How well known is INSEAD to employers in the US?

Are many potential MBA employers in the US familiar with INSEAD?

good to know...i want to apply here

generally speaking INSEAD is less well than its equivalent calibre US schools and perhaps even less well known than US schools of arguably slightly lower calibre. I think INSEAD is aware of this and this will change as they have opened a marketing office in the US recently (I believe in New York).

Having said that, if you're concern is whether you can land a job in the US, it is definitely possible. If you read some student blogs from INSEAD you'll notice many of them get jobs in the US, an ex-colleague of mine who graduated in 09D and is headed to the states now for work. What is more of a concern is really your visa. US schools primarily consist of US citizens and hence have no visa troubles. If you are a INSEAD student chances are your an Indian, Brazilian, Portugese, Australian etc etc. so a) it might be more difficult for you to get a visa and hence b) you might be slightly less attractive to companies if they have to sponsor you, vs. hiring someone of equivalent calibre directly out of say Wharton for arguments sake.

But back to brand equity, I think with schools such as INSEAD, the people that matter will know it (ie. good organisations and desirable places to work). It shouldn't really matter if your mechanic or florist knows Harvard but not INSEAD, unless of course you intend to work for him/her Obviously this is my personal opinion, and people put different weighting on brand/reputation.

Am an INSEAD alumni living on the east coast I have been very disappointed with the INSEAD brand value; I could not recommend the school. I was unable to get a single MBA level interview post INSEAD. The most common response from recruiters has been 'Instead what's that?' But more disturbingly those recruiters that recognized INSEAD held the brand in poor regard. 'We hired someone from that school in the past and it didn't work out'.

Also remember that INSEAD is a European 'for profit' school; would you buy an MBA from an American 'for profit' school such as the university of Phoenix?

Thanks for your commiserations. I did actually try and get a job in London first, before returning to the east coast. There is a common misconception that native English speakers that are fluent in other languages do well at INSEAD; this is not the case. I graduated with a native English speaking polyglot that also did not get a job. INSEAD is really an English as a second language school. Employers go there to recruit non native English speakers.

The program was a farce, just one long boring party.

From what I have seen INSEAD has little or no impact on many alumni's lives. INSEAD is a highly marketed product of questionable value; INSEAD is the Oxiclean of business schools.

As an INSEAD alumni I am always surprised at how highly INSEAD is ranked on the league tables. The INSEAD MBA has been a zero value add for me. INSEAD is a for profit school just like Hult or the University of Phoenix, INSEAD has all of the same issues and problems as any for profit school. Nobody has ever failed, you pay your fee you get your MBA.

Who owns INSEAD and are there any conflicts of interest? This should be investigated. The school is heavily orientated towards participants from strategy consultancies. The strategy consultants have on average 2 years of experience vs the non strategy students must have approx 7 years of experience. Could the owner of INSEAD be the partner in charge of education at one of the strategy consultancies? I made a mistake; I bought an intangible product from a seller I knew nothing about and that product was useless.

The first few days of INSEAD were interesting, I had many interesting discussions; but then the welcome week hazing event started. This consisted of the upper class playing a series of weird and often cruel pranks on the incoming class. For example; people were forced to fight each other and others were abandoned in the middle of the forest at night. This in a program were the average age is 28. This hazing ruined what might have otherwise been a good year. After the hazing event no one takes the school seriously. Since this hazing event was not listed on the brochure and this event negatively impacted my experience I feel that INSEAD was a bait and switch scam.

The final part of welcome week is the Dean's speech during which the Dean told us: 'INSEAD offers a general management MBA but if you want you can say that you have a specialization. If a background investigator calls the school, staff are trained to always answer 'yes'. You should try this; call INSEAD and ask does a specific alumni have an MBA with a concentration in Taxidermy or any other ridiculous subject, the school will say 'yes'!

After welcome week the place feels like a cult, no one will say anything against the school, facilities or social life. Descent is discouraged, those that fall foul of this rule can find themselves ostracized. People display symptoms of being brain washed. Hundreds of students, average age 28, get drunk in barns and tell each other that these are the best parties they have ever been to. However; one on one, in hushed tones, people said to me 'I thought I was the only one that didn't like the social life'.

The career service didn't seem to actually exist; there was an office labelled careers and there were people working there but it was a sham. The alleged career service did not even maintain student records, nor a job bank nor interview preparation materials. My undergraduate university offered this level of career services, I had expected INSEAD to exceed this standard. The careers services released reports on their own performance that read like North Korean harvest reports. In my promotion apparently a large percentage used the career service to find jobs and almost everyone changed career. We see the external economist report contradicts these assertions. After graduation when you cannot get a job that is when the careers service start their victim blaming: 'you need to be more of an entrepreneur to get a job' or 'you didn't try hard enough'.

The actual education was a joke e.g. the finance professor stated 'the school has had feedback that some graduates don't know what bonds are; therefore, we'll spend the next 15 minutes on fixed income. Before INSEAD I had completed the CFA level 1 - I had expected my 'intense' INSEAD MBA to be a similar level of challenge to the CFA, INSEAD was trivial in comparison. The education was neither wide nor deep, the classes were pitched at the high school level.

The participants can be split into the following groups:

Wealthy global elite (top 0.1%)
Strategy consultants (non native English speakers)
Developing world (non elite,non strategy)
Developed world (non elite,non strategy)

The wealthy and strategy students are well served by the school. These people want to have a good time and get a rubber stamp MBA. Students from the developing world have language skills that will enable them to get jobs in growing markets that are underserved by other business schools. Developed world students get a very poor deal from INSEAD; the INSEAD MBA is just not sophisticated enough to compete in the MBA job market in the developed world. During INSEAD you will be a resource for other students, you will probably have more experience, be educated in leading universities and have a wealth of other experience. This will be sucked out of you and fed to people in the other groups. Employers will laugh at your MBA. Also INSEAD uses the word entrepreneur to mean unemployed. If you couldn't start a business before INSEAD how could you start a business upon graduation with all that debt?! Becoming an entrepreneur right after business school doesn't make sense; no pay for a year, spend $150,000, then start a business whilst servicing that debt?! INSEAD reports how many graduates go to the top consultancy firms; what they don't tell you is that almost all of those people are sponsored by those firms and already have those jobs. In reality very few people (1 or 2 in my class) get a new job upon graduation.

If you are there as a career changer from the developed world you are being scammed. You share your experience with the strategy consultant and family business students and when you graduate there are no jobs for you. The only logical explanation for the consistent large minority of students that do not do well post INSEAD, is that INSEAD is ripping of one group of students for the benefit of another.

INSEAD is constantly asking for donations - a 'for profit' business asking for donations! How is that not a scam?