aspireformba wrote:
Hi Sameer,
I aspire to do MBA from top US B-schools. (On my list are - Kellogg, Michigan Ross, Darden, Tuck, Duke, UCLA. Though also wish to apply for Harvard and Wharton - It may seem highly ambitious).
However, from secondary research on the net and different forums, I am not sure whether my profile fits the target schools. Below is my profile -
Nationality - Indian
Age - 30 years
Undergraduate - Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics from non IIT however, among top 15 engineering schools in India. Passed out in 2001. 72.9% Among top 15% of class
Work Experience - 9 years (in September 2010)
GMAT - 700 (Q49, V35) / 4.5
TOEFL - 109
International Experience -
Belgium - 1 months
Germant - 3 years
Work Experience Details
Out of 9 years, worked with Infosys for 6 years in application services primarily and last 3 years with mid size Indian IT outsourced product development company
The move from Infosys to product company was well thought of. In last 3 years with Infosys, I worked on a IT redefinition assignment for a German customer wherein I was involved more as a functional consultant who underwent the process of defining IT strategy for a business unit's marketing and sales initiatives, carving out IT programs and projects and execution and deployment of those programs. During this I was exposed to cross-functional business challenges and how these can impede any program if not well executed. During this time, I decided to earn more experience into product development and management and moved to a mid size product company ( because in SME, I could proactively take more diverse cross-functional opportunities which is difficult to get in large companies).
Though I have worked in IT companies, I have some uniqueness in profile as well.
1) For last 1 year, I am managing a business consulting assignment. In this, we do competitive analysis of customer's product suite vis-a-vis its top competitors (who it meets often on sales field). This analysis is more than functional comparison (as is normal with Indian IT professionals) and goes beyond to licensing comparions, industry alignment, market positioning etc. The output of these studies are often product roadmaps and preliminary sales strategy. I am actively involved in these analysis and demonstration to customer product and sales groups.
While working in this assignment, I have some good numbers and results to show such as -
1) Did SWOT for customer and competitor product in a week's time frame and provided backend support to the customer to clinch a sales deal from the competitor. This deal was for one of top 5 European bank and worth in excess of US$ 25 million.
2) Pursued and Negotiated competitor's product purchases in decision maker capacity. These purchases ranged from US$ 100K to US$ 700K. Multiple purchases. For this I involve cross functional teams with in my org - purchase, sales, finance and IT teams. Involves lot of inter-personal and diplomatic aspects
3) This assignment was never done before in my organization. So, instrumental in setting up framework and processes for executing such assignments. FY10 Revenues - US$ 1 million, FY11 expected revenues - US$ 2.5 million. Awarded multiple individual and team awards at org level as recognition
4) During purchase of competitor products, have gone through multiple legal and financial review cycles with my company's legal department and senior management. At times, competitor licenses explicitly discourages us to do any comparative analysis so legal reviews and confirmations are mandatory. This has put us largely in an uncertain environment where license doesn't permit us to do and we are keen to continue with this kind of work. Have some experiences around where we are partnering with Chinese companies to procure and host environment to do such work.
5) Have some experiences where we faced ethical dilemmas and we took assertive stand in front of customer to say No
Other than above assignment, I am also handling two more projects -
Project 1 - It is a staff augmentation project where we get hiring positions from customer. I own the complete process from a) understanding JD from customer, b)settingup selection criteria and process c) coordinating with my recruitment team, interview panels etc. d) negotiating salary approvals from company's senior management etc.
Project 2 - This is a typical IT project (job search portal development) on which I am the project manager. However, to differentiate a bit, I have proactively taken role of account management and pre-sales. When this account/project was started, it was only 5 people big team. After 5 months, it has grown to 12 people. Recently, we have also started discussions on customer support opportunity which will be again 3-4 people team to start with and have a potential to grow. I have some stories around how I engaged customer with showcasing my company's strengths and positive results in initial phase to build confidence and also how I could manage to get focus of my directors on this small account.
Extra Curriculars
College -
1) Participated in many national level paper presentations and other contests and won awards
2) Took leadership roles in organizing college fests
3) Joint Placement Officer for my batch for campus placements
Work
1) To enhance my presentation, people and speaking skills, I volunteer to take org level soft skills trainings - Client Handling Skills
2) Owner of Infrastructure Center of Excellence (at company level). Have stories around setting it up and running it. Also some results around how we helped different pre-sales efforts with collarterals and won deals of medium sizes (upto US$ 1 million annually)
3) Reviewer for different technical and domain initiatives
4) In past, co-owner of technical forums
Community Service
1) Actively involved with an NGO with clear objective of providing vocational skills in underpreviliged children who can take up job in near-community. I take computer and soft-skills classes for these children twice a week. recently, took initiative to help a newly opened rural centre (around 50 kms from my city) where no other volunteer was ready to go
2) Previously involved in Infosys Foundation programs and fund raising initiatives (no big achievements here)
3) Assumed coordinator role in the society where I recently shifted to live. Since society is newly developed, has lot of issues around safety, cleanliness, logistics etc. Taking up issues from residents to builder and maintenance agency to get timely resolutions.
Post MBA Goal
Armed with deep business knowledge, shift into product consulting where I help organizations from identifying right products to build product strategies (functional, marketing, sales, licensing. positioning etc.).
Please provide your evaluation. My main concern is around a) 9+ yrs experience b) average GMAT c) competitive Indian IT male pool of applicants.
Regards,
MBA Aspirant
As I read through the profile, I was going in my head - hmmm...mature profile. And I'm not referring to the number of years of work-ex. I'm talking about the way you've analysed your own profile and structured it here (we'll speak about the presentation part a little later). Shows that you've done a fair bit of introspection on your own.
Always good to work with those who know where they are and where they want to go. Helps the consultant and the candidate reduce the preliminary effort required. You know what you are strong at, where you don't have an advantage, you've got your list of schools ready (why aren't you looking at European schools?). In short, you are in a position to hit the ground running.
If you are expecting a tick-box approach, let me address that first. You are hitting all the right notes in many of the areas that Adcoms look at - good acads, managerial exp, international exp, extra-currics, community work, yada yada. But you knew that anyway, right? Ok, tick-box approach over. Let's move on to more interesting things.
A few points for you to think about when you start working on your essays. This is where we pick up the presentation story that we left earlier.
- Right now the approach you've taken in drafting this post is fine - as you've got an engineer talking to an engineer. So I don't have trouble understanding you. But the person reviewing your essay will most probably not share your background. So you gotta make it palatable to a non-technical audience.
- If I had been reading this from a job interviewers perspective, I'd appreciate the language and the tone. For a b-school application, this is khatarnak-ly dry (did we just invent something here?). Despite the variety of your experience, the language and the jargon that you use make it difficult for the reader not to bunch you along with the rest of thy brethren from the IT industry.
- Reviewers read thousands of apps and it's a painful process, irrespective of how special your app is to you. Try not to push your readers into reading it for a second time before the whole thing starts forming a complete picture. Make the mental picture building process easier.
The schools you have on your list are pretty competitive. You've gotta take the presentation part several notches higher. Keep the points listed above in mind and start working on the appln strategy right now.
Harvard, Wharton look tight. The other's might be a Practical to Stretch.
My partner in the US is a Harvard grad and highly respected by the international applicant community. Though he's not an Indian (he's American), he understands the Indian applicant profile much better than most Indians. Let me know if you want me to hook you up with his team. If you've decided to apply to the best schools, you might as well give it your best shot, right?
close
12 Jun 2010, 16:43
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