Regarding schools choice and POST MBA -Career GOALS

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I have 12 years experience in IT . Majority of my working experience is in India for IT services majors like Oracle Financial Services , TCS, Infosys .Currently I work as IT Business analyst for a bank via infosys on a corporate banking e-channel.

I have substantial experience in SWIFT , cross border Transactions ,Payments and On a Funds Transfer application (Global PayPlus -A payment engine ).I mention my experience as I think it could be useful for FinTech Careers in Payments Domain.So below is my profile :

Age:34 Work ex : 12 years . Education :Bachelor of Technology in IT
Industry :IT (IT services)

GMAT (given in 2016) : 540

GRE. (Given in 2018) : 305

Planning to give GRE again .i believe I could stretch score to 315-320.



I am looking for a Full-Time one year MBA ,preferably in UK (or Canada)due to the recent student visa changes ,which enables students to work in UK for 2Years after studies.



Post - MBA career goals :

-Change function to Strategy i.e.to work in a strategy role .Organisation like Accenture Strategy for example .

- OR to work in Payments Consulting firms like celent

- OR To work in a FinTech or a Bank leveraging my payments or Banking (IT)experience.

-OR To work in Product Management role in an e-commerce form like Amazon .

-AND to change geography of work location to UK.



I believe above are the only reasonable Post- MBA career options that I can expect due to higher work experience and my previous experience in IT .I realise that no one is going to grant me VC ,PE Consulting or IB role at this stage of my career now .

I am not considering US due to the hassle and uncertainty with post study work visa and change of location is one of the primary Goal of doing MBA.I can consider Canada as a location as well .



I am not considering Sloan programmes as placement assistance is not provided in there .



Please advise me schools in UK (orCanada)for MBA programme to achieve above goals .( I can consider Masters programme as well if it can help in achieving above POST-MBA career goals .)

Also advise if my higher work-ex (12 years) and age (34) could be a serious handicap in securing a job aligned to my goals post -mba as average class experience is around 6 years is most B -schools in UK.

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Hi,

I am very sorry that no one could answer your query. I would like to know if you still are looking to apply or have you already applied? Now looking at your profile, you have all your experience in one industry and I am hoping it should be a great one exhibiting a good career trajectory and some leadership experiences. For your stats, you definitely need to retake GRE.

Now for your biggest concern of being an older applicant, I think you possess both pros and cons of it and it depends on you how do you capitalize on it. You have a very straight-forward path in one industry and so it will be better if you capitalize on it. And you are doing it seeing your post-MBA goals, but I would advise you to narrow them down to just two goals and make both these well-defined. Because, now you are taking 4-5 options, some of which are quite different from others and so need a whole different decision-making process. Also, if you have 12 years of experience, why don't you go for EMBA? There are schools that provide really good, comprehensive EMBA program. I think you need to dig deeper because you are even not sure of doing an MBA. Here are some questions that may help you: What are your post-MBA goals (truly like what you really want to do in the long term, what are your aspirations and then decide short term goals)? How MBA, Masters or EMBA will help you in achieving those goals? Analyze each option and see which best fits your goals.

Finally, when you are clear about this, we can come to choosing schools. You are welcome to hop on a call with us to discuss any of these with us. We would love to help you. You can look here for different EMBA programs. Also, we have a list of different schools outside the US for older candidates, we can provide with you that if you wish. But before everything, be clear about selecting a program.
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Hi,

Your goals are spot on - I think if anything it might be a bit too restrictive. Your background will set you up really well for a great career if you can line up next couple of years - with or without an MBA.

If you want to discuss different career pathways possible for you, PM me.
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Hi Dreamerat34!
You have a good grasp of the issues. The key will be finding programs where the experience-range and school assets are both a fit for you.

GRE: yes, get it to 160/160 or higher -- again, I recommend looking at your target schools' incoming class profiles, but in my experience the older an applicant is, the more important those test scores are.

Goals are also particularly important when you have a lot of experience in a certain industry; schools will want to know why you're making this change at this time in your life, and they'll want to see post-MBA goals that are specific, that require an MBA, and that will also take advantage of the assets you bring from your experience. Fintech is interesting but hiring opportunities are relatively narrow; consulting is a broad pathway, but sometimes it's hard to show the "passion" that would make your career change positively-driven.

What I mean by "positively-driven" career change: you may want to make this career change because you detest IT and can't imagine doing it for the rest of your life, but a positive reason -- you love fintech (for example) and you really want to enter this field -- would be more effective. I can't emphasize enough how important this is -- to be genuinely passionate about where you want to go.

There are also other considerations, such as location and class size, but one program that seems like it would work well for you is the Cass MBA in London. Average incoming class age is 32 years, so you're not that far out, and you could easily get your GRE up to where they need it to be. A great thing about the UK schools is that many of them offer CV reviews, so you can send them your CV and ask them whether they think you're a fit.
Margaret Strother
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Stacy Blackman Consulting

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