I’m surprised that no one has taken a shot at this profile. Guess I'll give it a try.
For starters your age is fine and mostly in line with that of students accepted to LBS/INSEAD.
Your GPA is in line as well and since you're from a respectable (assuming ad com has heard of it) US college, it will add some credibility too.
Your nationality and international experiences will definitely make them consider you very carefully. Both schools love students who come from diverse backgrounds (internationally and professionally). You’ve got the international part going for you. Assuming you have some military experience (I think all German nationals have to serve in the army?), that will help too. Their love of diversity shows up in their essay questions as well and I think that if you can integrate your cross-cultural experiences with some leadership stories, you’re quite likely to get in.
I’m a little unclear about your work experience. Did you work full-time at the export house or did you do this while you were studying. Or was it 3 years as a student and 1 year full-time? You’re post is a little unclear but I think it’s the latter so will advice accordingly.
*now the REAL part
I honestly think that the first job sounds very clerical and any seasoned ad com member will see through it. It’s fine if you did it as a student. Sounds like good experience and you can say that it taught you about entrepreneurship. But as a full-time job, it’s not a very logical move career-wise; especially given you’re a Comp Sci grad. I guess you can put the right spin on it and make it seem more logical with what you wanted to do at that point in time but I’ll leave that up to you. Now I could be wrong and maybe you did a lot more during this time than your post suggests but based on the info you’ve given me, that’s what I think. You definitely need to bring out the leadership/exciting aspects of your personality based on your experiences, either at work or outside.
As for your current job, I don’t think the job title/salary will matter too much. Most schools like to show how their students salaries have increased by x% after attending their program (LBS in particular). It’s the lack of leadership at work that I’m bothered about. You will want to address this. Not sure how. You will have to dig deeper. I think on the plus side it’s a logical progression with your career goals and it gives you a nice story to tell. What you may want to do is try to show how you’re getting more involved in the biz development side of it.
As for your extra-curriculars, although I’m not particularly impressed, but if you can write a nice essay about your failed start-up/web biz and what you learnt from it, it would definitely help your cause. Also for obvious reasons, please don’t mention any of your Warcraft, Everquest or ‘whatever RPG you’re currently into’, exploits
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Given what you’ve told me so far, you would need at least a balanced 690 for LBS and 700 for INSEAD (INSEAD likes the GMAT a little more) for them to consider you seriously. Obviously, the higher the better. In general though, I like your chances because of your international experience and nationality, something both schools value dearly.
As for the other schools, I don’t really know enough about the school to give you enough advice but I do know that IMD likes more experience (quality of experience) than you currently have. I don’t see why you wouldn’t get into the other programs though.
Lastly, NO ONE can just read your stats and basic profile and tell you whether you stand a chance at a particular school. It comes down to your essays. They matter more than ANYTHING, especially at top schools where they are the one thing that truly distinguishes candidates from each other. It all about knowing yourself, feeling strongly enough about your goals and letting that passion come though in your essays. If you can do that effectively, you may even stand a chance at Stanford.
Hope this was juicy enough for you
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