicants is to devote only a minimal amount of time to work on their resumes; their thinking is that resumes are not so important since they receive only a quick glance from adcoms. This is wrong thinking! Your resume is the gateway to all the wonderful application materials that you painstakingly put together about yourself in the application package. The resume is typically the first application element an adcom member will read, so it has to be written in such a way to generate interest. It is imperative that your resume makes a good impression. Also, for promising applicants who receive an interview invitation, a good resume is important in the interviewing process to help an interviewer who is assessing your fit with the b-school.

With that in mind, here are some principles to remember as you write your resume:

• A narrative-based resume (rather than bullet-point) is the ideal way to begin this process since this captures maximum content in minimum space. Usually, it should be limited to one page, but as a starter you can extend into a second page and then pare it down to 1 page.
• Use the S-A-R approach. Since you want to identify and articulate your strengths and key accomplishments, the most effective flow is to state (a) the SITUATION – mention the problem you had to overcome (Who/What/When). (b) The ACTION you took or initiated to solve the problem, highlighting the skills you used to complete the tasks. (c) The RESULTS – summarize the outcome in a quantifiable manner.
• Your MBA resume should show you at your best. Include examples of specific times and places when you learned the most, shone the brightest and had the greatest impact.
• DO NOT fall into the trap of just listing all your official job descriptions to date. When top b-school review your resume, they’re looking for career progression, so be strategic in your job listing; include jobs in which you have achieved quantifiable goals, been promoted, and generally made an impact on your surroundings.
• DO NOT include industry-specific jargon or technical lingo that you might include on a job resume. Make the information on your resume as easily assessable to your audience as possible.
• DO NOT offer too much information in your b-school application resume. Including information that is already available from other parts of your application could be a turn off to adcoms and make you appear desperate – no SAT or GMAT scores, no high school information, no references.

It’s worth mentioning that this is not an exhaustive list of steps to adopt in writing your resume. The purpose is to streamline your thought process as you prepare this important aspect of your b-school application. Best of luck!

Applying to Business School as a Couple

Recently we have received a lot of questions around applying to business school as a couple. For couples in this situation, there is a lot riding on the outcome of your applications. Daniela Castillo and David Valencia, members of the Class of 2016, were in this situation not too long ago. Here is their story:

Our journey applying to business school was special. Not only because we were international applicants, but also because we had a wedding to plan. We are second-year MBA students at UCLA Anderson, and we want to share with you our experience of applying to business school as an international couple.

Taking the GMAT

Business school has been part of our relationship since the beginning. We met at a GMAT student prep center back home in Bogotá, Colombia. The MBA was part of our respective career plans, and in each other we found a study partner who shared similar professional objectives.

Anyone thinking about an MBA has to face the challenging reality of taking the GMAT. Our strategy was to study at least one hour each day after work. We say “at least” because sometimes we studied for way more than one hour. It is not always easy to say “no” to other activities, especially social gatherings, parties, dinners, and the like. But we put our MBA application goal before anything else. Actually, studying for the GMAT became a way to spend a lot of time together and we learned very much about each other.

Once we had the scores we aimed for, we had thorough conversations about where we really wanted to go for business school. We spoke about rankings, career interests and classes, we reached out to alumni, and we even thought about weather as a factor that would affect our two-year experience.

Our recommendation to couples is to talk about everything on your mind. Avoid later surprises by discussing what really matters to you and your partner. At this stage, you have to factor in everything that could help you make a decision about where to go. In our case it was not easy, we each had different career priorities; but we ended up applying to three business schools that aligned with our interests, and UCLA Anderson was one of them.

What I wish I would have known when applying to b-school

Recently I have been asked by several prospective students variations of this question—if you could go back, what do you wish you would have know when applying to b-school? It is a great question. As I have thought about it, there have been several things that have come to mind, but the one I want to focus on is the importance of location.

When I was originally applying to business school, location was a very important factor. I wanted to be in a place that promoted a tight-knit student culture, and I wanted to go to school in a region I was interested in living in post-MBA. However, the one aspect of location I didn't consider, and for me as a career switcher is extremely important, is whether or not the local business community will provide me with opportunities to gain the skills and experiences I need to help me successfully switch careers.

Although I didn't realize it when applying, being in Los Angeles would be a key part of my success in being able to get to where I am now in the career switch process. Before business school, my work experience was primarily in operations. I spent the last 2+ years before Anderson at Goldman Sachs. When I came back to school, not only did I want to change functions to marketing, I wanted to change industries as well. Changing just functions or only industries is very common in b-school, but attempting to make the double switch is a bit more difficult.

So, what is the local business community like and how exactly has being in LA helped me? The startup scene in LA is booming and there are a ton of opportunities for students to gain valuable experience beyond just the typical MBA summer internship. There are also a lot of bigger well known name brands that hire part-time interns during the school year like Disney, NBC, etc. This summer I began building my marketing experience as a Brand and Content Marketing intern at Castlight Health. I wanted to continue that momentum and keep building on my marketing experience, and have recently started another internship in Brand Management at Little Tikes. I am confident that these experiences and skills I will continue to build beyond my summer internship will help me successfully make my desired career transition.

So what would I say to those out there looking to apply to business school? If you are considering switching careers, think carefully about how will the program and location of the school put you in the best position to make that switch.

Follow @UCLAMBA on Instagram to get a student perspective on life at Anderson. Also, follow me and UCLA Anderson on Twitter: @jhuntington14 and @UCLAMBA.

Meet Your Classmates (Part II)

The next member of the Class of 2017 is a former management consultant from Australia looking- like many incoming students at Anderson- to make a slight career transition and to get back in touch with his inner tech side during business school. The man also takes some tremendous selfies, as you'll see below.

 

Name: Ankit Pandey

Hometown: Melbourne, Australia

 

Prior to Anderson:

I was a management consultant at Ernst & Young, within the Supply Chain & Operations practice. My projects and clients varied over my 4 years in the practice, giving me the opportunity to work across the following industries: financial services, mining & metal, telecommunications, consumer goods, construction, government and not-for-profit.

 

Why Anderson:

A key influence in me applying for business school for this Fall was to move into an industry where I could get back in touch with my engineering education. As such, California was very attractive, with the Silicon Valley and a rapidly emerging technology base in LA.

 

Also, Anderson's reputation as a consistent Top 20 business school, a technology leader amongst business schools, and an institution with strong collaborative culture, made for a very strong case. Hence, when I received my offer call at 1:30am (won't be forgetting that anytime soon!) I was more than happy to accept.

 

What is one cool/interesting thing about yourself that others would not be able to tell upon first meeting you?

I'm Indian. Now, although my name may give this away, my 'fairish' skin colour, freckles, accent and red hair that has darkened over the years, usually throw off most new acquaintances. 

  

One thing I hope to accomplish by the end of my first year at Anderson:

Is to have competed in at least one case competition.

 

One piece of advice for prospective applicants:

Brace yourself for a cliché: "You have to be in it to win it." One should not let any self-doubt of whether their application will be strong enough to result in an offer influence whether they apply. 

So you want an MBA?

Whenever I share the news that I was admitted to UCLA Anderson my friends, colleagues and well wishers alike usually ask me one question - "What was your GMAT score?". Wrong question. The right questions are - what were your responsibilities at your workplace, how did you demonstrate initiative, what was your leadership experience like, how did you differentiate yourself in a highly competitive applicant pool?

As you can surmise from the picture above, success is an iceberg. Anything worth having requires a lot of dedication, persistence, a few failures but most important of all a plan of attack that is executed upon with consistency. A majority of us assume that an admission to a MBA school must be a few months of hard effort. I beg to defer. The final admission offer was YEARS into the making starting from an individual's undergraduate school, maybe high school even. Getting into a top MBA program is a marathon, not a sprint.

To any Anderson hopefuls out there or for that matter any of you even remotely thinking of getting an MBA - start planning now. As any gym instructor might tell you half the battle is just showing up. If you visit cities with MBA schools in the vicinity make it a point to drop by and take a look around. Start reaching out to anyone with an MBA in your current network to get a perspective. Even if you do not know anything about the GMAT start tackling a few questions just as a puzzle that needs solving. Assess the opportunities at your current workplace and be more pro-active in seeking out the activities that demonstrate your potential. Start detailing a plan of attack and lay out a 3 month, 6 month and 1 year plan - goal visualization and planning are critical to success.

I end this post with one last sagely advice - The worst mistake you can make is to assume that you will tackle the admission process when ready. Small incremental changes can lead to monumental exponential progress.

Until next time...

Quick Intro + Admissions Tip

Hey prospective MBA students! It was just a year ago that I was in the same boat as you - considering an MBA, researching schools, and tackling the GMAT. Fast forward to today and I can’t believe I've just quit my job and will be starting at UCLA in just 2 months. Ever since I received the admit call, it’s been a whirlwind of emails and events, and school hasn’t even started yet! 

But first, a quick into on myself. My name is Jennifer Wu and I’ll be one of the student bloggers for the class of 2017. I was born in the Bay Area, did undergrad at Berkeley, and then worked for the past 4.5 years in San Francisco with the accounting firm KPMG. Like many of my fellow classmates, I decided to go back to business school to do a career switch and felt like business school was the best avenue to make that transition without having to start at the bottom of the corporate ladder again. 

Although the application process can be very stressful since you're juggling a full-time job, GMAT prep, writing essays, and getting antsy while reading the GMATClub forums, remember to take a step back to remind yourself why you're putting yourself though this process. It's painful, but afterwards I realized the whole process really allowed me to learn a lot about myself, visualize my long-term career goals, and (roughly) outline a plan to action. I also learned that it's okay to constantly pivot, and even to expect that. As someone wise once said, it's not always the end process, but the journey and process, that matters.

Once you've decided MBA is the path for you, picking the right school is a very crucial decision, so I'll be sharing more of why I chose Anderson in my next post! In the meantime, because a picture says a thousand words, I found the UCLA Flickr page super helpful to show me what my next 2 years could be looking like!

A-days!

Ever since I got that admit call the only thing I was excited about was A-days! I had the pleasure of attending the Anderson admit day weekend aka A-days which was held on 4/24 as an optional event for all UCLA admits. The weekend is intended to give you a glimpse into what life at Anderson is like and I wanted to share my own A-day experience with everyone.

A little bit about myself first, my name is Nitesh Mehta and I will be one of your student bloggers for the summer of 2015. I came to the United states to pursue my undergrad and have been here ever since. I was working for a Fortune 200 company for the past six years and decided to quit that job to further my education and Anderson seemed like the next logical step. I felt that an MBA would not only equip me with essential business skills but also help me grow both on a personal and professional level.

The weekend started off with student hosted dinners where admits were invited into the homes of current students. My dinner was hosted by Jarrett Fein, Alex Glanz and Monica Bari who would be interning at Apple, Medallia and Mattel respectively in summer 2015. I was surprised to learn that companies such as Google would be on campus on Day 2 of classes! Talk about drinking from a firehose. If that wasn't enough students are expected to attend the Days on the job (DOJ) tours, do informational interviews, take out professors on dinners (which Anderson would pay for, sweet!) and meet CEO's via the Vistage program. Oh, and don't forget to get involved with clubs, perfect your case interview skills and attend classes. That last part might be important.

(ABOVE) Student hosted dinners with Jarrett Fein, Alex Glanz and Monica Bari

Across the Narrow [Pacific Ocean]

Hello, world and hey, MBA Student Voice readers! My name is Kathleen Uson and I'm thrilled to be part of the new batch of Anderson student bloggers for the Class of 2017. I was born and raised in Manila where I graduated with a B.A. degree in Organizational Communication from the University of the Philippines. For the past 5 years, I devoted my career to the advertising industry in which I specialized in integrated media strategy and negotiation for multinational clients ranging from CPGs to banks.

In less than two months, I will fly over 7,000 miles to the other end of the Pacific Rim. I'm staring at the 3 suitcases and 1 backpack where I'll be stuffing 25 years of my life in as I type this. (Really, sorting out 30+ pairs of flipflops has never been so painful!) It'll also be my first time (gasp!) to finally visit UCLA in person. It's true that most MBA admissions tips strongly recommend visiting schools to gather info and assess campus culture before applying. I'd certainly encourage you to follow this if you have the time and resources to do so, but don’t feel discouraged if otherwise—more so if you live far away. There are a multitude of other sources you can tap (i.e. attending off-campus and online info sessions, reading blogs, and reaching out to student ambassadors) and still be able to exhibit your enthusiasm/resourcefulness to the admissions committee.

That said, joining this group is my way of paying it forward and sharing my international student perspective/overall Ander-love. I'll be on Instagram for the most part (visuals and microblogging are more of my thing!) but will also pitch in here from time to time.

So folks, without further ado, if you want [literal] snapshots of how student life is at UCLA Anderson, do follow @uclamba and check out #WhyAnderson on Instagram. We’ll have a bunch of great content out there in the next several weeks. So stay tuned and hope you have a good summer—or rainy season, in my part of the world—ahead!

And speaking of snapshots...

Capping off with my last pre-MBA summer in El Nido, Palawan. Here's to more beautiful sunny days in LA!

6 things to keep in mind when you are getting ready for an admissions interview

    I have had an opportunity to meet so many great prospective students in the past several months while interviewing them for admission at UCLA Anderson and I would like to share some advice for future candidates to help them get ready for an upcoming interview.

 1)      Know your resume! You need to know your story well in order to make a good impression. Think about it: when you get to business school, you will be talking to companies and you will have to know your story well.  It’s much more impressive when a candidate knows his or her story without having to refer to a copy of the resume during the conversation.

2)      Treat a skype interview as a face-to face interaction.  Eye contact and strong presentation skills are just as important over Skype as in person, so be sure to look in the camera while you are talking! Avoid having ready answers printed in front of you.  It is very easy for an interviewer to realize that you are reading the answer instead of telling it from the heart. This one thing can quickly make the wrong impression.

3)      The interview normally is about 30 minutes long, and the time flies very quickly.  Remember your goal is to show you are a strong candidate, while the interviewer’s goal is to get to know you. Be mindful of time and aim for 2-3 minutes for an answer to a question, avoid taking up most of your precious interview time discussing too many details in your responses. Use a high level approach describing the situation, your impact and the results. The interviewer will ask follow up questions if something is not quite clear.

4)      Come up with good questions for the interviewer! Show your interest in the school and the person! The worst situation is when the interview went well and then the candidate asks very general questions about the program with answers easily found on the web site or even worse says: “I have no questions”…

5)      Don’t rush to the answer especially if you are taken aback by the question. Take a second to think your answer over and I guarantee you will find a good answer that will demonstrate how awesome you are and what you will bring to the program!

6)      Relax and smile! It is an opportunity for you to talk to somebody who was in your shoes some time ago and who is interested in learning more about you! Smile, be positive and speak about yourself with passion!

Good luck with the interviews!

Stay well,

Alena