INSEAD Profile Evaluation - Tools for B-School Profile Evaluation

Hi Experts,
I would be really grateful if you could review my profile and honestly let me know if I stand a chance at INSEAD for Jan,2019 intake. I’m concerned with my GMAT score of 710 and am ready to take the same again before I submit my application before the R2 deadline.
Here goes:
Nationality: Indian
GMAT : 710
Education:
- MBA(Sales and Marketing): Top 15 Institutions in India(NMIMS) (CGPA 2.9/4)
- B.E.(Computers): CGPA 8.02/10
- High School: 82.83%
Total Work Experience: 6 years
Pre-MBA : 2years -> Infosys Limited
- Worked as a Systems Engineer designing and implementing application systems that were able to track operational performance for ongoing projects. This required heavy interaction with Client servicing teams(both on and offsite), Finance, Sales and HR to understand processes and KPI’s and define metrics that were used by Senior Management to create reports. Received multiple commendations for projects successfully completed and LOR’s as well.

Post MBA: 4 years -> Givaudan India Pvt Ltd(3 promotions and 1 progression in 4 years)
- I started off as a Management trainee in June 2014. The company is a world leader in the fragrance and flavor industry. The first highlight was that I was the only Management Trainee hired in South Asia that from a pool of over 300 applicants. During my Management Trainee at Givaudan, I worked across Sales, Operations and Finance rotations for a period of 1.5 years.

- A few of my achievements across these rotations were as follows: I successfully proposed and partnered with a local Client to launch Men’s care products in the Indian context when the segment was still unexplored. For operations, I built a case study utilizing the benefits of South Asia Free Trade Agreements and successfully convinced my organization of the need to shift production from Singapore to India to service countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. During my finance stint, I worked with Controlling to develop model/process which improves accuracy of Activity costs at product level in SAP. The same was adopted as part of global initiative on Stable operations


- In Dec 2015, I was promoted to a Business Development Manager role in Singapore where I spent 8 months working with leading clients and vendors across Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore to generate and close multiple business opportunities. This lead to an increase of 1.1mn USD in local sales.

- In Jul 2016,I was then promoted to the role of Jr Key Account Manager(India) where I worked with local MNC’s and managed a portfolio of 3mn USD with a year on year growth of 7%. As part of my role, I partnered with a startup, headed by ex LVMH/Coach director, for 6 months and successfully launched a new brand, last week in India. One of my recommendations letters comes from her.

- In Jun 2017, I was received a progression to take over the Unilever account for two categories which amounts to 35mn USD worth of business for South Asia. Through this role, I have had continuous interactions both with the client as well as internally across the US,UK and South East Asia. I manage a team of 4 individuals as a part of this role.

Internships:
a) Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (Mumbai, India): Intern, Sales Automobile Division - Analysis of adherence to Sales Service Index norms followed at Mahindra owned showrooms and implemented measures to improve service metrics at two showrooms by benchmarking vs. competition
b) Marico India Ltd.(Mumbai, India) - Conducted a brand decode of two successful Ayurvedic brands in India to understand their rapid success and built a business case to warrant creation of a new brand post consultation with Ogilvy, Nielsen, IMRB. This involved living in rural India Lived for 3 months, to conduct ethnographic studies with over 200 consumers

Achievements:
- Successfully led a team of 16 colleagues on an internal creative challenge within Givaudan.
Multiple certificates of achievement for going the extra mile within my current firm
- Editor Of The Infosys Company Bulletin (2009-2010)
- Winner Of Multiple Debates and department representations within Infosys

Voluntary Work:
Green Batti Project - Mentoring underprivileged children (2016 - 17). This is an offshoot of the Teach For India foundation.
Language: English (Mother Tongue), Hindi (Fluent in Speaking & Writing), Marathi (Advanced),
French (Intermediate)

Certifications: French (A1 - certified by Alliance Française de Mumbai), Chartered Financial Analyst - Level II Candidate

I also enjoy writing poetry and music and have showcased the same professionally.

That’s my story. I really appreciate any and all feedback is appreciated here.
Thanks so much.

gavinds16061987,

1. Many great points, including Work Exp, Volunteer (Teach For .... is a well-known name, but the offshoot you mention is not; however, the role you took upon will need to show strong initiatives, and demonstrated examples of leadership)
2. GMAT is just Average for INSEAD. Will get you an average chance, but I would strongly suggest reattempting, and getting yourself 730 or more.
3. Your previous MBA, and a decently successful post-MBA career will prove to be a big block, and your story will need to be very strong and articulate in order to establish a convincing linkage.

Strongly suggest
1. GMAT of 730 or more
2. Strong story and LORs justifying your need for a 2nd MBA
3. ECs with greater demonstrable impact.

Pm us your resume for a detailed profile evaluation, and to ask any questions that you may have FREE.

dahiyar,

1. Work Exp is decent; You will need to demonstrate strong initiatives, and examples of leadership
2. GMAT is barely better than average for INSEAD. With your profile of Indian male engineer, it'll get you an average chance, but I would strongly suggest reattempting, and getting yourself 730 or more.
3. Your previous MBA, and a decently successful post-MBA career will prove to be a big block (for a Full time MBA), and your story will need to be very strong and articulate in order to establish a convincing linkage between your current, and future. So your goals will have to be convincing, very realistic and articulate.

Strongly suggest
1. GMAT of 730 or more
2. Strong story and LORs justifying your need for a 2nd MBA
3. ECs with demonstrable impact and lots of volunteering.

Pm us your resume for a detailed profile evaluation, and to ask any questions that you may have FREE.

Dear all,

Firstly, thank you for creating this topic-it is very useful.

I am here to get your advice on my profile fit for Insead. I am interested to apply for the batch of January 2019.

Background -

I'm 26,indian female. I also hold a permanent resident card from Canada. I'm a lawyer by profession and am currently working with the legal team at BNP Paribas since July 2014.

Gmat score: 710-q47 v40 IR-5
Previous score: 630-q39 v36 IR-3

I graduated from law school in 2014 and I've been with BNP Paribas since then in the corporate banking advisory team. I have worked on a couple of non legal projects at BNP including on CSR and sustainable finance. I've also been given identified as leadership talent. However, although I've had promotions within my grade, my designation has remained the same in the last 4 years.

During law school, I've also completed 2 post Graduate courses in law and have also completed several Moocs, some of which have been sponsored by my company.

Extra-curriculars-
I'm pursuing a weekend course in teaching yoga. Apart from that, I've volunteered with various organizations, but currently am not doing anything additional.

International exposure - I work with international teams frequently and can get LoRs from some team members situated there.

Post B- school,my preferences are to go to a consulting role or an in house strategy in a bank. I'll prefer the location as Canada, however I'm agnostic for all other locations.

I want advise on if I will be a good fit for Insead, given my low Quant score, avarage gmat score and non-business profile from India. I am interested in Insead, so how can I increase my chances here? Further, what is the recommended way to demonstrate the desire for career shift? I look forward to your responses.

PS:whilst I am applying to two other schools, I am quite keen on Insead!

Posted from my mobile device

I very much agree with Alex's assessment. Your quant score is not an obstacle. The four criteria are academics, international orientation, leadership and contribution.

I would highly recommend that you find a way to articulate your need to attend an International MBA program as a means to meet your career goal.

Spend time thinking about good solid anecdotes with regards to leadership and contribution and articulate them effectively. This is where you really have the most power to influence the outcome of your application at this point.

Come join us on the January batch thread if you haven't already!

https://MBAPrepCoach.com

Hi All,

I was hoping to request your assistance with one of my queries for my INSEAD application.

- My recommender does not have time to write individual questions in the online form and fill the grid. Does the school allow to email a word document by the recommender? and if yes, how will the information in the grid be shared with the school as that grid is an online piece related to the form?

Thanks in advance.

Do me! Do me!

Nationality: UK
Age: 31, female
Undergraduate: Cambridge UK, STEM, 2.1
Post-Graduate: Cambridge UK, STEM, 2.1
GMAT: 770, Q49V47
Work experience: Mostly startups, my own and others. Two start ups in London, founded two businesses in Dubai, currently co-owning/ managing 2nd one which is in a pretty much 100% male-dominated industry. Business growing well and now worth $4mil in inventory. That's come from organic growth of our starting capital, and individual private investors.
Post MBA goals: VC or continued entrepreneurship
ECs: extensive volunteer work with local animal rescue, choir, rowing, off-roading. I also do mock interviews and mentoring for kids applying to Oxbridge. Heavily involved in music since high-school and rowing since uni so decent consistency here.

Weak points as I perceive it: lack of leadership experience (I do have some, but it was a long time ago), no direct supervisors to provide recommendations, age, poor GPA for first 2 years of university, employability post GMAT, a couple of wilderness years in my CV
Strong points: unconventional candidate, female, very strong GMAT for my demographic, nearly 6 years of overseas experience (I have additional from pre-university), good case for needing MBA, write good essays. Childless spinster, if they care about such things?

I find it very hard to get a sense of how keen schools actually are for "unconventional" candidates. All alumni I speak to say that they are, but reading through websites gives absolutely the opposite impression.

Don't try to play the guessing game on this-- I am former adcom-- all adcom wants to find good diversity in their class in all ways-- including work experience. So don't worry if your work experience is atypical-- that can be a great thing. Focus on how you have had impact--
that's the common theme they want to see regardless of what your job was.
We can help you more with a free consult to give you an idea how how to best present yourself given your background-- the link for this is to sign up here: https://stratusadmissionscounseling.com ... b-visitor/

Ravi,

If your recommender does not have the time to work upon your recommendation, then I suggest you find another recommender.

Recommendation writing is a time taking process. INSEAD has a volley of question, about 5 that require separate answers. If he combines his answers into one document, he is likely to miss answering a few questions or giving incomplete answers due to lack of time. And you definitely don't want to spoil your chances for admission because of the recommender.

If he agrees to write a detailed recommendation, then you could probably sit with him and help him fill the grid (read out the choices/ tick them) to save some time.

Not so much about playing a guessing game as it is not spending time and money applying to programmes that are never going to admit me in the first place. As much as they say they want diversity, I do not find the admissions process to be very friendly towards unconventional candidates. Of all the schools I've looked at so far, only Stanford provided a few additional guidelines for the self-employed/entrepreneurs who may not have direct supervisors who can act as recommenders. The overall impression I get is that B schools want "safe" candidates, to preserve their post-MBA employment figures.

Anyone know why INSEADs female admit is so low? 33% is one of the lowest of top 20 schools (Cornell is also strangely low)

Hey guys!

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Abhinay (from Easy MBA Admit)

Hey tinyinthedesert

I just graduated from INSEAD in Dec 2017 and can probably comment on this. Yes, this is a huge talking point at INSEAD right now and it is indeed true that the school has not done a good job at attracting female applicants in the past. However, there have recently been huge efforts at the school to change this trend. The class I was part of (Class of Dec 2017) which just graduated had the highest female representation at 38% in INSEAD's history. INSEAD also just celebrated 50 years of the first woman being admitted into its MBA program and that is now being used as a fulcrum to change the status quo. From small things like changing the lanyards of our ID cards for a year to celebrate Women MBAs to bigger things like having women specific networking events with companies/recruiters, increasing number of scholarships for female candidates and having an entire week dedicated to celebrating diversity and female participation in the business world.

Thus, although historically the female participant ratio in INSEAD has been low I would say this is the perfect time for a woman to ride this shift in trend at INSEAD and apply given the huge focus on increasing the female student ratio at the school.

I think it can be quite hard for a non M7 school to increase it's proportion of female admits and still maintain it's ranking place. For example, I think it's pretty well known that there aren't enough women with very high GMAT scores to "go around" the top schools, which is why for the schools that actually release the data, the average female score is 10-20 points lower.

I will note that Cornell, another top school with a low female intake of about 30%, is one of the schools that solicited an application from me post-GMAT via email, and INSEAD is not, despite the fact I live in UAE and they have a campus here. Hult and Cass have satellite campuses in Dubai and are much more aggressive in recruiting here. If INSEAD are really serious about attracting more women you'd think they'd be a bit more proactive in reaching out to potential candidates in countries where they actually have a campus rather than "changing the lanyards of ID cards" which is not something potential admits really give a flying **** about.

Hi all,
I would like to request a profile evaluation.

- Male, Spanish, Strategy consultant, 29 years
- Education: Business and Management in the University of Navarra (GPA: 6,9 / 10)

- GMAT: 700 (Q48, V36, AWA 5, IR 8)

- Work Experience: 6 years, the last 4 in consulting
- Industry: Diversified (service companies, healthcare etc)
- 3 years leading my own team
- 3 Proyects in South America led by me as main responsible in the country
- 2 years working in London in a startup in a multicultural team
- Extra-curricular: 4 years professionally competing in skiing

Objective for applying to INSEAD:
- Settle up my own consulting firm in the long term

Thanks!

Hi alexps,

-- yo también soy Alex y español --

thank you very much for sharing your profile.

I think your profile is very strong and it has indeed a lot of potential for admission to INSEAD.

You went to a very good school in Spain (i.e. Universidad de Navarra), and your GMAT is on par with the school's average.

Your consulting background and your start-up experience in London definitely give an edge and will be source of great stories for your essays.

You have international experience in London and South America, which is very important for INSEAD.

In order to evaluate in more detail your profile, I think we would just need to have more clarity on your career goals (especially immediate post-MBA), and current extra-professional activities you are engaged in.

In any case, you do have a strong profile and I encourage you to apply to INSEAD!

Are you considering applying on Round 2?

Thank you!

Best regards
Alex

Dear Experts,

I am facing an uncommon situation here and need your suggestions on how to go about it. First, a quick highlight of my profile. I am an Indian (26yrs) with following professional and academic credentials:

GMAT: 700 | Q49 (77%), V35(76%), IR5(55%)
WE: ~6 years (entirely in Risk & Management Consulting primarily for global Telecom and E-commerce clients)
Employers: KPMG India (current, 4 yrs), KPMG China and Protiviti India (2 yrs)
International experience: South Africa (currently based out of Joburg since a year), China, HK, Nigeria, Gabon, India and Bangladesh
Undergrad: B.Tech (80.69% - top 5%)
Others: Rating - 1 (Exceptional) all through my career

I have already applied to INSEAD in its R1 for Jan'19 intake. Given my multifaceted experience, my essays have come out well. However, the IR score of 5 is making me uncomfortable about my chances of making to an interview stage.

Can somebody suggest me whether a GMAT retake (solely to up the IR score or perhaps, overall GMAT) is recommended at this juncture?

Even if I decide re-take GMAT, it will still happen in next 10-15 days.

A quick suggestion from experts will be highly appreciated!!

Best,
Jasdeep