Confused About My Employer Recognition & General Background

[WendyY887]

Hi there! Another MBA M7 hopeful here. A bit of background about me:

-Chinese Canadian female
-720 GMAT (Q49, V40) - third attempt so definitely not doing this one over again
-3.7 GPA from a well-known Canadian undergrad program
-planning to apply in fall of 2019
-1 year of work experience at BlackRock, 1 year (and ongoing) of work experience at Tim Hortons (Restaurant Brands International) with a promotion that happened in January

I've already completed a 30-minute consultation and am waiting until I get closer to my application date to fully sign on for consulting services. In the meantime, I've also spoken to other consulting firms and people who have completed an MBA themselves at a top 10 school. I've generally been told that my employers' names will be well-recognized, until my most recent encounter with a consultant from a large admissions consulting group. She indicated that admissions officers will not be familiar with my employers and that my Canadian-centric education and work experience are weaknesses/vulnerabilities.

While I understand that international work experience is important, does my Canadian background automatically put me at a disadvantage? Additionally, are my work experiences thus far insufficient by way of familiarity to the admissions officers?

Would like to clear this up, as I was quite shocked and confused to hear the above points.

Thanks!

[mbamissionjenK]

Hi there,
Thanks for your post. Your GMAT & GPA look solid, and I would agree getting more work experience, and ideally management and leadership experience, makes sense, and see if you can also build up some community involvement in the meantime.

RE: that point about the brand, I personally didn't know Tim Horton's living in the US, but Restaurant Brands International is a large company that many will know or at least look up and respect... do you work in a corporate role or ?? In terms of how it's viewed overall, it depends upon what your role and promotion are, what sort of reach you have and skills gained, how it fits into your narrative in terms of your career interests and goals. I wouldn't make a blanket statement that the brand or overall awareness of your company has to hurt you per se..... depends on the above. And Blackrock is well known of course. Admissions teams may appreciate your educating them even more on the company as appropriate, but they do aim to assess each person in their own unique situation... consider that a professional ballerina was admitted to Columbia a few years back... and I've seen a Canadian Football player admitted to some M7 programs ... there are some schools whose apps allow for more in terms of what you can show them about your life and strengths so consider as it gets closer not only which schools are an ideal fit for you, but also perhaps which apps allow you to show what you bring to the table best.... keep in touch in the coming year or so and good luck.

[PriyankaS554]

There is nothing much to confuse about your employee data as you're a employer for particular company. Almost, every company is using the ViewMyPaycheck a.k.a QuickBooks to manage employee's payroll and other info. Just go to the official website, https://viewmypaycheck.net and create a account using email. Then, you can add your employees list and be a employer or administrator.