A graduate of Princeton University, Philip is a Senior Consultant in Strategic Communications for a defense contractor that provides services to government agencies. Before getting his MBA, he worked for the U.S. Army, including a deployment to Operation Joint Guard, the peacekeeping mission in the Balkans.
In the midst of his MBA studies, he was deployed to Iraq and spent most of 2003 there. While serving in Iraq, Philip was struck by the importance of government in both the Iraqi and U.S. public sectors.
Why did you choose to pursue an MBA?
Before earning my MBA I had had some excellent experiences in marketing and the military, but I needed to develop a better understanding of business overall.
I had realized that the rise of the Internet meant fewer and fewer businesses would remain strictly local, so that those who understand how to do business across borders will have a huge advantage over those who don't. The desire to gain cross-cultural exposure was a major reason I chose to attend the Judge Business School at Cambridge in England.
As an American there, I was in the minority, which helped broaden my perspective, and I learned as much from my colleagues as from the curriculum. It became clear that business in other countries is not always just a matter of doing the same things in a different language. I'd urge those considering an MBA to look for programs with a strong international component to the student body, and some indication that the people from different regions actually interact. Besides getting increased educational value from it, I really enjoyed working with people from all over the world.
And although my emphasis on work for the U.S. government may initially seem like a narrowing of this international perspective, in the field of national security and defense, awareness of cross-cultural issues is even more paramount.
How did you leverage your military background in the job search?
When I began my MBA, I thought I wanted to be a business consultant working with large international firms. But in the middle of my studies, I was deployed with my U.S. Army Reserve unit to the war in Iraq. There, I was struck by the importance of government, both theirs – mayors and city councils struggling to provide basic services – and ours – the military deploying and sustaining hundreds of thousands of troops. After returning to my studies, I became more and more interested in helping the public sector run smoothly, and decided to look chiefly for jobs at those consulting firms with a government practice.
At that point, my military background became an obvious plus for me. Most consulting firms of this type are staffed with a high percentage of former military leaders, and look very favorably on those who can combine the analytical rigor of an MBA degree with that real-world experience. Still, even those employers personally unfamiliar with the military will likely recognize the qualities such as leadership, focus on mission, strong work ethic, and integrity that the military emphasizes.
The military is an intense profession and it is easy to slip into military jargon once you've learned it, because that language stays with you. The key to civilian job hunting is to show that you possess these qualities using relevant terms, not military jargon.
