getting fired/MBA possibility
I haven't found too many discussions on this, but was hoping others could chime in. I was terminated from my investment banking job last year and unfortunately it's listed on my brokercheck. I was able to find other jobs since and am now back on the corporate side dealing with banks instead. my concern is that if i decide to take the gmats and go back for my MBA, will it be hard to get around this when doing my applications and going through the interview process?? i have good references, solid background, and am looking to take other certification exams. hopefully one mistake won't drag the rest of my career and future education down.
Every MBA applications will ask for the reason you left all of the positions listed in your app so you will have to disclose (and they will confirm during background check). I am assuming here your employment was terminated and you weren't fired for cause (which your last sentence does seems to suggest). If that's the case, I don't think it's that big of an issue, it happens fairly often on Wall Street and is often not really related to performance so you can actually use it in your essay to demonstrate how you overcame a difficult situation, shown resilience etc. In any case, whether you were terminated in a mass-layoff or because of performance issues, the only info your old firm will give is your date of employment, position occupied and reason for leaving (ie. employment terminated) so it gives you some wiggle room to spin the story if it was performance related.
Thank you for responding on this thread. I was fired for cause ("Submission of personal expenses for reimbursement in violation of expense policies"). However, I lawyered up as a precautionary measure against a big bank and thoroughly explained my side of the situation - thus, when FINRA did a final review, they only left me with a cautionary warning (which is not available for public disclosure so the case is sealed and remains private). I was not penalized or fined in any way at all. Yet either way, the reason for being terminated is now on record even if i was not found guilty of the actual allegation. i have no idea how i would be able to explain that on an application or mba interview. yes, the policy at my previous bank is that the bank will only confirm the dates of my employment and nothing else. but my concern is that an easy google search via brokercheck or other site will show otherwise. i found out after i had left that the allegations against me were actually very common and others were terminated for similar reasons (they confirmed with me that the bank was merely using this as a way to get rid of a lot of people in general because ultimately, the MD was the one to decide whether you stay or go and some who had similar allegations was only hit on the wrist with a bonus deduction).
I've thought about spinning the story into an essay, but i'm hesitant to draw more light on this situation and perhaps open a can of worms that is better left shut. so you're saying it's not possible to completely leave this situation out? but it won't be a dealbreaker in the MBA process?
Ok, gotcha. Frankly, I am not sure what's the best course of action. On one hand, I completely understand why you wouldn't want to give too much attention to this. However, on the other hand, I don't think you can get away with this not coming up in the process and in my experience, people are pretty forgiving if you are upfront about the mistakes your made, but pretty unforgiving if they think they've been misled or lied to. Especially in your case, EVERYONE in banking has at some point or another abused their bank's expense policy so I think you can spin a pretty good story around this, especially given you've been able to place elsewhere. Personally, I would rather control the story than taking the chance it blows in my face.
Two scenarios:
You tell them upfront.
You don't tell them. You gamble on the chance they don't find out, but if they do (and the chances are high enough), it's worse than #1.
Therefore go with #1. Don't overexplain. Use the optional essay to state the facts. You got terminated for cause for submitting personal expenses for reimbursement. You learned from your mistake, and you've moved on. End of story. Any more explanation than that is a waste because the stranger reading your application (he/she doesn't know you personally) will either believe you or not on face value, regardless of how much more you try and explain. You fucked up, you said you learned your lesson, and by being upfront about it there's a better chance they'll believe you learned your lesson than if you tried and hide from it and have them find out another way.
I am going to ask - how will they find out though? It's not like he has a criminal record somewhere.
As I mentioned before, every MBA application will have you input all of your work experience and they always ask the reason for leaving each position + they do standard background check on accepted candidates (and as I mentioned before, the info provided will be position occupied, timing of employment and reason for leaving). So if the OP wants to include this work experience, he pretty much has to be upfront about it because it will come out. Obviously, there's the option of leaving it out, but then you'd have to explain the why you were unemployed out of college (depending on timing of next job, you can get away with listing only years on your resume for jobs, but the actually application does ask for the month as well so you can't really hide the gap).
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