($) Short term goal, long term goal, dream job

Gosh, Columbia has tricked things out this year! Their career goals essay asks this:

Through your resume and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next 3-5 years and what, in your imagination, would be your long-term dream job?

That’s on top of the short-answer question:

What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal?

What on earth do they want?

Is it like 3 or 4 goals?

immediate post-MBA goal
another goal and maybe another goal for the 3-5 years beyond that
some ‘dream job’ thing that’s really far out into the future

We don’t think so.

This is what we advise for Columbia:

Most Recommended

immediate post-MBA goal – stated briefly in the in-app question and then restated and expanded upon in Essay 1
long-term ‘dream job’ – about 5 years after graduating

Or, it’s possible to do a very compelling pitch like this:

Possible Variation

immediate post-MBA goal – stated briefly in the in-app question and then restated and expanded upon in Essay 1
long-term goal – 3-5 years after graduating
dream job – no more than 10 years after graduating and only when totally realistic and feasible

For most BSers, the 2-goal Most Recommended strategy is the easiest way to pitch. A 500-word essay is just really short and you won’t be able to include a full discussion of three separate goals along with the foundation of background experience that you need to set the stage for them.

Oh wait. You didn’t realize you needed to include a foundation of background experience? Yeah, you do. The Columbia essay guide walks through the importance of this.

In what case will the three-goal strategy work for Columbia?

The most obvious is when you’re going to join a family business after the MBA. In that case, it usually makes sense to show what you’re going to do in industry first, right after the MBA, to gain more skills and experience to get you ready for your family business opportunity. Then, your long-term goal (3-5 years post-MBA) will be the first position you’ll take on when you join the family business. Then, you can identify as your ‘dream job’ the CEO role or whatever your family has decided you’re going to assume.

The problem with this is if you say that CEO of your family business is your ‘dream job’ then you need to say WHY you feel that way. Most readers will assume that you’re automatically going to get that position just by nature of who you are in the family. It’s not like something you have to earn, and most people don’t aspire to working in the family business, it’s just expected of them. That’s counter to the connotations of the word ‘dream.’ If you say it’s your ‘dream job’ then you need to explain what gets you so jazzed about whatever your family business is, or it’ll just sound a little off.

The other case where a third goal designated as ‘dream job’ might work great is if you think that eventually, some day, you want to start a company, but you don’t have a clear timeline for when and you don’t know exactly what that company will be. In this scenario, identifying a very specific immediate post-MBA goal, and then one further out that’s along that same career progression, and THEN designating entrepreneurship as your ‘dream job’ thereafter, totally can work. It gets you out of the difficult conundrum that we so often warn against, as in:

And others.

In both these cases — family business goal, or any other post-MBA startup idea — our Entrepreneurs Guide to Career Goals can be really helpful.

After you’ve decided on your strategy — a two-goals or a three-goals pitch — then you still need to step back and validate that:

a) Those goals all fit together in a reasonable progression into the future
b) Your past experiences show enough foundation for the immediate post-MBA goal, and
c) If you’re pitching anything entrepreneurial in the future, then your past also gives enough evidence that that’s something that a person like you will succeed at

School fit re: goals is determined by immediate short-term post-MBA goal, and ALL the emphasis in your positioning and pitch needs to show how you’re prepared and ready to go for that. This is the essence of making the goals line up and the proper positioning to demonstrate ‘why MBA’. The L/T goal will naturally take care of itself if you’re in the right place to pursue the S/T goal based on how you are correctly qualified today.

Any type of (non family business) entrepreneurial post-MBA goal entails risk in the pitch. We will still freak out if we see that type of goal when the proper foundation has not been established, but there are ways to make it more palatable given the ‘dream job’ language used in the Columbia essay prompt this year.

Be sure that it’s obvious WHY you’re designating that future target as a ‘dream job.’ It needs to be something you’re actually excited to pursue. Whether that’s in a more near-term horizon, or more like ~8-ish years post-MBA, is up to you to put together. Your adcom reader will have an open mind. It’s up to you to make the case for it.