Matthew Bank ⋅ Concord, MA ⋅ 8 years experience

Frederick, start to orient your focus toward post-MBA life. You have sufficient experience and cognitive capacity to handle whatever B school throws at you -- the curricula of the schools is designed specifically to provide you with the supplementary skills you need to be effective in whatever career path you choose -- your goal over the next couple years should be to round our your skills and experience to end up in that career path when you graduate. The best way to do it from my experience is to think about where you are and what skills you have, and compare that to where you want to be and what skills you'll need, taking careful note of any gaps in the story that you'll tell to future recruiters. Do you want to pursue a tech startup? Maybe offer an entrepreneur you know or meet to do a market sizing analysis on his/her behalf for free. Or maybe you'll pursue investment banking? Perhaps in that case take a Wall Street Prep modeling course on your own time. Or take the first level of the CFA if you're contemplating asset management. Anything that shows an additional passion and drive, and is logical as a supporting bullet point to the pitch you'll make to folks on your own behalf.

I had several veterans in my B school class and if anything they put a little too much stock in the school's curriculum to get them where they wanted to go. What they had in spades (leadership capacity, discipline, expertise in certain markets) set them apart from peers to be sure, but what they lacked in hard skills for some of the jobs they sought were not sufficiently closed by academics. Your objective should be to try to bolster your resume a bit to make it stand out from the other classmates who will be pursuing those same jobs and who may have a head start on the hard skills required for those jobs.

One other comment: don't try to close the skill gaps all at once. One of the chief virtues of a full-time MBA in my opinion is the internship summer when you can find a job that may or may not be related to what you ultimately what to do, but that augments a skill that you lack. A friend of mine who wanted to get a job in private equity and who had great finance experience lacked operational experience and so took an internship at a manufacturing business where he could watch operators in action and learn better how to evaluate management teams.

Sorry for the rambling, and I hope I've been mildly helpful. As an aside: no one would begrudge you if you just traveled and pursued hobbies for a few months either.

Peter Hsu ⋅ Atlanta, GA AT&T ⋅ 3 years experience

I agree with what others said, especially Matthew. Don't worry about business school, figure out what you want to do after b-school and do something that will help you get there. Remember, everyone your post-MBA recruiter interviews will have the same b-school experience you do. What you did before will differentiate you.

Also, I'd choose carefully in b-school. For all degrees, the higher ranked the school the more valuable the degree. Put another way, an engineering master's from MIT is going to be more valuable than an engineering master's from a lower tier state school - but not precipitously so. With an MBA, because so many of the skills are soft skills, the value drops quickly once you get out of the tier one institutions. In many cases I've found that folks who got an MBA would actually have been better served by a non-generalist degree that specifically prepared them for the job they were looking for.

Travis D. ⋅ Arlington, VA U.S. Army, Staff Sergeant ⋅ 9 years served

Fredrick,

I was in the same boat last year; ETS'd in January to start an MBA this August. There are a few banking and consulting pre-MBA programs out there. What is your post-MBA goal; that will help you focus on where to check out an internship? There is no reason to do a marketing internship if you already know finance is your thing.

Look into undergrad internship opportunities. It may seem silly, but you are technically new to business and any commercial internship shows you want to learn. I ended up working two internships before school, one at an internet startup and another at a engineering consulting firm. Both gave me a taste of the corporate world and a better understanding of courses to take once in school.

Additionally, there are several Veteran weekend events held by corporations over the summer. Be sure to apply to every single one; they are great networking opportunities that may lead to a job.

Surprised to hear an Airman wants to work; don't you guys just sit in nice chairs in air conditioned offices? (Yes, I am jealous) Best of luck.

Feel free to message me with any questions.

Regards,
Travis

Tom Cal, CFA ⋅ San Francisco, CA Army Veteran, Investment Manager ⋅ 25 years experience

Frederick.
* Have you already applied to an MBA programs? This is one of the most important decision of your life, and I think this decision merits its own separate discussion! Have you identified the MBA programs to which you will apply? In my opinion, you should AVOID for-profit degree programs.

* Once admitted to a program, reach out to graduates of that program and request mentoring, advice and networking assistance, and attend events sponsored by the local alumni club chapter, etc. If there is not an active local alumni club and no active alumni network, re-consider your choice of schools.

* What skills and benefits will you be able to offer employers upon your separation?
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/interviewquestionsanswers/qt/contribute.htm

http://www.jhu.edu/careers/handouts/interviews.pdf

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/12/10/the-10-skills-that-will-get-you-a-job-in-2013/

etc...

* Request a mentor from ACP's one-on-one mentoring program.
http://acp-usa.org/Mentoring_Program

* An option to consider is serving with a non-profit in conjunction with the "Mission Continues" fellowship program.
http://missioncontinues.org/fellowships

* The VCTP Syracuse certification programs can also potentially be a good use of your time. (The next deadline for guided-track admission is Nov. 25, 2013).
http://vets.syr.edu/education/employment-programs/

* Craft a personal "networking plan". How will you reach out to people you know and ask for assistance? How ill you met new people?
https://www.google.com/search?q=networking+plan

Joe Paschall ⋅ Madison, AL nLogic, LLC ⋅ 26 years experience

There are really no "Pre-MBA" positions but considering your expertise, your best bet would be to continuing working in Defense Contacting on the Industry side. That would assume that you intend to work full-time and that you will be going to school in an area with a Defense Market. If that is not the case, then I would advise pursuing some type of part-time and/or unpaid internships with Financial Managers. This would help you to understand Financial Markets and Banking. Another option might be to pursue full-time employment in a bank, ideally in some type of management (vice teller) position. These are all optimal from your perspective, but it will likely depend more upon availability in your local area and competition within that market. There are a lot of highly-experienced folks on the market these days which often makes it tough for transitioning military members to break into new markets.