INSEAD Calling all Applicants(SEPT 2015 Intake)Class of 2016

504 accepted offers?

Can someone share the latest MBA connect numbers please? Thanks.

So would this not be the right place to ask around about the 2016 intakes, specifically the Sept 2016 intake, for which application preparations are just about to peak?

Couldn't find a more suitable thread...

Hi Ofer,

Here is the thread for Sept 2016 intake applicants. calling-all-insead-applicants-sept-2016-intake-class-of-july-200198.html
Good Luck!!

Best Regards,
Narenn

FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Halfway in, halfway out.

The Usual Suspects: Team KLEGS (the K is silent) Here we are, at the middle point. Five months ago, we knew nothing of these grounds; we hadn’t even set foot in this forest. Five months. That’s all it is, and that’s all it takes. So what has changed? I’d like to say a few grey hairs and perhaps a few extra pounds, but that would probably be half a lie. Or half the truth for that matter. B-School for the world where we study with 90 other nationalities: This surely is bound to create a certain disorder—even a mess. Or does it? There is a natural and mathematical phenomenon known as a fractal. On a small scale, everything seems totally disorganized. However, once you start zooming out, the pattern keeps repeating itself and suddenly, everything comes into focus to reveal a unique, beautiful organization. Let’s take a walk together, down memory lane. For the first four months of the MBA, each student is part of a five-man team, with which most projects are accomplished. Take one of my colleagues, a Japanese with a background in sales. He underwent a major in Czech studies. He then married a fantastic Czech woman and they now both have a little two-year-old son who is one of the stars on campus. The little kid will grow up speaking Japanese and Czech, and before he’s a teen, he will probably have a good understanding of English as well. Pretty amazing, no? I was grouped with a trilingual Japanese, as well as an Indian having been brought up in the Middle-East, a Turkish having moved to England in her late teens, and a Chinese specializing in marketing and business intelligence. I, a Canadian with a background ‘à-la’ Walter White from Breaking Bad (i.e., chemistry), completed this odd quintet. At INSEAD, there are 59 other teams on Europe Campus, and another 45 in Singapore. A beautiful pattern of diversity that you might fail to see at first. But halfway through the program, one can only look around and be amazed at this beautiful inclusive and cohesive diversity. One of the wonders of the modern world, I must say. All of us came from different backgrounds and cultures, and this has undoubtedly created tensions within the group. As difficult as these tensions might prove to be, it’s usually through these frictions that one gains awareness of others, and even more so of oneself. I must admit, INSEAD can be a bittersweet experience. Four weeks ago, many of us bid each other farewell as students from core groups and sections went their own ways. Some of the friendships born out of the pressure cooker that a 10-month MBA is will only be rekindled upon graduation, as the waltz of campus switching takes place. So it is with nostalgia that P2 ended. On the other hand, I was certain group work was over. Therefore, I wouldn’t have to coordinate with other’s schedules which would ease logistics. Once again, INSEAD proved me wrong! The fun was just beginning with my initial team being dissolved, and 6 teams being created, one for each elective class. A great and fantastic way to try and apply the learnings of the first four months. The sweetest part? Receiving a fresh contingent of new faces from Singapore! Remembering the fun of meeting great and engaging people that was the first weeks of the program! And with the great weather that came along, BBQs began, and the last four weeks have gone by in a flash. Right at the midpoint, halfway in our MBA. Most likely, halfway out.

FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Colors of the parachute

I received my first job offer after two dozen applications and a dozen interviews. I wanted to write about it because it was drastically different from what I expected prior to INSEAD, both in process and outcome. I made several mistakes and I hope readers will better manage the recruiting process than I did. 1. Integrate what you have learned I never thought what I learned from Process and Operations Management could come in handy, until an interviewer asked me how I propose to mitigate risks of a stock out. Don’t discount what is taught in the classroom, use the knowledge intelligently. 2. There is only one shot, plan carefully When recruiting kicked off, I had in mind a specific program with a specific company, and I applied to only the program despite multiple other openings within the same company. It turned out to be a flawed strategy as I had no backup with the same company when my first choice failed. Ask yourself what compromise you would make if top choices disappear, and apply to the alternatives at the same time as the top choices, because the recruiting window is too short for anyone to re-strategise. 3. Managing applications as well as motivation One of my toughest experiences was recovering from an unsuccessful application, for which I prepared extensively and went through a gruelling interview. In hindsight, I could have set more realistic expectations had I known the conversion was about a 1:50 offers to application ratio. Knowing your chances and having a support network in event of setbacks are important, as job hunting is a marathon, not a sprint, for many. 4. Focus on the long term I once asked an interviewer how he became manager of the firm, and it turned out that he declined the offer in the first place to join its competitor, only to reactivate the offer after several years after his MBA. This insight taught me not to look at the emails, coffee chats and handshakes as means to only the next job, but a starting point to build networks that may lead to something bigger in the future. Don’t burn bridges when an application is unsuccessful.

FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: The last mile

I often wonder why the Internet is flooded with articles like “10 things you should know before turning 30”, or “Five reasons to quit your job ”, until I find myself frantically trying to retrieve all files and contacts related to INSEAD, preserving every single detail. The end of everything offers an opportunity for personal reflection, and I am doing no different than a 30-year-old or a job hunter. With less than three weeks before graduation, I am in the last mile of the INSEAD experience. Below are a few personal recounts of my learnings: 1. Know the ‘Why?’ Daniel Pink has a theory on why some companies are more innovative, and I believe it’s true for educators as well. An average school teaches the what, a good school teaches the how, and INSEAD teaches the why. Why is Zara pioneering in fast fashion? Why is alpha return a compensation for risk in hedge funds? Why do big companies provide public goods? Asking the why is not easy, because our jobs do not always require us to know the why. However, it’s important to build the discipline of taking a bird’s eye view, because leadership and faith are only as strong as knowing the why. 2. Choose how you measure success wisely I grew up in an environment where success is directly correlated to grades, and I brought that mentality to INSEAD, despite the non-disclosure policy in GPA. Predictably, I experienced joy when I did well, and embarrassment when I did not. It took me five months to realise what could be confidence boosters could also be confidence destroyers, and there are other ways to measure learning besides GPA, such as ability to tackle unfamiliar subjects, degree of collaboration in group work, and flexibility in adapting to different communication styles. Sometimes, focusing on things that do not have explicit metrics may be more important than the ones that do, and I learned to be more in tune with myself. 3. And last, my list of seven odd things I became good at because of INSEAD water cooler conversations, with anyone, anywhere, anytime sourcing cheap flights in all languages with travel buddies from all countries using “always” & “never” as infrequently as possible voice-to-text note taking—it helps during exam time using acronyms for everything being close to people I thought would never become my friends dropping everything immediately when interesting conversations take place remembering the ‘news vendor’ theory and exchange rate parities by heart during job hunting

The MBA Recruiting Process – Insights from Darden ’15 Grad and CEO of RelishMBA

Hello from the RelishMBA team, and congratulations on being admitted to the MBA Class of 2017! My name is Sarah, and I’m a recent Darden School of Business graduate who founded RelishMBA, an online recruiting platform built specifically for the business school recruiting market. As a recent grad who works full-time in the MBA recruitment space, I wanted to share some recruiting advice and tips to help you prepare for arriving on campus at INSEAD.

The first thing to be aware of is that MBA recruiting is a long and intense process. Recruiting activities begin quickly once you’re on campus and they take up a huge amount of your time and energy for most of your first year. While virtually all top MBA students have great jobs available to them, finding those jobs can be frustrating and stressful, with relevant information often hard to find and a complex networking process that can be tough to effectively manage. I started RelishMBA to address these problems and make the process more efficient for both students and employers.

The summer is a great time to get started with recruiting processes (while you don’t have to worry about school, student clubs, social life, and the dozens of other activities that fill up your time during first year). Luckily, there are a few things you can do to prepare before school starts in August: Relax. Explore. Prepare.

Relax – business school is a big change from the working world; take a bit of time off. You deserve it and you’ll need the break!

Explore – In your time relaxing, begin checking out what industries and companies recruit MBAs. This is something RelishMBA helps with. Sign-up at RelishMBA.com to begin exploring employer’s company pages on MBA Careers specific for your school (“day in the life” alumni testimonials, on-campus presence, key points of contact, etc.).

Prepare – And lastly, get your resume ready. Below are some tips from my experience.
It’s also important to remember that once you’re on campus, you’ll be networking with recruiters and alumni frequently – and RelishMBA will help you here too, through relationship management tools that make it easy to stay on top of your networking game. Have any questions? Reach out anytime at recruit@relishmba.com.

Resume Tips:

1) Writing your resume is your first Marketing assignment

Your resume is essentially a one-page advertisement designed to sell your brand to employers. But as your first year marketing class will tell you, marketing is about a lot more than just a fancy design and a few well-placed buzzwords. Think about your audience (i.e. who will be reading your resume? Finance recruiters? Consultants? Marketers? Others?) and how you are positioning yourself with that audience (i.e. what work experiences would be most relevant or interesting to the recruiters reading your resume?).

For example, if you’re headed up to Wall Street, focus on the more quantitatively rigorous parts of your work experience, and try to make sure that your resume as a whole reflects an interest in and passion for finance and its associated disciplines. Future consultants will want to highlight problem-solving and analytical thinking. Marketers could talk about leading cross-functional teams or point out examples of especially effective communication.

And if you are not sure what you want to do, don’t sweat it – there are lots of you out there, and it’s no big deal for the next few weeks or months. But regardless of your eventual industry or function targets, remember: your resume is not just a chronicle of your past work achievements; it is an advertisement designed to effectively sell you and your brand to recruiters.

2) Be concise but specific

This is one of the more difficult parts of honing your resume: providing specific examples of relevant work accomplishments in a way that a recruiter can easily digest in a few seconds. Try starting each bullet point with a strong action word. Instead of saying something like “Helped to more than double sales during tenure in catchment area,” try something like “Launched blogger outreach program that increased web traffic by 72% and increased sales by 120%”.

These sorts of hard numbers are really helpful, especially since many recruiters will spend only a few seconds looking at your resume and those numbers stand out on the page. So it’s also important to be sure that your bullet points can be read and processed easily. And if you don’t have a lot of specific numbers to add to your resume, it’s still important to be specific about your accomplishments and to pick your words wisely.

3) Add some flair

You should be careful with how much flair you add to your resume, but it’s a good idea to think of ways to set yourself apart from the competition. The “Personal” section at the bottom of your resume, where you list hobbies, activities, and interests, is an easy place to hook a recruiter (or break the ice in an interview). Only mention things that are truly a part of your life, but still consider your audience and which of your hobbies or experiences might be of interest to the recruiters reading your resumes. Once you reach campus, you’ll hear plenty of stories about students who were able to land first or even second-round interviews largely on the basis of what seem like minor resume items.

Other ways to add flair:

-Were you kind of a big deal in college? It’s worthwhile to mention any particularly important or impressive extracurriculars from your undergrad days (particularly leadership roles), and including club affiliations and other school-specific positions can be a good idea once you get onto campus

-Recruiters are looking to hire real people, not business robots. Make sure your resume – the accomplishments you choose to mention, the structure and content of the Personal section – reflects your personality.

4) Don’t be careless

This is the part where we tell you that a few people every year submit resumes with misspelled words or mismatched fonts or other significant but easily avoidable mistakes, and that you could be one of those people if you’re not careful, and you think “I’d never be that much of an idiot,” and then you send your resume to McKinsey or Google with your name spelled wrong at the top. Don’t be that person.
Seriously, just get a friend to read it. Several friends. Have a resume-reading party. But don’t spell your name wrong.

Have any questions? Reach out anytime at recruit@relishmba.com

Sincerely,
RelishMBA Team

FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: The Business School for the World

“Globalization cannot be taken for granted”. This is probably one of the biggest takeaways from the International Political Analysis classes I had during my P3 at the INSEAD’s Asia Campus. In this course, Professor Michael Witt—born in Germany, earned his PhD in the US, settled in Singapore—taught us frameworks and led us through case discussions that would help us not only to understand the world better but also to become better leaders in international contexts. Beyond the formal training, a global well-connected network is also key element when it comes to internationalization. And it is during this summer that I am witnessing what represents the “for the World” at INSEAD. INSEAD Asia Campus, Singapore The ultimate determinant of globalization is politics (another key takeaway from the same class). Despite the increasing debate about visa restrictions/easing here and there, the INSEAD students from the same cohort as me are all over the globe. If you throw a dart at the world map, chances are that there will be a MBA candidate from the 15D class. And I am amazed to witness this dynamic. It is true that visa requirements are set by sovereign countries (a clear evidence of the relationship between politics and globalization) and as foreigners we agree to abide to the rules of another state and have to ensure that we meet the requirements of this or that country. However, in spite of bureaucracy procedures many friends were visa sponsored to run projects in many different places. Undoubtedly, some places attract more people than others. For example, there is relatively large number of students spending the summer in the Silicon Valley (including one of my teammates from France) and another in London (including a few Brazilians). It also is possible to find friends in, lets say, places less-known as MBA’s destinations including Tokyo (where one of the best friend I made at INSEAD ended up going). For many reasons, Singapore is on the list of places that attract a large number of students seeking summer internship. First, the city has a very active start-up scene. Second, the city is a hub of the region and home to many big companies’ head quarter in Southeast Asia. Third, Singapore, a country that is always very well-ranked in the Global Competitiveness Index, has a very simple and efficient process that allows students from top schools to persue their summer internship in the country. I found an interesting and entrepreneurial project in Singapore, so I choose to spend at least part of my summer in the city-state. Initially, I thought that working in another country for a company with two INSEAD alumni, neither of them Singaporean, from previous classes, was already representing a lot of the “for the World”. However, as I started working, I began brainstorming how to take the service the company offers to Brazil, form local partners in the country, and so on and so forth, I became again amazed by the fact that “for the World” could represent even more than I originally thought. Doing my research, I came across to an INSEAD alumnus in Brazil who served exactly one of the key possible partners we identified. This made forming connections much easier. The fact that he is an INSEAD alumnus made a tremendous difference to my project. Gardens by the Bay, Singapore So far, that is a little bit of what “for the World” has become for me. But, to be honest, I believe that “for the World” can stand for different things for other students and that it can still take a different shape for me.