Short-Term and Long-Term Career Goals - Essay Example

1a. Briefly describe your short-term and long-term career goals. 1b. Why is an MBA the best choice at this point in your career? 1c. What and/or who influenced your decision to apply to Ross? (500-word maximum total) My passion to conquer life’s unknown territories of adventure provoked a hard felt desire in me to take on as the Director of Marketing & Sales in a domestic mid-sized manufacturing enterprise. I started enjoying the challenges of the corporate world right from the day I could win over 150 other candidates to join the corporate giant GE. My success continued as I could attain the opportunity to pursue Post Graduation in UK under GE’s sponsorship. After attaining the degree, I joined them back as an Integrity manger. With in a year, I was promoted as a project manager and later as an Account Manager. These consequent promotions gave me diverse experiences and led a lead role in formulating my career goal. The ‘Attainability’, ‘Reasonability’ and the Scope of the specific career goal I have, are well defined .The diverse experiences I had in my career, involved extensive interactions with many middle-sized enterprises. This gives me the awareness that these enterprises are the most vigorous and largest single economic entity. They are facing a new round of reformation. As on understanding this reality, I was quite confident on my short term career goal; to be the Director of Marketing & Sales of such an enterprise. In a longer term, I aspire to be the General Manager of a mid-sized enterprise, striving for its strategy formulation and reformation of its business workflows. My role in its corporate culture cultivation and ultimately lifting it from management-drive to capital-drive to bring it to a global stage is well envisaged. The role of a Business Administration expert is proving to be vital in the management of middle-sized enterprises as lack of managerial expertise results in the high death rates of these entities. Many of the middle sized enterprises tried the track of an improvised entrepreneurship. However pains prevailed around many of them, ending with bankruptcy as they lacked transitional expertise. Marketing & sales is the most important aspect to bring them the cash flow ensuring a safe transit period. A committed renovation to a healthy marketing & sales system can only be done by a business administration expert. I believe that for me to lead an entity to tap new markets and explore new growth points, I need to be trained as a Master in Business Administration. Thus to meet their needs and to realize my career goals, I urgently need to do an MBA. My search for a cause effective MBA program ended up in Ross as its commitment to action-based-learning attracted me the most .The MAP is really an exciting program which can offer me great opportunities to work closely with my classmates and practically learn to face real challenges. I admire the Ross learning style which heavily emphasizes on practices and systematic learning cycle. The experience will empower me to be effective ‘in the team’ and ‘in leading the team’. Ross also holds the legacy of a strong alumni network and the collaborative culture will ensure guidance through out the career. 2. Describe your most significant professional accomplishment. Elaborate on the leadership skills you displayed, the actions you took and the impact you had on your organization. (500-word maximum) Leading a multicultural team through a professionally successful endeavor still counts to be the most significant accomplishment in my career. It was in 2003, when I was appointed in GE as the leader of a team with six professionals, all from different ends of the globe, to implement the first Pipeline GIS Database project in China with PetroChina. To add to the cultural difference, a challenge for me as a leader was that all of them had stronger technological backgrounds and longer experience with GE as compared to me. ‘To build and then lead the team’ was the clear message indicated by the nature of the multicultural team as the team members had differences in all aspects of work culture. My cross-cultural experience in England and America came handy in this situation. I worked hard to grasp the essence of each culture quickly and familiarized with everyone’s religious ethics, personalities and work style. I ensured to create an effective collaboration by managing cultural diversity. Consequently, a relaxed environment was modulated where everyone was willing to interact with other and eventually the team was built. As a leader, I insisted myself to create an inspiring vision and lead by example’. The vision was of togetherness in responsibilities and credits. The collaborative effort to formulate project goals, plans and to assign tasks brought in the feeling of ownership and responsibility towards the project. I ensured that the team members support each other by assigning tasks to different combinations of individuals and encouraged them to help each other. These joint efforts shaped mutual trust, united them together and eventually achieved seamless team cooperation. I was careful to keep myself working hard so that I leave an example for the team. Meanwhile, I played the back-up role, offering them support in resources, coordinating with customers and balancing the progress. Thus I could win their confidence as an effective leader. To empower, energize and inspire the team was another key role of me as a leader. As the team members had been away from their families and their country for over eight months, they suffered a compelling homesickness, which had a negative impact on their enthusiasm towards work. I tried to indulge them in a series of activities like volunteering for nearby orphanages .This brought in the factor of enthusiasm and relieved them from the pressure of being away from the near and dear ones. Excursions, picnics, concerts and activities of the kind entertained us as a team during times of pressure. Gradually, the team members energized themselves psychologically and achieved higher work efficiency. Trainings and capacity building measures were arranged to empower their technical knowledge. Success came our way when the team was led in the same direction towards the goal. My effectiveness a leader was proved when every team member commented that this was the happiest working experience abroad and expressed their willingness to work for me in future. My team’s excellent performance helped the company to win another GIS project with PetroChina. 4. Describe your experience during a challenging time in your life. Explain how you grew personally, either despite this challenge or because of it. (300-word maximum) My courage to face the failure was given a test during a High School football match. The match was a gateway for the winning team to get admission in the university with out writing entrance examination. So the match meant a career to all my teammates. The team fought well to win five matches and reached the semifinals. The semifinal saw a close fight and the scores were tied till the last minute when we got a penalty shot. After all, as human we are bound to face challenges where we fail to make the right choice and fail to do the right thing. A penalty is the easiest way to score in football. As being the best shooter, it was my choice to take the penalty shot by myself. But the consequences started troubling me as my success here was a must for all of us. The shot was taken but I failed to score. Further we lost the match in the extension time. The failure plunged my confidence. I constantly thought of the failure which increased the pain, shame and frustration. I could be no where near the performance I used to do. “Rather than concentrating on the reason of your failure, you must regain your confidence”. This was my new coach’s advice to me as he found me giving up. He explained me that my real failure was not shooting off the target, but not being brave enough to face the failure. This inspired me to forget about the past and later on I practiced hard to end up being a successful footballer inspiring the whole team. Life is an ongoing process wherein failure and success are only small steps on the long road. The key point is how good you are in learning from the failures. Read More