Currently, I’ve come across a lot of students who have apparently taken a break (six months or more) from work in order to prepare for GMAT and dedicate more time towards college admission process. Well, to sum it up in the most euphemistic way, “this approach is going to reflect negatively upon your admission prospects.”

I agree that business school admission procedure is rather tedious and involves close to 10 months (3 months of GMAT preparation on an average, then filling out application forms, writing admission essays simultaneously, college visits, scholarship essays and forms, taking classes for extra credits and many other things). Read more…

We aren’t talking about the career break that will result from joining business school for the MBA degree program but about the career breaks that you may have taken in the recent or distant past, owing to reasons such as lay-off during the recession, company closure during recession, unavoidable circumstances leading up to near-crisis situation on the personal front, career switch or any other personal reasons that called for the break in the career.

These career breaks are very conspicuous in your MBA admission resume, at times given more importance than your successful tryst with leadership opportunities at a Fortune 500 company. This is so because almost everybody is curious as to what made you leave that coveted job or more importantly, what did you do during the break to add significant value to your life and professional career.

It is then advisable that you introspect the real reasons for the career break and also make sure that the adcom members see that as a tactical measure on your part towards your career goals fulfillment. In case the break was a forced one (due to recessional layoff or company closure, then the admission committee members expect you to have not wasted time in mulling over what happened. You’d stand to distinct advantage if you show it to the interviewer as to how you went about improving your career prospects:

• Did you look for a new job?
• Did you take up online certificate courses so as to enhance your professional skills in the meantime?
• Did you take it as an opportunity to start your own entrepreneurial project which you had wanted to do for a long time?
• Did you decide to switch career then and if yes, then what is it that led you to the decision? (apart from the job loss due to recession or any other primary reason)

We will discuss more about the career breaks and business school acceptability in the subsequent posts and also see the best way to convince the admission committee and the interviewer that you indeed did not waste precious time while away from work or the career switch was a well thought upon strategy.