This empathy map profiles a 26-year-old male MBA graduate who is struggling to find a full-time marketing position that matches his qualifications, expressing frustration with unrealistic job requirements, lack of applicable work experience, and limited career guidance from his business degrees. He feels drained by the job search process and wants better feedback mechanisms to improve his efforts, while maintaining an open mindset and communication skills to advance his career goals.

1. Empathy Map
@alexmeckes

2. Profile
Male, Age 26
Finance and quant analysis undergrad
MBA from international school
Current job: marketing at a startup, 2 other jobs
to pay the bills
Looking for: full-time position doing marketing
at a startup

3. Say
“One of the few useful takeaways from my undergrad
business school program was how to use excel”
“Universal skills like math and reasoning are important,
they are transferrable to new jobs”
“Play to your strengths when looking for new jobs.”
“I am overqualified for entry-level positions, but under
qualified for mid-level positions.”
“I need a job to get skills, but i need skills to get the job.”
“3-5 years experience? This technology barely existed 5
years ago. How the hell am i suppose to have that?”
“My MBA is basically worthless, but atleast I’m not in
debt.”
“If you graduate debt free you’ll have a huge advantage
over your peers as far as job choice goes.”
“Most of the entry-level jobs that were meant for MBAs
are being taken by mid career people who lost their job
during the financial crisis and will take anything.”
“A lot of the well paying jobs now barely existed 5 years
ago and business school has been slow to adapt in what
they teach.”
Insights
Degrees that require a high level of
reasoning will better equip job
seekers that are willing to learn for
the job.
There is a knowledge gap between
what is being taught in undergrad and
what is needed in the workforce.
Debt is a significant burden on almost
all students.
Entry level positions oftentimes have
unrealistic requirements.

4. Do
Getting creative with resumes
Utilizing personal network first
Taking additional classes to further
education
Has 2 jobs on the side
Insights
Standing out is important, one of the
first ways to do that is through a
creative resume.
Person to person and first
connections have a good chance of
revealing job opportunities.
Learning doesn’t stop after college if
you want to stay competitive.
Little time to put in the effort to do
additional or higher quality work if 2
extra jobs are necessary.

5. Think
Job searching when you have 3 ½
degrees, are overqualified for a lot of
jobs, and still can’t find anything is
incredibly draining.
Oftentimes I don’t know what I’m
doing wrong.
Consistent blogging and keeping up
with social media is hard and i’m not
sure its worth the effort.
Insights
Lack of emotional support structure
for job seekers.
Improving feedback mechanisms
from interviews or other job searching
areas would be useful.
The type of online presence that
looks good for non-technical/creative
positions is vague.

6. Feel
Never think you know everything.
Ask questions.
Don’t feign competence.
Insights
Attitude is an important factor for job
success and learning.
Communication at new jobs is critical.

7. Problem Statement
Stakeholder needs a way to get job search feedback and support because job
hunting is a sensitive subject.
Stakeholder:
“A detailed-oriented, analytical thinker, degree holding MBA, who is curious and
willing to learn, as well as being collaborative and creative”