What Success Looks Like For An MBA Career Changer

Kay: I don’t think it was quite as difficult as Evelyn’s trip, but yeah, it is relocating your family and moving to a new part of the country, just jumping into the deep end and figuring out how to swim.

Byrne: Jennifer, what did you find most useful in the Kelley program?

Solomon: Gosh, it’s hard to put your finger on just one thing. So I think you touched on this just now. Being able to figure out how to talk about your past experiences and really own and be proud of all of what you did before your time at Kelley. I know when I came into Me, Inc., I was like, “I’m a horse trainer. What am I doing in business school, and how do I talk about that?” And why are companies going to care really?

And it’s tying into the imposter syndrome too, asking myself, ‘Do I belong here?’ and really figuring out I do have strengths that are transferable to my next chapter. Kelley teaches you how to articulate that. What’s important is really figuring out how to prioritize your time to get the most out of your two years here and be vulnerable and lean into the process and allow yourself to grow.

Byrne: Did all of you know exactly what you wanted to do when you stepped foot on campus or was that something that evolved through the program? David, did you imagine that someday you’d be working in finance at Microsoft?

Kay: No, I definitely did not. I had a vague inkling that I wanted to pursue finance. I loved working with numbers and with data, and so I knew that I was more oriented towards that path. But whether it was more of a capital markets finance job, or more of a corporate finance job, or maybe something completely different, I didn’t really have a plan or a list of target companies. And had I created one, I can guarantee you I would’ve never thought to put Microsoft on the list. Between the Me, Inc. workshops, the academy choices, the faculty and who you connect with, you have tons of opportunities to create your path. So ultimately, I more or less stayed true to the course that I envisioned, but the end result is clearly not what I expected.

Byrne: And Jennifer, when you came here, did you know you wanted to do marketing?

Solomon: No. I came here thinking I was going to do supply chain and operations, and that was going to be my path. Even through Me, Inc., I was still on that wagon, and then probably maybe two or three weeks into the supply chain academy, as we’re walking through this distribution center, and some of my classmates were so excited with conveyor belts, boxes, and trucks, I’m like, ‘This is a safety hazard, and I don’t think I belong here.’ So I realized pretty quickly that I needed to pivot and figure out what was going to get me as excited as my classmates. I love talking and interacting with people. I like learning about people. Marketing just seemed like the right fit, especially for a consumer products company.

Byrne: Did a coach at Kelley help you narrow down the marketing role?

Solomon: Yes. I knew in working with my GSC coaches that doing a rotational program would be something that really suited me because I like to experience different things. Again, I want to be excited when my alarm goes off in the morning, and I didn’t know what that looked like in the first year of my MBA program. So they really helped me look through different marketing-focused rotational programs and let go of the supply chain and operations mentality. I needed to take a step back and accept the coaching, and go with what feels right.

It took me a good three or four months before I came to this conclusion. One of my coaches was very persistent, and she would sit down with me and say, ‘What do you really want? What’s going to make you happy going to work every day?’ She just kept pushing me and asking the questions that quite frankly I probably didn’t want to necessarily hear on a weekly basis. But ultimately those questions helped me end up in a role that’s really well suited for me.

Byrne: David, what do you think was the hardest part of making the transition?

Kay: For me, there were two pieces. There’s the psychological element, which I’ve already alluded to, which was mainly the imposter syndrome issue, and then just the stress of such a drastic pivot. There’s obviously the more transactional elements of learning a new language, learning a new technical skill set, learning just the rhythm of a company, and especially a massive global company like Microsoft or any of the Fortune 500s that come to Kelley to recruit. My entire career prior to that was in a ten-person company, so when you talk about a flat structure, it doesn’t get much flatter than ten people.

Byrne: And Microsoft currently employs how many?

Kay: Over 100,000.

Byrne: So you went from 10 to 100,000 plus.

Kay: Just the finance department in Redmond that I’m a part of is about 3,000 people. And that’s just central finance. That’s not even the finance teams aligned to the different geographies or products. It’s a pretty drastic change. But you can design your courses around your major and really find the classes that fit the skills you’re trying to build and develop, and then the coaching that you get to help you get over things like imposter syndrome and craft your pitch and your story and really understand what is going to make you want to get up every day and go to work, and how do you connect all those dots between what you’ve done and what you’d like to be.

Byrne: One of the issues we discussed in an earlier panel is the care and feeding of people in the program. Did you have a sense that others were really invested in your success, and how important was that to allow you to achieve your goal?

Solomon: I know I got very invested in the leadership academy, and that I think is a perfect example of how invested this school really can be in people. It’s really about taking a step back and helping you determine who you are as an individual, and who you are as a future corporate leader, and how those two worlds can intertwine. It goes back to the folks over at GCS having multiple meetings with people, staying late to meet with people, meeting on the weekends. The individuals that are part of this university and organization are so willing to give their time, and I think time is probably one of the most precious things you can give to somebody. They very freely give that to the students. They’re encouraging. They push you when you need to be pushed, but they’re also there for you when you need the pressure to move a little bit as well.

Byrne: Evelyn, you felt that as well?

Wang: Yeah. I think other than the leadership academy, the GCS helped me a lot. An associate director there did things that are not her in her job description. It’s not a job requirement. She took me out to the ranch, took me out to a country club to help me to understand American culture. It was the first time I realized, ‘oh, there is a really completely different culture here and work style. The lifestyle is different. As an international student, the location change is not only to your professional life. It’s also to your personal life.

Byrne: And as an international student, you have a whole set of other challenges. One of the significant worries out there is if you come to the United States for an education, will you be able to stay here. Now you were able to get an H-1B visa through Cummins. They sponsored you, and you got one relatively easy, right?

Wang: I was quite lucky. First, because they gave me the chance to get an H-1B application earlier. It’s just after our graduation, we can apply it. It’s not as if you have enough credit earned. Cummins is very culturally diversified, encouraging our foreign students. So after graduation, my petition for the H-1B was applied, and I got the packet. It is not really that easy. But the company found a lawyer who helped and then finally my application was approved.