[For advice] IMD or HEC Paris or IESE

Question

Congratulations for the admission and scholarships.

However, none of these school would enable you to step into top consulting companies in Europe.
As a matter of fact, consulting companies tend to prefer people with local experience and local language skills. Sometimes they can skip the language skills, especially if you have a background in IT.

Industry leadership programs - it is hopeful if you have brilliant commercial experiences. The majority of them require EU passports. Some programs have Asia hires and would ask you to apply for the position in your home country.

Amazon Pathways could be the biggest possibility for you to stay in Europe. Otherwise top consulting companies in Asia would be your best bet for the consulting career.

nojudging · Answer

Amazon Europe hires from all three schools, no big difference, perhaps HEC/IESE have a bit more alumni in Amazon due to class size advantages.
Consulting: IMD is weaker than the other two.
Industry LDP: If you have a chemical engineering degree and commercial functional experience, perhaps some pharma companies would consider you.
Careers in Asia: Sorry I have no idea.

Pumaman5 · Answer

In my view those three school's have very different value prepositions, so based on the information you provided.

Consulting: IESE
Tech: IESE
LDP opportunity: Probably all three

I'm attending IESE right now and yes, I might be a bit biased, but especially for consulting IESE is very strong (consulting is my prio 1 and I even didnt consider HEC and IMD). Hit me up if you have more questions.

Cheers

aeon86 · Answer

Any of the schools can help you get in to the top consulting companies, it will just not necessarily be in Europe, which is due to the consulting companies rather than the schools.

my major recommendation would be to visit the campusses. 
I realise that this is pretty hard to do given the current covid situation.
The goal is to get a general feel of where you feel you would fit best. 
Each of these schools is a very good school but each one has a different student profile.

Maybe the biggest differentiator will be the following
IMD: 1year
HEC: 16 months
IESE 19 months

how big of a career change are you looking to make, how much of a personal journey do you need to make?
in my case i wanted to change industry, role and geography, while undergoing a personal journey, so i knew from the start that i wanted to do a 2 year program.

Do you look to get a bit of a break from the industry before going back in?
can you afford a 2 year time-out? or only a 1 year?

if you can't visit the campus and get a feel, contact the different MBA offices and have them set you up on zoom calls with current students and ask them about how they feel and what they like about the school/campus.

in the end, all things equal, what matters is FIT, you'll be working with people for 1-2 years, and if you don't fit in you won't feel integrated.

for me that feeling i had when i walked on campus at IESE and interacted with the students, was "this is the school i want to study at"

but ofcourse that varies from person to person based on your character.

tomasoh · Answer

Hi there,

bb  pinged me to see if I could help you out. I looked at master's programs myself, but I could give you my two cents regarding these universities (mostly HEC and IESE, in my view IMD is more known for executive programs, but that could just be my bias). Overall, it seems that all schools place well into consulting. There are more differences when it comes to tech though.

Consulting:
When it comes to reputation, I would say HEC > IESE > IMD (fairly close between the last two, though).

Tech:
IESE > IMD > HEC. Barcelona is the startup-hub in Southern Europe, and Switzerland isn't bad either. I'm sure HEC places well into tech too, but I have always seen it more as a consulting and/or finance school.

Location:
Very important when it comes to consulting, local language skills etc. You said you have none. Even if you would give it your 100% this year, I would doubt you would get by with a B1/B2 level in Barcelona or Paris. Definitely a bias towards (fluency in) Spanish/French there. I don't know about Switzerland, but I would assume you need to at least speak German or French.

Not knowing a local language would limit you to either the UK or the Netherlands for consulting/LDP. Here it becomes a factor of prestige more so than hard numbers. HEC definitely comes out on top in that case. Also, I think they place quite well into Asia.

Hope this helps!

kingcobra01 · Answer

to me HEC Paris is the way to go 16 mo is the perfect time. IESE isnt as well regarded. HEC has a good tech platform. To me its between IMD and HEC. GL. I assume you already put in your deposit to all three?

nojudging · Answer

Buy a Linkedin Premium.
Connect with Asian students from a similar background as you have (industry, education, language skills, years of experience). 
For jobs, don't listen to European students as they'd always get a job in Europe, not comparable at all.

Pumaman5 · Answer

Probably a bit late, but wanted to comment on that one:

tomasoh

Hi there,
Consulting:
When it comes to reputation, I would say HEC > IESE > IMD (fairly close between the last two, though).
Hope this helps!

I'm really wondering how you derived at this? There are no facts supporting it, IESE's MBA program places more folks in consulting (in % and absolute), has the bigger consulting Alumni network and has a strong consulting club. In my opinion, the only points in favor of HEC is the very strong MIM program and tapping into the Alumni network from that as well as the recent jump into FT's top 10. Either way, IMD is far behind in both in terms of consulting recruiting. Also IMD is a total different program, small class size and ppl are usually more experience (somewhere between MBA and EMBA).

However, if you consider moving back to Asia, might be a totally different story

bb · Answer

Same here. I feel IMD is a different program altogether. 10 years ago it was unique and special. These days I barely see people applying to IMD

cmldps · Answer

cnzlim , just wondering which school did you end up choosing? I’m in the research phase and would like to know.

Thanks!

Posted from my mobile device

cmldps · Answer

cnzlim , mind explaining why you decided not to go to any of them and go to Darden instead? 
I’m mainly interested in EU schools and a bit confused about which ones to apply to. My main confusion is between HEC and IESE. Any ideas and experiences are more than welcome.

Thanks.

Posted from my mobile device

cmldps · Answer

It definitely does. Thanks a ton  cnzlim .

Posted from my mobile device

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