Profile Review Please Thank You!!!!!
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28 Aug 2021, 14:31
Hi there, I want to apply for R2 and would like an honest opinion on my profile.
Demo: 30M, Canadian but born in China.
Edu: Top 3 universities in Canada. Overall letter grade is B which translates to 3.0/4.0 GPA. Took 5 years to complete as I chose to major in sociology in my 3rd year, but decided in my 4th year to switch to Economics (Last 3 years GPA 3.3/4.0). So overall ended up with a major in Economics and minor in sociology.
Other Edu: CFA level 3 candidate. Have passed the exams and is now waiting for work experience. Should have my charter by matriculation (2022).
WE: ~1.5 years as an administrative/processing assistant for a jewelry repair company. Shipping and handling of average ~100 packages a day. Processed hundreds of jewelry pieces a week. Examined and documented jewelry pieces that came in with great detail and also did quality check after the repairs are complete. Also engaged in customer services over email and phone.
Concurrently I also did 2 months as a seasonal operations professional at Tiffany & Co. Helped with ensuring smooth operations of the store. Tasks included customer service, jewelry and stock maintenance, and helping out with sales when busy. Was offered full time sales position at another store, but did not pursue as I wasn't very interested in doing sales.
Decided the jewelry industry was not for me and wanted to try my hands on entrepreneurship as both my parents have their own businesses. Started my own wine export company and did that for around 2 years and 4 months. The business was to export local Canadian wine to China. Learned a lot about the process of starting and registering a corporation. Cold called and emailed a lot of wineries at the nearby wine region of my province. Went down there for a week to tour the wineries and to speak with the owners about potential business opportunities. Spent a few weeks in China to promote the business, spoke with the importer/distributor there and made sure they had the right facilities and licenses. Created my own marketing materials as well. Also contacted logistics companies to ship the wine. Did over 100K in revenue. Was a great learning experience, but ultimately competition was fierce and I felt like I didn't have the proper business/management skills to progress.
Decided to switch to finance and wanted to enter an equity research role as I felt like that would give me more breadth about different industries and companies. I wanted to learn about how different companies operated and what were some of the things that can affect their business. So while I was still working on my company I registered for the CFA exams. Got an intern ship role at a finch company (provides financial models and company data/metrics to other firms/funds). The Company is still small but has many big clients. Currently work here and have been here for 2 years and 8 months. Got 2 promotions, went from intern to associate and am now an equity research analyst. Built 15+ complete financial models. Update ~70-80 models every earnings season. Improved 25+ existing models to industry standard. Conducted historical financial statement analysis and future period forecasting. Have completed numerous client requests. Also mentored interns and associates by checking their work and answering questions to help them gain more experience and technical knowledge. Also help out our team leader with various tasks and I often take over some of his responsibilities while he is away on vacation.
EC: During undergrad was an executive at a student club. Planned and executed numerous events, both professional and social.
Volunteered at multiple political campaigns (door knocking, lit dropping, cold calling, and helped with organizing and coordinating various events.
Part of the social committee at my current company. Helped plan various events such as the holiday party, games night, movie nights, etc. Main event that I am responsible for are the virtual coffee chats. They are recurring chats where we match up participates for 1 on 1 and group chats. Great way to meet and connect with people in the company especially since we hired a lot of employees during WFH.
Also part of my current company's recruitment process. Have interviewed a few candidates for intern and associate positions.
Will be participating in leadership training at my current company starting in mid September to next Feb.
Post-MBA: Since both of my parents have their own business and since I also tried owing my own for a while, I want to use the financial analysis and modelling skills that I've acquired plus the business knowledge from the MBA to help make an impact at companies. Whether that be working at a startup or at an established company or management consulting. I want to do more strategy/growth. If staying on the finance path, my hope is to get into PE/VC but I realize these are very hard to get into without prior experience.
Target schools: T15, but hopefully T10. H/S/W would be a dream come true.
I realize I did not post a GMAT score. The reason is I am still in the studying process and will be taking the exam in October with hopes of applying to schools during R2. I know that's a big chunk of the application process and it would be difficult to do a good evaluation of my profile without having a score first. But what I'm hoping to get out of this is an opinion on whether the other components of my profile would be good enough to get me into a T10-15 IF i can get a GMAT score that is at or above the school averages? Also would appreciate any recommendations on schools given the general gist of my post-mba goals (I probably need to narrow it down a bit more).
Thank you! Any comment would be greatly appreciated.