Hi Gyanone,

Have been following your posts and advise to people for a long time now. I just gave my gmat and I am ready to ask you for my own profile evaluation now. Hope you will oblige

I have a total work experience of 4 years, all of it in advertising. By education I am an engineer but I was never really interested in engineering and this is also seen in my engineering score which is below first class at 59%. Naturally I chose a career in something other than engineering and got into advertising. Now after 4 years I am a brand director but its not that senior a position really as it sounds. Still I have worked with some big brand names in India including some big retail brands and top luxury hotels. I have also led campaigns end to end.

My gmat score is 710 and i got this in my second attempt after first attempt was 580 only (did not study).

My questions are that first of all do you think after my 59% I will have a chance at isb? secondly, isb is not known for advertising and I don't see much of that there, so will this harm my application as they feel I am applying from an area that they are not a specialist in? thirdly, will my first gmat attempt of 580 harm me?

looking forward for your reply. thanks!

Hi Everyone,

I have recently scored a 700 (unofficial) on GMAT with Q50, V34 and IR5. My profile is as below:
10th: 78%
12: 62%
BE: 73% from a regular Engg college.
Work Ex(a total of 60+ months): Started working with an IT MNC on CRM for 2.2 years as a part of Sales Force Automation Team. I have been awarded for my contribution in the project which was later declared as CMM5. There, I also contributed in Knowledge management of the project, prompting project members having different area expertise to share their knowledge with each other. I also trained and mentored two new joinees in the project, one of which is serving at onsite.

After MNC, I joined a public sector bank as an IT Officer since June 12, looking after Bank's Network and some relevant IT projects. As a Presiding Officer of election booths, I successfully conducted General Elections 2014 and Local Municipal elections. I have also earned a JAIIB - Junior Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers and a CAIIB - Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers, which are provided by provided by Indian Institute of Banking and Finance.
Extra Curricular: nothing as such.

I wanted to know whether with the above mentioned profile, is a 700 a viable score or do I have to push further on GMAT score? Is the above mentioned profile competitive enough for ISB, IIM-A,B,C?

Cadaver,

Thanks for posting. Nice profile you have there.

Your academics seem good. 10th and 12th are both good, and engineering is not outstanding, but still decent. Top 25 engineering college is a little fuzzy, but assuming that it's a well-known name, you should be ok.

Professional experience is excellent. Yes, your profile is technical, but then not everyone works with Airbus and Rolls Royce on engineering projects. Note that you are NOT the typical IT engineer, so will not be bracketed as such. Quantity of experience at 40 months is fine.

ECA seems good as well, but a bit confined to only social contributions. Perhaps you have done other things (student activities, sports etc) that you have not mentioned here. Nevertheless, no worries on the ECA front either. Founding Vikalp is a big plus - really shows your commitment there. How do you contribute to Vikalp now, though, being in a different city?

Overall, very good profile, and if you can add a good GMAT score there, will be the icing on the cake.

On your specific questions:
1. Rating your profile: Given the assessment above, strong chances if can be supplemented with a good GMAT as well.
2. Target GMAT score: While even sub-700 scores can do (not much below 700, though, so make sure you are close to 700, if not above), if you are setting a target, set an ambitious one - 720 and above.
3. Advantage of 1 year MBA programs is well established. You get almost the same number of in-class contact hours as in two-year programs, you get back to work one year earlier, and you also save quite a significant amount of money because of the opportunity cost. India v/s abroad is a completely different decision though, and there are points in favor of and against both options. Ultimately comes down to which market you wish to work in, opportunities available for specific roles in that market etc. If looking at the Indian market though, ISB is possibly the best choice.
4. That question can hardly be answered just on the basis of a profile, as it needs a deep dive into your role, experience, exposure, and achievements, but attempting a summary answer here. Your job is to convince ISB that you bring good insights from your industry, and that you have solid goals that ISB can help you achieve. Having a technical background is not a problem, but failing to convey how that background is relevant to these can be a problem. Your work would already have given you insight into many areas that may not be related to business, but are important nevertheless - problem solving, client management, teamwork etc. Focus on highlighting this, and the rich quality of your experience (working with global clients, contributions, top 10% of employees). Note: this is just a quick answer as of now provided on the basis of the information you posted. Essays and applications require a lot of detail and thought before you decide on the right points.

You might also find the following article relevant: Approaching essays - tech candidates

Hope this helps. Feel free to come back with more questions.
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Hi gyanone,

Thanks for your in depth review. I really appreciate it sincerely.

I have some more questions on things I am planning to do to help my profile. I am planning to join an NGO on weekends and I am also thinking of taking up a course on Coursera. Do you think these will be help?

I also have another query. I don't want to tell my boss that I want to pursue MBA and so I cant get a recommendation from him. Will that be ok? I am a little scared that if I don't get into ISB then my progress in my company may become slow. Please advice.

Thank you.

Hi gyanone,

I am taking the course on mathematical methods for quant finance from coursera. My quant is 49 which is 79 percentile only so I think this can help me prove to isb that I am not weak in mathematics.

Thanks on your other advice. Appreciated as always.

Hello GyanOne,
I am planning to apply for R1 of ISB, need some inputs on my profile,
Profile:
XII : 89% Maharashtra Board
Grad: 8.43/10 (B.tech Electronics)
GMAT: 720(Q:49, V:38), IR:7, AWA:5
Work Ex: 42 months on Apr 16,
Company:Infosys, part of R&D unit called Mobility Center of excellence(worked on an established products and part of core team of a nascent product).

Work Ex Description :
Joined as trainee, stood 2nd in the batch of 500 students hense was chosen for R&D unit.
Was promoted to senoir system engineer in within 1 year.
I work on all the latest technologies such as google glass, healthbands as part of small core team and have regular interactions with higher management and take part in design discussion for the product POC.
basically my work profile is conceptualized, do quick proof of concept,design & code. I mostly work on critical demos than a full fledged product.

Extra-curricular: been president of a college club, helped my college department arrange national level conference.

Awards: this quarter I received a bronz medal for my contribution towards a critical demo.This demo fetched 2 worksop opprtunities for Infosys, the story of this demo is subject of my first essay.

can R&D experience be differentiated from typical IT experience?
is my GMAT score competitive enough for the IT pool?
what are my chances of getting into ISB?

Kindly help.

shazam1234,

Your profile is excellent and can certainly be differentiated from other profiles from typical IT services backgrounds. Mobility is an emerging technology that is highly valued across the business technology sphere, so you do have an added advantage. You should focus on how your innovation and technical insight will pair up with an MBA to give you a great career ahead. Also ensure that you are not using similar examples for ISB essay 1 and 2, as some people from a technical backgrounds sometimes do that (not saying you will, just advice from our side). For essay 1, the demo idea seems ok, but focus on the ideas, the presentation, and the impact, not on the technical aspects of the presentation.

ECA, acads, and awards are great as well. You are all set and should begin working on your ISB application right away.

Hope this helps. Feel free to come back with further questions.
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GyanOne

Class 10th - 67%
Class 12th - 65%

B. Tech (Civil Engineering) – NIT Surat: CGP-7.28

GMAT - Yet to take

Work Ex - 42 months (as on 31st Mar, 2015)

Worked as an Estimation Engineer in Punj Lloyd ltd. (a construction company):22 Months,
Currently working in a Real Estate company in Gurgaon as an Estimation Engineer.
Responsibility –
Punj Lloyd: Tendering and Bidding dept., where my responsibilities were to work out the cost of construction of any building and road/other infrastructure project.
Currently: Estimation and Project Planning Dept., here my responsibilities include handling quantity estimation of various building material of various projects.

Certifications/Achievements:-

I got opportunity to work on many huge buildings and infra projects, out of those PL won many bids which includes one which was of INR 1000+ Crore contract.

Extra-Curricular:-
- I am an active member of Toastmasters club since April 2015 and delivered 4-5 speeches and within 2-3 months I was asked to take up the responsibility of Public Relations as Vice President of the Club.
- I have been taking part in various sports tournament held in my current company (Volleyball, Football) and was a part of Volleyball Tournament winning team this year.
- I have interest in music (Djembe Drum) (although I have nothing more to show here as I am learning this instrument at this stage).

My Questions:-

How will you rate my profile for ISB?
I don't have much to show under achievements and extra curriculars, so, what else can I do now to enhance my profile in such a short span of time, if there is any?
Target GMAT Score?
What all other B-Schools should I target?
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Hi GyanOne,

I recently appeared for GMAT and scored a 660 (Q 48, V 32). My profile is as under:

10th - 88.83%
12th - 87.33%
B.Com - 85.29%
M.Com - 77.30%
CA with an All India Rank 28 in CA-Final
Currently pursuing CFA L-1

Work ex:
1. Ernst & Young LLP - Senior Consultant (Corporate and International Taxation) - 3 years (until 8 June 2015) (promoted from Consultant with effect from 1 October 2014). Key responsibilities included managing a team of consultants and interns and reporting to director/ partner for tax advisory assignments in the domain of telecom, technology and communications. This involved active interactions with senior executives across various Ernst & Young offices over the world in relation to multi-country tax compliance and reporting, advising clients on optimum business models for setting up a telecom entity in India from a tax and regulatory perspective, tax implications on inbound investments into India, and managing a multi-country tax compliance assignment for an Indian MNC having presence in 14 countries.
2. N.P. Parekh and Co. Chartered Accountants - Partner (Family business in project finance consulting) - 2 months (until present) Key responsibilities include regular interactions with PSU and private sector banks for appraising the credit proposals of SME's. This includes assisting SME's in obtaining fund-based (term loans) and non-fund based (overdrafts and cash credit) facility in the range on INR 1 crore to INR 10 crores. Preparing credit monitoring and assessment reports on behalf of clients, loan documentation for mortgage/ pledge of fixed assets and stock-in-trade.

Extra Curricular:
- Presently serving as a volunteer in Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care ('SRLC'), a non-government organisation located in the Dharampur town, District Valsad, Gujarat in the fields of animal care and health care - key role includes assistance in organising blood donation camps to be provided to day care units and hospitals in the backward areas of Maharashtra and Gujarat, rehabilitating animals in distress by setting up animal welfare sheds providing them food and water.
- Was actively involved in the Budget analysis and reporting team at Ernst & Young LLP to determine the immediate impact of the Union Finance Budget 2014 and 2015.

Long term career goal - Management Consulting/ Private Equity Consulting

Questions:
- Whether I should consider giving GMAT again to improve my chances?
- Which other b-schools should I target other than ISB?
- Any other good-to-have factors to differentiate my profile?

Thank you for the valuable inputs GyanOne. I would definitely look to improve my GMAT score by giving a retake.

On the career goals aspect, the intent of joining family business was to gain exposure to client interactions in the project finance domain, which along with the tax consulting experience could assist in the strategy consulting. Though EY provided ample opportunities to interact with clients to optimise their tax costs, the primary concern of a new business being set up is beyond tax costs/ benefits and more towards ease of gaining access to cheap capital in India.

Thus, the main intent to join the family business was to understand important problems faced by SME's relating to their funding requirements which are more critical to their survival than tax optimisation. I realised after working in the corporate tax division at EY that tax costs are not the primary driving force for firms while implementing a key business decision (say, setting up an entity in India) and they consider other factors such as ease of accessing capital, infrastructure, etc before considering the estimates of tax outflow/ benefit. Thus, I considered the family business as a viable means to understand and gain experience in knowing how one can service clients to assist them to gain access to capital.

The long term goal is to render services in the management consulting domain which I understand could involve advice relating to wide range of problems (including but not limited to tax and access to capital). Please do let me know if this isn't clear as I would want to justify joining family business towards my long term goal of rendering services in the management consulting domain.