Who HBS Dinged In The First Round by: John A. Byrne on October 20, 2014 | | 81,264 Views October 20, 2014 Copy Link Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email Share on LinkedIn Share on WhatsApp Share on Reddit Mr. Non-Profit Consultant 710 GMAT (48Q, 39V) 3.7 GPA Undergraduate degree in economics and management from Georgia Tech Work experience includes two years as a director (lead projects) in a small, boutique consulting firm performing analysis of non-profit organizations and programs (e.g. impact evaluations) to help major donors make charitable investment decisions. Most work has been international (in 16 countries–some exotic); two and one-half years (one year deployed with military, see below) with Booz Allen Hamilton as a quantitative analyst on federal government projects; worked with Department of the Army and CDC, and five years as an officer in the Army National Guard in hard assignments, consistently rated #1 in evaluations. Won an award for top junior officer in the state. one year deployed to execute peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. Full-time stints for training throughout career, but majority of time has been spent in part-time service. I’ve led over 200 soldiers. Extracurricular involvement as student government vice president, a regional ROTC commander, and founder of a very successful student organization to create environments for students to have civil discourse on issues of philosophy and religion; have done mission work in Africa and helped start an institute speaker series at GT Essay addressed me as “a problem solver; every life decision I’ve made has been driven by desire to solve meaningful problems. Want to leverage leadership and nonprofit experience to move into impact investing (e.g. Acumen Fund)” “My analysis: the desired move into impact investing was too strong given my lack of strong finance background. I needed to aim for a transition into investment banking and then move to impact investing over the long-term. 27-year-old white male Sandy’s Analysis: I’m not sure impact investing was the problem. This is a case of what it takes to break out of silver not gold consulting firm and silver not gold first job with Booz for a white male. You present some powerful experiences, in military and as undergrad. Georgia Tech is an ok school, 3.7 is ok GPA, 710 is ok GMAT if they otherwise like you–so what happened? Not sure, maybe execution of goals and essay was less powerful than the rest of your application, but I think you just never overcame the government contracting, donor consulting work at two non-frequent feeder firms (government contracting is Siberia to adcoms, and consulting to donors is not as good, don’t ask me why, as consulting to Fortune 500 companies, or any company. Resume is destiny in most cases, including it appears, yours. Previous Page Continue ReadingPage 3 of 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.