Positioning 101 for MBA students
One of the key challenges that I have seen that MBA students in Germany have (which is actually a similar problem that most MBA students I’ve met actually face) is how to stand out from other candidates when it comes to getting the job they want. After multiple discussions with MBA students with different interests and with different backgrounds, I have come to the conclusion that it is mainly a “positioning” problem what they have. But before jumping into potential solutions to this problem, let’s first understand the problem per-se.
What is “positioning” in the context of an MBA student?
One of the best books on positioning that I have recently read is a book by April Dunford, an expert in market strategy and positioning for tech companies. In her book “Obviously Awesome”, April gives one of the best definitions on positioning I have seen:
Positioning is the act of deliberately defining how you are the best at something that a defined market cares a lot about.
She further mentions:
If we fail at positioning, we fail at marketing and sales. If we fail at marketing and sales, the entire business fails.
I strongly believe that the same challenge companies face, is the same challenge that professionals, especially MBA students, also face at an individual level. Just think about it for a second in this hypothetical scenario:
You are an engineer with a software development background who studied an MBA because you want a career change in marketing. You’ve gone through multiple MBA courses, especially marketing-oriented, and you now feel that you now have a good grasp of the marketing fundamentals. You now go into a career event and met with a company who is recruiting MBAs for its marketing department. You approach the HR representative and throw your pitch: “I am a software engineer turned into marketer. I used to develop the back-end of mobile apps and websites as a freelancer for multiple clients and know multiple programming languages as Python and JavaScript inside out. But I’m now focused on marketing, having taken multiple courses at the MBA in this subject, and I am now actively looking for career opportunities in this field”.
How do you think that went? What are the chances of that student getting an invitation for an interview? If you ask me, not good.
Just consider what is going on in the mind of the HR representative. He/she has been given the task to look for strong candidates for the marketing department. The hiring manager (e.g. the Marketing Director) told him/her what the Marketing department does and what this candidate is expected to do, which includes the development of messaging and positioning around the products and services that the company offers, the design, planning, and launch of lead generation campaigns, the coordination with external marketing agencies, etc. Yes, some IT knowledge always helps, but the candidate is not expected to do any programming. What’s critical is that the candidate has the capacity to put himself/herself on the shoes of the company’s target customers and define and deploy the messaging and campaigns that will draw the attention of those target customers towards the company to generate sales leads.
Based on this, the chances of the student to move to the next phase look somewhat slim. Yes, you can argue that the student can then tweak his/her pitch, but that may be already too late.
HR representatives and any recruiter doesn’t have the time nor the attention span to thoroughly assess an individual candidate. Whatever the recruiter is able to capture in the first seconds of his/her interaction of the candidate will “make or break” the relationship. In addition, the recruiter will most likely not think deep into things like “yes, the candidate does not have the background, but seems to have a lot of interest and potential. Hmm, we might want to consider him/her for the position”. The recruiter will be looking for strong candidates that have practical experience in all or most of what the hiring manager needs and the recruiter will most likely focus on those candidates who where able to better convey that experience in their pitches. This is especially true if the company has a good positioning itself and attracts many high-caliber candidates willing to work for it and also considering the current jobs boom in Germany and other western countries (there is a fantastic article of The Economist recently published about this, which you can read here).
Therefore, similarly to what April Dunford states in her book, I strongly believe that:
If an MBA student fails at his/her positioning, he/she fails in his/her personal marketing and sales efforts. If he/she fails at his/her personal marketing and sales efforts, his/her entire job application motion fails.
Why is positioning so complicated for MBA students?
MBA students come in all different “sizes” and “flavours”. Not only there is a significant cultural/national mix among MBA student batches considering the high percentage of international students typically participating in them, especially in full-time programs. There is also significant differences, including:
seniority/years of experience: some MBA students have from 3–5 years of experience (typically the minimum required to apply to an MBA program), while others have 10+ years of experience (who may actually opt for an Executive MBA program)
leadership experience: while some MBA students have only held entry-level/junior positions, some have held middle/top management positions including people and P&L responsibility
industry experience: MBA students come from all walks of life, including experience in financial services, consulting, non-profits, IT, waste management….you name it (I even had an MBA classmate who was a rocket engineer working for a European aerospace agency!)
functional experience: Similarly to the wide industry expertise, some have done finance and accounting, some have done sales and marketing, others operations, etc.
geographical experience: Closely linked to the nationality of the MBA student, it refers to the specific countries/regions/markets where the student has worked on
Therefore, there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach towards positioning of MBA students since it is really hard to generalize and to profile who an MBA student or graduate actually is.
At best, you could argue that an MBA student is someone who has a general understanding of business and its underlying mechanics (from marketing, to sales, to finance, etc.) and who has access to a strong business network (mainly based on your business school), but that’s about it.
To add to this complexity, career interests of MBA students are all over the place. Some want to tap into digital transformation, some want to go to finance, some want to start a business. Some aspire to become CEOs of a multinational corporation, while others are just looking to reach the next career step in their current companies. Therefore, you can also not generalize what an MBA student wants and where he/she is heading (which is very different from, lets say, a student from a MSc. in Digital Marketing, who you can assume wants to do digital marketing).
Finally, to add to this whole mess, neither the profile nor the interests of the MBA students are static. They are typically the opposite. The change at a continuous and rapid pace. MBA students are known for not being able to stand still. They are typically very ambitious individuals trying to tap into everything possible due to their high level of curiosity. The term “multipotentialite” coined by Emilie Wapnick is a fantastic way to describe them.
The importance of your own “pitch”
Considering how relevant positioning is and how diverse the profile of MBA students is, it is critical for you as an MBA student to clearly craft your story and your own pitch.
Crafting a good story and pitch requires a high-level of self-awareness and being “brutally” honest with you about who you are, what you can do, and what you have achieved. I emphasize the word “brutally” since MBA students tend to “sugar coat” their own profile and expertise to make it more appealing to recruiters. There is a gray area between how much you can stretch your own expertise and when you are lying and, believe me, good recruiters will spot when candidates are bullshitting.
So may now be saying, “ok, ok, Sergio, I get it. Positioning is important and I know I need to build my own pitch, but how do I do it?”
If you where expecting me to tell you “here are the 10-steps to building your pitch”, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I won’t. I consider there is fantastic literature out there both targeted to individuals and to companies about how to build a pitch which is extremely valuable to help you in this endeavor, such as the “Personal Branding Canvas” by Big Name, a marketing agency, and the “Pitch canvas” by David Beckett, a start-ups pitch expert.
“Been there, done that”
Nevertheless, what I will tell you is that crafting your own pitch and your positioning is all about crafting your story and your expertise in a way it resonates with your target audience.
If you want to get a job and work for a marketing strategy consulting company serving media clients, learn as much as you can about both the “marketing strategy consulting” business and about the “media” business they serve. Understand what is relevant to them, what are their pain points and needs, and what are the type of skills and expertise that they are looking for. Then craft your story around these areas, highlighting how your experience is relevant to what they (not you!) care about and how you can help.
Ultimately companies want people who has experience solving the challenges they are facing, who can show them the best way to do it, and who can ultimately do it. Of course they could eventually hire a junior employee, show him/her how the company current addresses such challenge and then hope for that employee to figure out a best way to do it. But this is certainly not what MBAs are expected to do. MBAs are expected (and should actually aspire themselves) to be of value from “day 1” on the job and bring world-class best practices with them to implement at the company they work for and at the clients they serve. Therefore, crafting your story in a way that it conveys to a recruiter how your experience is relevant to their needs is the key.
In case you’re thinking “but Sergio, I want X job which needs Y expertise, but I do not have Y expertise yet”. Then, if you don’t have it, do whatever you can to get that expertise: volunteer to work at a company you know without getting any payment, start an own side business that allows you to develop that expertise, sign-up for a non-profit where you can develop such expertise, take an online certification, etc., etc. There are so many ways you can develop whatever expertise you’re missing in your personal portfolio to make a compelling case for an employer in which you are interested on.
On the other hand, you may be thinking on a career on A industry/sector, which cares about X and Y areas of expertise, but you have Z expertise. In that case, you may also consider changing A for B, which actually do cares about Z expertise (there is a fantastic book from Chris Guillebau, an American author, about how to find that best possible match — see “Resources” below).
Wrapping it all up
Hopefully at this point it is clear to you how critical positioning is in your search for your next career step, as well as in your career overall.
Positioning is not rocket science, but it does require a high degree of self-awareness and a great willingness to invest your time and effort in learning the needs and wants of the companies you would like to work for and crafting your story around them.
This is a messy process. So don’t expect to get it right the first time. It’s all about iterating, tweaking, trying, failing, etc. You will only get good at positioning by doing it. So get out there and pitch yourself to a great company you would like to work for and see how it goes. I can only assure you that it is a bet worth taking.
Special thanks
I want to thank again to each and every one of the MBA students, especially those from the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany, who got in touch and gave me their feedback from their previous articles. You guys are my main motivation to continue writing and sharing what I’ve learned about careers for MBAs in Germany.
A special thanks goes to Vincent Zeylmans, my career coach, who shared with me his always valuable feedback about my previous articles and helped me expand the concept of career levers (industry, function, location, seniority + leadership).
Resources
Here are some great resources if you want to expand your knowledge on positioning, some mentioned across the article and some additional ones. Some of them are focused on companies, not on individuals, but I believe the frameworks equally apply and can be adapted to individuals.
Book: “Obviously Awesome” by April Dunford
Book: “Blue Ocean Strategy” by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
Book: “Pitch to Win” by David Beckett
Book: “How to Be Everything” by Emilie Wapnick
