Profile Evaluation/Scope for improvement

Question

Can you please evaluate my profile?

GMAT: 700+
Age: 24
Demographics: Indian/Male
Education: Bachelor’s in Mechanical, GPA: 3.2 from a good university in India (Top 10 rank in class)/ strong academic focus with 90+ percentiles through school and college.
Current work experience: Full time- 2 years; Part time-6 years

Details of part time work experience: 
 Started working for the family business when I turned 18. I did not have a fixed task (no task was more important or less trivial than the other; all work had to be done). I also handled sourcing of components, general management of the business and client interaction. The business involves manufacturing and commissioning of a consumer product. 
 I relocated to another city after graduating to take up a full time job. This city was home to the R&D center of our business. I moved to corporate development. I now started determining the course our business would take and hence appropriately guide the R&D team. I will continue to stay in this role till I apply to college.

Details of full time work experience: 
 I considered graduation important to get experience in a foreign multinational and in a quest for a logical thinking process that graduates possess. I was also looking for international exposure through this. I have been working with the world’s leading tractor manufacturer for the past 2 years. I work with clients from the US/Europe/China. I have held varying responsibilities from designing to styling to a bit of program management for upcoming tractors. I have spent about 6 months working in China for the local products there. 
 After asking for a chance to prove myself (on completing a year with the company), I was assigned the china project. It was a runaway success resulting in a triple promotion and a star of the month award. Consequently I will now be given greater responsibilities – mainly working with American and European markets.

Future target work:
I started working in the full time job mainly for international exposure but I still want to continue with corporate development (in line with what I do in my family business) for a large multinational. Preferred post MBA location would be Western Europe.

Extra curricular activities:
Singer in a band, numerous awards in drawing/painting, numerous awards in quiz competitions

Target school: INSEAD

After conducting research, I concluded that INSEAD is the best fit for me. I plan to apply in 6 months time for the Class starting in Jan 2014 (when I have about 3.5 years of full time experience/7.5 years of part time experience). Considering my profile, how would you rate my chances? What can I do in the coming months to improve those chances? What are some of the weaknesses in my profile which I must fix?

Thanks for all the help in advance!

bryantmichaels · Answer

You appear to have all the right components in your profile for a run at INSEAD. As you know, you are applying from a deep applicant pool and while your core attributes will be right in line with this pool, I think you can stand out by having worked and led on manufacturing in a multi-national setting. This will differentiate you from all the IT or engineering grads who work in tech. I am sure you have many stories of how you mediated difficult situations with a broad range of co-workers and cultures, which is experience that will be valuable to your classmates and will resonate well with the adcoms. Sharpen up your post MBA vision which will demonstrate maturity (important since you are young) and you should have a good shot.

sparta1 · Answer

Thanks a lot for that Bryant!
I'm aware of the competition and am working towards further distinguishing myself from the pack. Just trying to figure out ways in which I can further stand out and impress the Adcom.

bryantmichaels · Answer

One tip I will add is to be careful in how you structure your resume and present your WE. For applicants with less WE, I find the typical technique used by candidates who are worried about their WE is to put all the WE in the expereince section of the resume. This can backfire, as it confuses the adcom (since the resume is suddenly out of chronological order) and also communicates that the appicant thinks they don't have enough experience, so they are "padding" this section with work experience that happened before college graduation. Generally, the adcoms will mostly consider work experience as that attained professionally, or after graduation. Definitely list all your pre-grad work experience, but I would list it in my Education section, under my college experience (for work achieved while in college).

sparta1 · Answer

Thanks for that specific information Bryant. It is real helpful to know exactly how to portray your WE especially when it is very limited.

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