IESE vs Reapply to LBS or INSEAD

Question

- 6 years work experience. 
Currently Head of division - Product controller for Commodities. Lead a team managing financial statements and ensuring correct reporting and disclosure by the business across the world (US, UK, Asia and Australia).

GMAT: 660

Graduated from a top 3 university in Australia. studied Bachelor of Commerce - not so great GPA of 3.0/4.0 equivalent
Obtained a Chartered Accountant License.

College and post-college extra-curricular activities or community service, especially leadership experience. 
- Know 3 languages fluently: English, Chinese, Cantonese and 2 languages on a conversation level: Japanese and French.
- Started own online painting business and is still operating.
- Current Partner in a Accounting firm - providing audit and tax services to non-profit organisations on the weekend.
- Current Coach and Captain of two regional division basketball teams (Division 3 and Division 4A)
- Bronze award for Duke of Edinburgh
- Rhythm guitarist in a Indie rock band in University. Signed a record deal and produced an album. Toured around Australia during University break.

Ive already been accepted to IESE, but was rejected by LBS and INSEAD last year. Wondering if I should reapply? Or will IESE get me to where i want to be equally. In addition, do I have a solid enough case to build to reapply?

Changes since reapplying:
-Improved GMAT score slightly (640 to 660, so not much)
-Promoted from my current job (was previously a regional controller - AU and NZ - for Equities, but now a global controller for commodities - looking after teams in USA, Singapore, London and Australia)
-Improved by online business revenue by 80% to a $60k annual business, due to increased international exposure by opening a website, streamlining pricing and production, and securing an international supplier contract.
-Expanded by social impact of my non-profit organisation with two new organisations: a local language school and a war veterans club.
-Currently also taken up a role mentoring over twenty under-privileged students in the Scouts Community in career direction and prospects.

My post-MBA goal. 
Ideally strategy/business development for a consumer goods company in Europe. However, with my background mainly in finance, i may need to get into a consulting firm and then move from there (Dreaming about MBB, but id be equally happy with Strategy&, Oliver Wyman, AT Kearney etc).

gcb09173 · Answer

To play devil's advocate:

LBS inform those they wish to reapply - if you didn't get that invitation you need a significant improvement in your profile to get accepted. Did you get a interview at LBS or dinged on app?

The question these schools may have will be - candidate looks better for EMBA programme given experience? Triple jumper - region, industry and job function? Wants to go via strategy consulting which may be a push given your experience is in financial control rather than front end of the business? (MBB would also be keen on a 700-720 minimum on GMAT). GPA is possibly low but can be blinked given you've got chartered accountant qualification. Loads of other interests - congrats, very impressive, but I don't know where you find the time for all of that so how much involvement do you have really!?

To be clear - global head of commodities, also running a$60k business yet no interest in pursuing into a career, working on weekends providing accounting for non-profits, coaching and captaining two basketball teams, plays the guitar, taken on two new organisations providing services for, and you've even got time to mentor over 20 scouts in career direction and prospects? That's a lot of stuff to fit into your life and you want to give it all up to do an MBA which I'm sure raises questions in adcomms minds.

If you can allay their fears over these questions in your essays you may have a shot?

However strategy development/corporate development in a consumer brand would be easier to get into following an MBA than going into consulting especially with your strong background in accounting and finance. IESE could put you there and is a strong brand on continental Europe. If you're talking consumer in UK (which you may be given your french is conversational) then LBS would be by far the best place to be.

You could consider accepting IESE and applying to LBS. You can suggest the triple hop career motivation with intention to use internship to get corporate development role as a result of their two year programme but would advise against discussing the MBB/Strategy consultancy path. You may want to consider resitting the GMAT to improve your score for LBS - hitting the average 700 would give you a significant app boost. as you no longer drag their average down.

whiteshields1830 · Answer

Thanks for the reply.

To add some background, I applied to LBS and INSEAD last year, and was rejected without interview for LBS but interviewed for INSEAD (but subsequently rejected). For INSEAD, i did apply for the Sept intake - so there was no internship on offer, which wouldve made my career-shifting goal pretty much impossible. I would say that wouldve been my largest downfall that alumnus saw.

Definitely wouldnt be considering a EMBA (dont candidates usually have 10+ years?), and yes I would be a triple jumper. Although I would like to just switch industry and job function (double) and remain working in Australia - the lack of brand name recognition of IESE in Australia would prevent this from happening.

To be fair, i USED to be in a band and play guitar - that was during the University days (and partially explains my average GPA score - as we would be touring during the breaks - so i didnt have much down time). Monday to Friday day time i work on my commodities role, night time i work on my business (with exception to Monday night - where i have basketball). Friday night, i catch up with 4-5 scouts on their career pursuits and provide advice on what they can do to get there. They update me on their progress on a monthly basis. On Saturday I usually work with the non-profit organisations (a language school, war veterans club and a church) on a rotation basis - this is all free of charge of course. Sunday afternoon is basketball for the second team - and thats it. Packed week as you can see, but doable.

Im hoping to get into strategy/business development in consumer goods as it combines all these qualities i enjoy into one (working with numbers and management in my daily role in commodities, business development in my own consumer goods business and strategizing with non profits to grow revenues).

Yes you are correct that I am looking at UK specifically (unless other European nations would take a Asian Australian in their workforce who knows nothing about the language - ie. german, italian, etc). Ive heard there are US companies based in Europe that do recruit an english speaking workforce....

gcb09173 · Answer

EMBAs start with 5+ years - but really depends on experience and running a global team would put you in the window.

Yep dont get me wrong, I believe its doable but there's a lot going on and you're going to give all that up to move around the globe - change industry - change function etc. Just a flag to make sure your essays are tight on motivation and how you manage all of these every week - what impact you have really.

I'd say you have a good chance of going into corporate strategy post MBA - an internship would definitely help - but the consultancy pathway is more challenging than straight into Corporate Strat/corporate development especially if you're triple jumping already.

Opportunities for strat roles in US companies may be limited in continental Europe - especially without the business level language - a lot of the these roles are based in regional HQs which are generally London. IESE still offers that opportunity to get into these given you have some French - could learn some Spanish - these language skills and accounting background would be massive advantage - but you may need to move to London post MBA to get a look in as they are often competitive.

LBS is definitely the right school and worth reapplying but i would suggest you work incredibly hard to improve your GMAT score. Knowing accountants coming from the 'Finance' pool getting into LBS - they have 720+ GMAT scores with similar types experiences to you etc. If you had a GMAT that didn't pull on LBS's average, that, with the others mentioned above, would show the profile improvement that might get you a shot at an interview. Insead offers you little that IESE doesnt unless you are set on consulting.

On a secondary point - have you considered Oxford Said and possibly Cambridge Judge? Lack the internship but are rising MBA brand names and the university brands are top 4 in the world. Puts you in the UK and offers the opportunity to jump to Strat/Corp development - they have strong recruitment for diversified industries. Also gives you a massive brand name on your CV back in Australia? Your profile would also be competitive at these schools.

whiteshields1830 · Answer

I applied to Oxford and Cambridge last year as well (got accepted to Oxford), but my experience of the administration - maybe bad coincidence - and the career placements didnt make it as attractive as IESE.

Cambridge didnt even give me an interview - which I was quite shocked with considering i had interviews for INSEAD, Oxford and IESE by that point. Ive heard a lot of mixed things about Judge, and it seems like its like the Yale SOM of the USA, where a lot of the prestige rides on the University rather than the business school. Ive also heard from my friends in LBS, IESE and Oxford (maybe a bit bias) that most companies tend to go for the LBS, INSEAD, IESE, IMD as the big 4 in Europe. Obviously outside of LBS and INSEAD, what is classed as "big 4" in Europe is subjective. IMD being industry leaders, INSEAD as consulting and LBS as Finance (i wonder where IESE fits?)

I just find it hard to fathom that industry companies would hire someone into corporate strategy without any management/strategic consulting or investment banking background.

I noticed you said INSEAD is just as equal to IESE in industry? Id thought INSEAD would be stronger in all aspects compared to IESE - in particular consulting since half of INSEAD admits come from a consulting background.

As to the GMAT score, i will be taking it again before applying to LBS - but i dont think I am the 720+ GMAT calibre. If i combined my best Quant score and best verbal score, I would be looking at the 690-700 mark - which would put me at the cusp of the LBS average.

gcb09173 · Answer

True, I know less about Cambridge but I do believe Oxford has a programme that would get you where you want to go - plenty of the large employers take Said grads but the careers service isn't the same powerhouse at Inseads or LBS - you would have to do a lot of the work yourself but your CV would be strong enough.

If you're going to corp start there is no recognised MBA recruiting process for that - these are often open positions you would be filling and so it would be via recruitment consultants filling the job spec, thats why i think IESE, Oxford etc could get you there just as much as LBS or Insead - the careers office will be less important.

I work in a Group Strategy and Corporate Development role - trained in finance as a charted management accountant - no IB or management consulting. Its very possible to go into this without having been a consultant. Having a strictly Corporate development role might be a challenge if not coming from a IB or Big Four transaction services background but I have had colleagues who have done so - but having the MBA gets you in there too especially given you have the chartered accountancy.

What i was saying was IESE would be as powerful for an industry role on your CV - whereas Insead is the juggernaut is in MC - but that really is in satellite offices across Europe. Your target industry and role will look for a MBA from a good school - the brand name is going to mean little between Insead and IESE. Similar with Oxford etc. If you start talking Hult for instance (a sa much lower ranked and generally unknown programme) then you might start to struggle - but for these types of jobs the MBA is just a 'tick box' exercise. Your experience leading teams, running own consumer business will be what they are more interested in talking about.

In the UK my experience has been that LBS is seen as the top dog and Insead is second place. Everything else is lower tier. IMD, IESE, ESADE, IE etc i have hardly heard anything about and only really learnt anything when i started applying to schools - and I've never met a MBA alumni from those schools in London whereas i've met plenty of Insead and LBS (and Oxford funnily enough) - the continental schools just aren't as prominent, perhaps because of their location alumni look for continental roles, this being London and finance focused , and their smaller size.

But this all by the by I suppose, to answer your question given your motivations above - LBS offers you a great opportunity to achieve your goals and would be worth applying again to at least know for sure. Maybe apply for the Jan intake at Insead, to get the internship, given you managed an interview before but only if you're sure you would prefer it over IESE. But resit the gmat first and aim for the 700 - it'd be worth spending every waking minute studying for it as it really can be learnt (take a course if you can as well).

whiteshields1830 · Answer

Thanks gcb09173.

From reading your post, i reckon I am going to reapply to Cambridge as well as LBS and INSEAD.

However, what are your thoughts on going to a second tier US MBA School (Duke/UCLA) and working in Europe? Will it actually be worse than LBS/IESE/INSEAD? or does Duke and UCLA both hold themselves in Europe as a brand name?

gcb09173 · Answer

Id say for your objectives M7 would be ideal - so H/S/W and Kellogg, Sloan, Booth, CBS would be seen in similar regard to Insead and LBS thus Kellogg, Sloan, Booth and CBS would be worth considering. Duke/Anderson etc in the second tier to a lesser extent would likely get you where you want to be but would be more of a challenge - companies will be less aware of the strength of them in the UK and this is where brand names like Yale might be worth considering.

The main challenge you will have will be finding the job in Europe having come from Australia and studying in the US. Being at LBS or Insead etc puts you in the country to find the jobs. However both those schools you specify have an exchange programme with LBS which would be your way to get the network and utilise the LBS careers service to help source jobs.

If Europe is your goal then LBS and Insead are your best options then theres more options after that but will require a little more proactivity.

I don't know your nationality/citizenship status but you might want to consider visa situations regarding what will be best to secure this.

MBAbot · Answer

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IESE vs Reapply to LBS or INSEAD

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