ISB Profile Evaluation - Tools for B-School Profile Evaluation

Hello,
Hope you are doing good in these testing times.

It would be really great if you could take some time out and evaluate my profile for ISB.
GEM, 25+

10th : 95% (2012, CBSE)
12th : 94% (2014, CBSE)
B.Tech (NIT): 8.89/10
M.Tech (IIEST, Civil Engineering, 2020): 82.5%
No gaps in between.
Work experience: Supply Chain Management in solar sector. (20 months by 31/3/22)
Job role: Strategic procurement and planning, International and Domestic Purchase, Negotiations and vendor development, Just in time procurement of Raw Materials for Production.
GMAT mock score:680

Extracurricular:
1. Cricket captain of Post graduate team.
2. Head of student affairs for PG.
3. Represented college in ASCE Seminar.
4. Editorial Member, Journal of Hazardous Materials.
5. Paper published in Springer and ICS journals.
6. Have been the key team member for several cultural events in UG.
7. Chief Co-ordinator, Sponsorship Management Team, college fest.
8. Member of NGO dealing with relief work in Distant parts of north east India.

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Hi there!

Your academics are quite good but that needs to be translated into GMAT as well. ISB needs to be confident that you haven't lost your ability to manage academic workload. Target for atleast 720+ to be competitive especially since your work experience is on the lower side.

Since you are planning to apply at barely 2 years of experience, it would be very important for you to show career progression and growth. You also need to have clarity of goals and justify to the adcom that you need an MBA at this stage of your career. Strong essays and stellar recommendations will help you here.

Feel free to write to connect@taterways.com if you want to discuss further.

Hi ,

Hope you are doing safe and sound .

It would be great if you can find sometime to evaluate my profile in having the admission to ISB.

Name : Dileepkumar
10th:90%
12th:97%
Engineering: 76%(JNTU KAKINADA)
GMAT:740(Q51,V38,IR8)

EDUCATION
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Kakinada, India May 2017
Bachelor of Technology(B.TECH)
• Awarded 100% scholarship in B.TECH for my exceptional performance in AP EAMCET-2013.

WORK EXPERIENCE
Accenture Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore, Karnataka, India Jul 2017 – Present

Application Development Senior Analyst
May 2020 – Present
• Led the team of 20 for migration of an on-premises application to cloud; resulting in annual savings of $350,000 and increase in performance by 20%; trained external team of 8 as part of Knowledge Transfer.
• Presented architectural design concept and solution for Diebold Nixdorf OIC by comparing and evaluating private, public and hybrid cloud technologies and tools from technical, functional, and financial feasibility.
• Gathered requirements, functional specifications, timelines, and adoption plans to support technology implementation; worked with stakeholders and across partner teams to build consensus to drive decision making.
• Improved existing infrastructure of TeliaSonera by automating the deployment of improvements resulting in yearly savings of $24000. Worked hand-in-hand with product managers, business stakeholders and engineers to design and implement infrastructure solutions that were used by 9000 customers.

Application Development Analyst
Dec 2018 – May 2020
• Expert in Microsoft Power BI and Tableau reports, dashboards, and publishing to the end users for executive level Business Decision.
• Processed millions of rows of data from 17 disparate data resources to reduce turnaround time and provide structured data to business units for further analysis.
• Implemented automated alert for all the SaaS infrastructure issues which resulted in quicker and more efficient fixes leading to an improvement in the response time of critical errors by 85%.

Application Development Associate
Jul 2017 – Dec 2018
• Automated processes by using shell scripts which reduced deployment time by 45 min thus increasing the availability of production application for the usage of business purpose.
• Implemented the pipeline process and automated the complete build and deployment to increase the efficiency of the process of deployment by 80 percent.
• Received ‘Beyond The Excellence Apex’ award in 2018 for introducing hashing concept for the deployment of products reduced processing time from 14 hours to 2 hours.
• Collaborated with application development and infrastructure teams in order to help bridge the functional gap and determine the DevOps feature/function set in order to optimize the technical environment.

OTHER ACTIVITIES & INTERESTS
• Achieved outstanding performance award in Green Filed Training conducted in Accenture.
• Received beyond the excellence Apex award for the year 2019 during my tenure with Accenture.
• Organized the cultural and Technical fest (Torque’2017) in JNTU Kakinada.
• Claimed 3rd position in Short Put during the department games in JNTU Kakinada.
• Claimed 2nd position in Kabaddi in interzonal competition conducted in JNTU Kakinada.
• Achieved certificate of achievement in Personal Branding & CaSH (Career, Salary, and happiness) workshop by Indian Institute of management Bangalore (IIMB).
• Organized and participated in HIV awareness camp conducted in JNTU Kakinada by Rotaract club of Kakinada.

Languages: Fluent in English, Telugu, Kannada, and Hindi.

Hi Dileep346,

Hope you are doing well, too. Your 740 GMAT is strong for ISB. Looking at the work experience you have shared, it will be key that you develop an MBA resume that successfully translates these experiences. Unlike a professional resume, MBA resumes should not include industry-specific terms/jargon. Instead, they should prove that you have demonstrated leadership and been successful.

Your extracurriculars help add another layer to your candidacy. However, quality over quantity is important here. Think about which ones best complement your profile and demonstrate what unique value you will add to ISB.

Resume development is just one of the components of Personal MBA Coach's comprehensive services. We also help with early planning, tutoring, application strategy, school selection, essay editing and interview prep. Feel free to send a note if you are looking to put together strong applications!

Best,
Personal MBA Coach

Hi Dileep346,
Thank you for sharing your profile for review. We hope you are keeping safe as well.

Here is our brief evaluation of your profile and a few things you can do to strengthen business school applications.

GMAT
Your GMAT score of 740 is 30 points above the class average, so you are off to a great start.

GPA
It is hard to tell whether a 76% GPA would work in your favor or against, with the given information. It would be helpful to know the undergraduate class size and rank. However, I guess that with a 76% GPA and 740 GMAT, academics should not be a concern for the admission committee. Please be mindful that the Admissions Committee will also look at your transcript in detail and compare it with other Indian applicants with similar academic backgrounds.

Work Experience and Accomplishments
ISB class of 2020 had an average work experience of 4.3 years. You will have four years of work experience when you join ISB; therefore, you are applying at just the right time.
Your accomplishments in helping corporations migrate to the cloud in conjunction with the awards help show your impact.
Also, show an upward career trajectory in your resume and demonstrate impact in both, qualitative and quantitative terms.

Leadership experience
Your experience of leading a team of 20 so early in your career helps your story stand out. The leadership and the training you provided are prime candidates for essay 1.

Goals
We are not clear about what your post-MBA goals are; both, short-term and long-term. Business schools are interested in understanding your career paths in the context of your prior work experience. And how their school can help you achieve your personal and professional goals.
Do take some time to reflect deeply on what experiences have shaped you so far and how you would like to build your career in the future.

Challenge
Accenture has carved a niche for itself in the cloud space. You will need to work to differentiate yourself from other candidates with similar experiences. You should leverage your leadership experience and awards to differentiate yourself from your peers. Further, you can highlight specific projects where you had unique contributions and how they benefitted your team, the organization, and your clients.

Recommendation
Dig deep to show leadership skills in the essays. Your analytical skills should be evident from the application section on work experience and GMAT score. Take on extracurricular activities to establish a holistic profile.

We had someone with a similar experience who made it to ISB in the 2019-20 application cycle. If you would like to discuss your profile in further detail, please email us at team.mba@theredpen.in with your resume attached.

Hello SameerKaushik,

Thanks for sharing your profile details.

Frankly, you have almost everything working for your barring the mock GMAT score and this becomes even more crucial considering your undergrad score appears to be on the lower side. At this point, just focus on your GMAT prep and getting as high a score as you can. Once that is out of the way, you will need to focus on creating a set essays that articulate your promotions, managerial abilities, and additional interests appropriately; of course, putting forth a consolidating story, wherein your goals sync with your experiences will be extremely crucial, as well.

All the best!

Hi vsl1995,

Hope this finds you well.

While it is tough to evaluate your chances in the absence of a GMAT score, you can definitely have a realistic shot at ISB if you work towards a GMAT score that helps offset the low undergrad score. Needless to say, that will be one important component of your application; the other component will, of course, be your essays; focus on portraying your strengths and achievements through a set of well-written essays, and, very importantly, spend time deliberating on your post-MBA goals; a consolidating story will be one, in which your short-term and long-term goals sync with most of what you have done thus far.

All the best!

Hi vsl1995,
Thanks for sharing your profile.
Below is my take on your profile :

GMAT: You need to target a score in excess of 690.

Academics: Average (~65% is a decent score in B Tech as far as schools are concerned. So do not get disheartened). A number of my classmates at ISB as well as applicants I worked with sailed through with a similar score.

Work Experience: Average (IT automation resulting in time savings is relatively common across a lot of applicants). However, to distinguish yourself from the pool, you will need to give a compelling story behind the need for automation, and the long-term business impact it would create. It should seem more like a behavioral change that you brough about rather than your technical prowess. You can tie it back to the promotions you have received at work and how your thought process has evolved from focusing on just writing highest quality code to designing solutions intended for a long-term business impact.

Extracurricular: Below Average. Most of the items you have mentioned are either dated or not compelling enough. I would rather recommend you draw some parallels between your extracurricular interests and your profession. Ex. Story around how the engineering project, which got national-level exposure, motivated you to build a career in technology.

I would recommend you to focus on getting an above par GMAT score on one hand and taking up challenging assignments at work on the other. That would give you the material to draft your unique story in the application (pro tip: adcoms love stories)

I am an ISB alum, C014, and have been assisting applicants in their admission journeys since.

Please feel free to get in touch with me at arijit.biswas@crackadmission.com and/or arijit_biswas89 (Skype) in case you want a detailed discussion or need professional assistance.

Cheers and Best of luck.

Hi everyone!

What do you think of my chances based on the profile below?

Regards,

David

My Profile:
Target Schools:
-HBS, LBS, MIT, Wharton, Yale, INSEAD, HEC Paris, Stanford

Nationality:
Czech Republic

Education:
-BA (Hons) in Business Management from a non-prestigious university in the United Kingdom
-Exchange semester in Germany
-Mentee in the University’s Mentoring Programme
-Vice-Chancellor Scholarship Award

Grade:
4.0 GPA (1st Class)

GMAT:
720

Current Role:
S&OP Manager Amazon (2 years)
-Managing Sales and Operations planning for three countries

Work Experience:
-Business Analyst Intern at a boutique Management Consulting firm in Luxembourg (return offer received)
-Supply Chain Management Intern at Amazon in EMEA (return offer accepted)
-Management Intern at Enterprise Holdings in Scotland (return offer received)

Extracurriculars:
-Pro-Bono Management Consultant working on projects for social enterprises, non profits and start-ups within NA and EMEA regions
-Winter Internship Experience in Consulting - project based
-Volunteer English Teacher in Germany and Czech Republic
-IBM Data Science professional certificate
-Numerous certificates in data analytics from Coursera, Udemy, EDx, etc.
-Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate
-Former member of the Czech Republic National Boxing Team
-Toastmasters Member

Skills:
-MySQL, Python, VBA, Excel, Tableau

Languages:
-Czech
-German
-English
-Slovak

Others:
-First generation degree holder
-28 years old
-white male

Post MBA Goal:
-return to Amazon as a Senior Programme Manager in Supply Chain Management -> grow to a director/VP level
-long-term: work in Ops/Supply Chain Management division in a consulting firm

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Background and nationality: 28, Indian, Male

Undergrad Information:
10th (ICSE): 95.4%
12th (CBSE): 86.8%
B.Tech, Civil Engineering from old IITs, GPA: 7.1/10.
MSc (Finance) from UK: Distinction
CFA L2 cleared.

GMAT:730 (Q=50, V=38)

Work experience and leadership: 2.5 years work experience in bulge bracket IBs in Mumbai( will be 3.5 years at time of matriculation). Worked in risk management department.

Community and others:

Volunteered for CSR activities ( Waste reduction workshops, multiple beach clean-ups)
part of the Lawn tennis team in undergrad ( played in inter-hall tournaments, sports-fest)

Post MBA goals:
Short term: work in consulting with focus on financial services.
Long term: move towards private equity/corporate strategy in banks.

Hello ksiolajidebt1993

Most elements in the profile are pretty balanced.
Academics is your shining feature. Good brands, scores, MSc and CFA help further. Decent GMAT to top it up.
Coming to work profile, definitely interesting, but with 2.5 years work experience, would be crucial to know your career progress and key achievements at work.
Both work experience and education experience beg the question, why MBA now. One would need to answer this question well, considering you've had multiple degrees, have you applied that enough to reach a stage where you need an MBA now.
Lastly, your work and acads add diversity to some extent, extracurricular seem helpful to add further value. Use your achievements and skills gained here to showcase how it makes you a good addition to the batch.

No major deal breaker in your profile. If you present the need of an MBA at this stage clearly, you have a decent shot at getting an interview invite.

You may want to read here on what factors work in a profile and here to add to your research on career goals.

Best
Varun Sharma
https://gmatclub.com/chat- +918452954888
Free Profile Review
MBAkarma.com
GMAT Score Predictor
info@mbakarma.com




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Hi,

Please evaluate my profile for ISB Class of 2022-2023:

Age: 24 yr

GMAT Score: Getting a 720 in Official Mock Tests

Educational Qualifications:
- Graduation: Completed B.E in Computer Science from BITS Pilani, India in 2019 with 83.5%.
- XII: 93% from Science stream from CBSE Board in 2014.
- X: 94% from ICSE Board in 2012.

Work Experience:
- Total work experience as of July 2021 - 2 years
- Currently working as a Software Engineer in a Fortune 500 Company in India
- Top Performer consistently for the past 2 years
- Have also worked as an intern in a unicorn startup for 6 months, where my contributions were essential.
- Played a significant contribution as a part of a feature crew that designed and developed a new product, which saw more than 2 Million monthly active users at launch
- Took the initiative to improve the said feature single-handedly, which resulted in a significant increase in usage.
- Worked on 2 hackathon projects, which are now being targeted to be released into the market
- Mentored many new joinees in the team, and also led the release of a project by mentoring and underseeing a new joinee higher in designation than me.

Extra Curricular:
- I've participated in some volunteering activities as a part of CSR
- Conducted Weekly team informal meetings as a way to improve team culture and get together during WFH.
- I love playing Badminton and Squash, although I don't have any awards to show for that
- Participated in Threatre and Dramatics Clubs in college and was also a member of the Security and Hospitality team in college fests.
- I am a technology enthusiast, and love tinkering and reading up about new advancements, especially on the software side, both from the design and usability perspective.

Reason to do MBA
- I've worked as a software engineer developing products and am interested in pursuing the product management role.

Thanks

Dear ksiolajidebt1993,

You tick all the checkboxes as far as ISB ad com is concerned as far as academic and test scores, work experience. However, the thing you will need to clearly bring across in your profile is leadership skills. Typically, IBs operate in a manner where during the initial years of your career, you mostly contribute in a silo capacity, and thus leadership and team management skills are not developed. To overcome this perception, you will need to state compelling stories from your personal and/or professional life where you have worked in teams, managed, and drove people towards a common cause.

ISB expects each of the 900 odd students in a cohort to contribute to the learning of one another. That is possible only when the students are culturally open and receptive to each other and can work in a team setting. The proxy for gauging whether a student can do so or not, is whether the student has excelled in a similar setting previously.

You have mentioned Consulting as your career goal. Note that this true for more than 65% of the applicants who apply to ISB every year. However, the number of consulting positions offered on campus is far lesser than the demand, Hence, to justify that your expectations from ISB in terms of short-term career goals are feasible, it will be great if you can showcase some client-facing / business development experience in your current/past work.

I am an ISB alum and have been guiding applicants in their admission journeys for the 5+ years now. Please feel free to get in touch in case you seek further guidance.

Cheers and Best of Luck

Any alum / consultant actually want to share experiences if CAs do find favor in recruitment season? I'm hearing reports that barring any GPA or any other formality related constraint, CAs are not really in vogue, atleast with consulting firms.
Any insight would be helpful.

Bit of background - i'd be 5 years with big4 consulting (tax) at the time of joining ISB (2022 intake), 720 GMAT and really really interested in management consulting.

Hello jodieFoster2358

Let us start with acads- past scores are decent with a good brand of undergrad. With comp science, I'd recommend a 730+ in order to stand out in the biggest and most competitive pool of applicants.
Moving on to work ex, while the startup and Fortune 500 will help, with 2 years of work ex I hope you are ready with enough career progress and a good set of achievements in order to stand out in the large group of software engineers. Years' of work experience in surely not the only or the best measure of work profile, but looking at the typical IT profile, most other such people would have worked longer in the industry and just by that virtue might have had more chances to progress and show impact. You will need to match, or better, beat that in order to make your work profile shine.
Moving to the next parameter where you will be evaluated- Diversity is very critical to you to show why you should be admitted to the class and how you will be a great addition to the learnings of your peers. Your extracurricular list is interesting but keep in mind most school/university level activities do not add much weight (unless absolutely stellar). The hackathon seems to have potential and you could build upon it, though on the surface I feel that it links more to your professional skills.
Career goals are realistic and organic. Key to the entire application would be to show you are ready for an MBA now.

You may want to read here on what factors work in a profile and here to add to your research on career goals.

Best
Varun Sharma
+918452954888 (https://gmatclub.com/chat)
Free Profile Review
MBAkarma.com
GMAT Score Predictor
info@mbakarma.com

Hi ksiolajidebt1993,

Your GMAT looks strong for ISB. While your work experience is slightly on the lower side, this should be fine as long you are able to demonstrate how you have emerged as a leader. Leadership comes in multiple forms so even if you have not managed a team or a project, there are many ways to demonstrate your unique leadership.

Extracurricular activities are another great opportunity to show leadership. Are you still involved in your volunteer role? It will be important to show a strong track record of involvement when you apply.

Personal MBA Coach regularly works with Indian applicants and a lot of folks from finance backgrounds. Do not hesitate to take a look at our services and reach out to scott@personalmbacoach.com if you are looking for application assistance!

Best,
Personal MBA Coach

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