JonAdmissionado wrote:
Hadrienlbb wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I would really appreciate your feedback on my profile.
The 3 schools that interest me the most are:
INSEAD, MIT and Harvard. I'm also highly interested in
HEC Paris, IE, LBS, Berkeley and Stanford. I'm most interested in
entrepreneurship (a goal of mine would be to start a business post MBA),
technology and sustainable development.
I'm French, male and 29 years old (1988).
I just took the
GMAT and scored 750: Q48, V44, IR8 and I assume 5+ on AWA.
My undergrad was a BBA in an American Program from a French Business Sc
hool (ISG in Paris). The program had its own administration and was quite "segregated" from the rest of the school. GPA-wise, I got 5 Bs and 24 As, for a total of 29 classes (145 credits). I'm not exactly sure what it means in terms of GPA. You can hopefully help me figure this out. All of our grades were on a scale of 20 and then converted to letter grades. Anything above 15.5 was an A.
My average was a 16.4. I was on the Dean's list every semester, received First Class Honours and got a 18.5 grade on my thesis.
Before going to B-School I lived 1 year in Texas as an exchange student. Then, during B-School, I studied a semester in Madrid. After graduating, I worked for about 6 months in Paris before moving to Montreal, Canada, where I'm living to this day.
"RELEVANT" WORK EXPERIENCE- I joined a small software / tech agency as an intern in 2010.
- I was hired as a Project Manager in 2011 after my internship completion
- Late 2012: after 2 years I was promoted to Director of Project Management
- Late 2014: another 2 years later I became partner in the firm and VP of Projects
- Since May 2017: I have been VP of Operations
- Main responsibilities: business development, team management (Project Management, Support Team and Creative Studio), mentoring & training employees, hiring and employee performance review, problem escalation management, grants/tax credits management.
- There are two other partners in the firm, the President/founder, and the VP Technology/co-founder. We currently employ about 35 people and have significantly invested in a new division dedicated to Virtual Reality Therapy which we hope to turn into its own company within the next 6 to 12 months.
It's my first time sharing all this, so please let me know what missing information would be helpful (or what info is superfluous) in order for you to better evaluate my profile and chances.
Thanks a lot for your time!
Hadrien
Dear Hadrien,
I think you have a very nice and strong profile. From what we have seen European candidates with good profiles do quite well, and with that 750 GMAT (congrats by the way
) and excellent undergrad grades, I think you are good to go for top MBA programs, including even the three that interest you the most
as well as all the others too.
It would be interesting to hear more about what you have done in your firm, and also what your plans are for the future, specifically your short and long-term plans post MBA, to see where you might fit.
I take it you are planning to apply next year? Or did you want to try and squeeze in your applications this year already?
Anyhow, nice profile!!
Feel free to follow up with any questions, comments or whatever.
Best,
Hi Jon!
Thanks a lot for your reply, and sorry for the delay in responding back.
You are completely right, I am planning on applying next year, although I have given some thoughts / have been tempted to try and squeeze in this year. Aside from the tight timing, the only thing that's truly holding me back from applying right away has to do with that VR division/company for behavioral therapy I'm trying to get firmly established and funded.
Regarding things I have done for my firm, it's been a lot of business development, employee and project management,
strategizing, and client relationship management. When I joined the company we were a team of 5, so I had to wear many hats and it has never really stopped. The company was turning a profit, but revenue was low, relying on a VERY large part on one client and the relationship with said client was degrading. I managed most projects that came in, along with the president. Although I was very junior, I was sort of the right-hand / assistant of the president.
We spent a lot of time together, he was a great mentor to me and I would end up attending most client meetings, finding new suppliers, putting together proposals and managing the project delivery (very much doing much of it myself).
We had a major breakthrough about a year after I joined. For about two months I worked on an RFP to secure business with a major financial institution in Canada. I put the 400-page document together, negotiated all terms with my boss, went through a lengthy vetting process, and against all odds we won that contract. Although it did not generate much revenue in the 1st year, we were then able to achieve 100% company growth for 3 consecutive years afterwards. This very much was a game changer for me too, as I gained the trust from the 2 partners and we started making plans for my future in the company.
It also allowed me to start putting together a team of project managers, a studio for content creation and hire a proper resource for technical support. A lot of my work throughout the years has consisted in growing these departments and keeping people happy and engaged.
As I had to do less work putting proposals together, sourcing suppliers and delivering projects I was able to spend more of my time doing business development and doing strategy work (build marketing material, go through 3 versions of our websites, implement a proper SEO strategy, etc.), and in the past couple of years I have focused a lot on improving our processes, increasing our product quality and looking for the most effective ways to reinvest our profits.
At the end of the day, we have experienced significant and sustained growth, but nothing explosive like you read about on TechCrunch or Wired haha. I only have 35 employees, and although the count is growing, we will exceed our expectations if we reach 45 by 2018 fiscal year end.
In terms of short and long-term plans post MBA, I really want my experience to be life changing as far as building ties with my classmates/peers goes. I do want to become a more well-rounded business professional, but I mostly want to be challenged in a collaborative environment, pitch ideas, put business plans together and find my future partners. Post-MBA, my primary goal would be to start a business in tech, related to the medical industry or to sustainable and renewable energy. Alternatively, I would like to have the ability to join start-ups in my field of interest. Consulting has always interested me too, but with my limited knowledge I'm not convinced this is a career path that I will get the most out of - although I feel that working as a VC investor / running an incubator is something I would want to do at a later stage in my career.
I'll stop here... I wrote this on the plane on my way to France, so my apologies for not being the most concise... I hope this gives you more of the information you were looking for Jon, and of course I would very much appreciate any feedback.
All the best,
Hadrien
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Updated on: 22 Dec 2017, 08:44
