Hello @
Admissionado Team,
I would really appreciate help on evaluating my profile for a full time MBA starting from 2018. Here are the details:
Indian, Male, 27.
Education: Bachelor of Engineering from an average Indian university. GPA = 2.5-3.
Work Experience
:
1.
Graduate Engineer Trainee at Fortune 500 (top 50) Company -
Worked in Engineering, Sales and Marketing during my ~1.5 year tenure. Considerable exposure during engineering and sales rotations.
Engineering (8 months): Handled large hydroelectricity and power projects in my first 6 months. Successfully completed Factory Acceptance Test with the End User by myself (generally given to engineers with 3-4 years experience). Assisted on several other projects, with programming, planning etc.
Sales (8 months): Made regular cold calls, generated firm inquiries within the designated 8 months, with some of them being converted to Sales. (Progress was a little slow due to an illness and subsequently, death in the family).
Marketing (2 months): Responsible for qualifying leads, releasing national quarterly newsletter, customer interaction, organizing National Level Meets. Coordinated the National Sales Meet in Feb 2013.
2.
Pre-Sales Associate at Education Technology Startup -
B2B: During this time I covered the entire sales/BD cycle from market research, data qualification/organization, cold-calling, pitching and closing for the B2B product. I worked with the product development team to shape some aspects of the product, based on customer feedback and my observations. I was closely involved with the strategy or approach to the market (which market to target, whether to go for inbound or outbound sales, product placement etc.). I work directly with the Sales head to handle pan-India marketing/sales for the product.
Most of the sales/planning activities for the product were handed over to me within 4 months of joining. B2C: Based on my performance on the B2B product, I was given a shot at our newly launched B2C service. It was more of a managerial/leadership role where I had to decide the process for sales to consumer and partnerships with channels for suppliers. I handled a team of 3-4 to streamline the company's cold-calling sales activities. I also set up operations in 2 major cities.
Having noticed my performance, I was offered a nearly 100% raise in salary. I chose to turn it down to help build a startup as the Founding Member.3.
Founding Member and Head of Sales at VC-funded startup -
Point-Of-Sale product -
- Made first sale of product. Have seen entire process of inception,prototype, sale, deployment, support and product development with the PoS product.
- Led a team of 6, responsible for achieving sales, actively involved in making vital UI/UX, technology and strategy decisions.
Business to Business Sales for logistics services -
-
Responsible for sales of delivery services to businesses across 6 cities, leading a team of 65 people. Generated sales worth ~INR 1 Cr/month ($200,00). This included sales from small businesses as well as enterprise chains.
- Laid down Standard Operating Procedure, Incentives and HR policy for the sales team. Also actively involved in making HR policies for other departments across the organization.
- Closely worked with Strategy team and CEO to design and implement sales and operations strategies across 6 cities.
-
Worked with Operations team to bring down cost/unit by 190%, thus significantly improving margins.- Drove cross-functional collaboration between Sales, Operations and Product for more throughput in service and hence increased revenue by 20% month-on-month.
- Owned initiatives across verticals to test feasibility of service model. Made successful proof of concept in all nearly all verticals in terms of operational feasibility and profitability.
- Implemented salary revision across 6 cities for the sales department with minimal (~5%) attrition.
Regional Manager (West) -
- Responsible for P&L for two cities. Set up and launched operations for both cities on the same day.
- Handled a team of ~50 people across all departments and two cities, with a contribution of 20% to total revenue.
Extra-Curricular
- Cultural Secretary for my department, elected by vote of entire department.
- Founding member for cultural committee in college and Lead Actor and Coordinator for the college's production for a State-Level drama competition. Raised funds from the college for the production, beginning at $400 (compared to other colleges' $2000) in 2009 to $1000 in 2011.
- Part of organizing committee for the National Level Technical Fest held by the college every year, regular organizing member of college's annual cultural festival.
- Initiated the participation of the High School's team in district cricket tournaments and captain of the team.
Important certifications
- One year Certificate Program in Business Management from the Business School in the IIT Bombay campus. The course involved lectures and assessments on First Year subjects in their MBA program. This was done along with my Final Year of B.E, through distance learning.
- A1 level in French Language cleared.
Target Programs
Stretch: MIT Sloan, UC Berkeley (Haas) and Columbia.
Match: Duke, NYU, Ross, UVA Darden, UCLA and Cornell.
GMAT Score: Haven't taken it yet. Mocks suggest ~700 at the moment, should be able to get it up to 730.
Post-MBA Goal
Short-term Goal: Work in Product Management in a tech firm or Consulting.
Long-Term: Have a product based tech company of my own.
I have been unemployed for the past 3.5 months. Reason being that the startup had to be shut down due to a severe drought in the Indian funding scenario. During this time I have undertaken a 3500 mile bike trip to the North-Eastern part of India and plan to write a blog about it to create awareness about the area and to clear some misconceptions people in India have about the region. I have also been assisting the director on a regional film about environmental issues.Please let me know if the schools I have chosen are right. If they're not, please suggest the right ones. Any other advice is always welcome.
Apologies for the long post!
close
16 Apr 2017, 05:44
Gainful employment. In a professional setting. Which will bring you towards your goals. Barring that, something like Teach for India or a successful entrepreneurial venture or family business could be good options.
