smarks2327 wrote:
I was wondering if you could please provide a profile evaluation?
Ethnicity: Caucasian male, U.S.
GMAT: 740 (Q48 V42)
GPA: 3.77 from the Ohio State University, B.S. Industrial and Systems Engineering (with Honors in Engineering), Entrepreneurship minor (4.0 minor GPA).
Work Experience:
Will have 2.5 years full-time at MBA start date (2013). I also have 4 engineering co-op quarters with the same company in a similar role. Industrial Engineer for a Fortune 100 retail company on the Inventory Optimization team. Our group works as internal consultants for various supply chain, logistics, and strategy initiatives. Some major projects have been leading a re-structure of store planograms that reduced inventory by 25% while improving service levels, supporting a new vendor managed inventory program, supporting gross margin optimization initiative with replenishment speed being the primary focus, and leading a data sandbox project that provides previously inaccessible details about store-sku inventory and forecasts that has supported a variety of pilot projects with data/analysis. I also have experience with DC capacity and productivity, forecasting inventory, managing sales forecast errors, and managing aged inventory. I am MOST (work measurement system) certified. I won an award for the outstanding co-op of Spring 2009 for all Ohio State Engineers. I self-taught SQL and am an expert Access and Excel user.
At work, I manage our team's co-op program and mentor one co-op per quarter.
Extracurriculars:
-Marketing volunteer with Power Inspires Progress, a social outreach program that employs and mentors inner city residents
-Writer for Hoperatives, the largest Cincinnati Craft Beer Blog, award winning homebrewer and certified beer judge
-Cincinnati half marathon
In college, I was involved in Social Entrepreneurship through two projects:
-The first involved Montana De Luz, an orphanage for kids with HIV/AIDS in Honduras. Work there included making the facility more energy efficient and meeting with the local Honduran government to gather information about regulating energy costs. The work was presented at the undergraduate research forum at Ohio State.
-The second was conducting Search Engine Optimization and Web Strategy for a start up non-profit seeking to fine a cure for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This involved partnering with a local web marketing company and performing target keyword analyses for a fundraising 5k.
My interested areas of study are Marketing, Venture Capital, and Social Entrepreneurship. My ideal post-MBA job would be working in marketing for a social entrepreneurial venture or as an analyst for a social venture capital firm. I plan on applying to Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Northwestern, Duke, Berkeley, MIT, and UVA. I know my work experience is on the light side, but I think the diversity of work I have done, as well as the co-op terms, could make up for this.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Steve
Yes, I do think that the co-op terms add to your work experience. You sound like you have a strong analytical/strategic background but may need to work harder to show how you lead the people around you in accepting/adopting the analyses that you've devised. Certainly, that needs to be a good part of your story. I also recommend applying to at least one lower-ranked program - like
Notre Dame or
UNC - which is a strong social-service-oriented program and slightly less competitive.
Beyond Grey Pinstripes is a great resource to identify these programs and find one that particularly suits you.
_________________