Sample MBA Essay - What is your greatest weakness

Describe your weak points, personal and professional?

As I have pointed out to you in an earlier post, write about a real weakness and explain to the admission committee on the consequence of your weakness. Tell them how you have realized the weakness and have worked towards turning your weakness into your strength. 

Do not mention weaknesses like

1. I am a perfectionist

Your perspective (Hidden Strength): I can showcase my focus on quality.

Admission Committee: MBA is more about teamwork and less about personal excellence. The candidate might focus on his task without interacting with other candidates.
 
2. I work too hard and I do not have time for my family and friends.

Your perspective (Hidden Strength): I can sacrifice the time with my family and friends for my job responsibilities.

Admission committee: The candidate might not be a good team player.

In the following example, the weakness is "Trust"

Personal

“Although I am pleasant, friendly and helpful, I take time to trust someone. But once I trust someone it is tough to change my opinion about that person”

Professional

“As far as my professional drawbacks are concerned, I have a tendency to “Do the entire task on my own”. I feel that starting my career as a software developer has habitually made me to take charge of an entire solution. However, I had to pay a bigger price in one of the projects, where in trying to develop the functionality on my own, the project was delayed by two weeks. Understandably, my project manager was not thrilled with my performance. On retrospection, I feel that creative aspirations, mistrust and the need to control had made me take up the ownership of the entire functionality. I realized the importance of delegation and trust during the course of my career. Proper delegation can improve the productivity of your team and can in effect help you achieve your job responsibilities. When you see how your team members are able to perform the tasks allocated to them, you will begin to trust them. That is exactly what happened to me. I began to trust my team members and it changed my outlook towards my team and my responsibilities. Their output improved considerably and it had a positive impact on my career. I was able to come up with unique solutions not because I came up with all the ideas on my own but because I was lucky to receive a bigger pool of ideas from my teammates.
Some of the solutions that we created were the result of hours of brainstorming and prototyping. My team played a crucial role in retaining at least two major accounts for our company”


Weakness: Lack of trust (mistrust).

Action due to weakness: Do the entire task on my own

Consequence: Delayed project, criticism from project manager

Realization: Importance of delegation and trust

Positive Action: Delegated task

Positive Results: Improved efficiency, creative solutions and high team spirit

What you have to do:

1. Add specific examples on your corrective action
2. Mention project location/domain/client interaction to make your narration much more interesting.
3. Specify occasions where you received positive feedback on your new found strength

This is an example for you to start with. Use your creative juices to write supplementary stories to strengthen your position.

If you want to know whether your essays satisfy the Critical success factors : Grammar, Spelling, Style, Tone, Uniqueness, Pace, Completeness and Coherence, submit your essays to us