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Hi all,

I am planning to apply for ISB ( class of 16-17 ) and I need your help in evaluating my profile. Here are the details:

1. Educational qualifications:
X: 90% ( Andhra Pradesh board )
XII: 96% ( Andhra Pradesh board )
B.E: 90% ( Sathyabama, Chennai )
M.S: 3.5/4 ( ISEP, Paris, France )

2. Professional experience:
1 Year as Paid intern at Orange-France Telecom
5 years as Business analyst at Amadeus, Worlds leading Airline IT provider and GDS

3. Awards received:
Received Gold medal and Dr. Radhakrishnan award for academic excellence during my Bachelor's
Received French Ministry scholarship of 10K euros to complete Masters
Best outgoing student during B.E
Best student project - 2008 during my final year of under graduation
Presented and won awards at multiple events held in Bits Pilani-Goa, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras
Awarded twice Star award at work
Winner of Startup weekend, 2012 held in Nice, France
President- Students committee at Maison de l'Inde, Paris - Represented Indian student community at Pravas Bharatiya Diwas held in Paris, 2011

Please evaluate my profile and let me know if it fits the bill of ISB

Best Regards

Dear Aimisb,

More of questions than answers here since the details you've mentioned are sketchy

1. You have not mentioned the engineering stream and your Master's focus. It is also not clear as to the nature of your work at Orange or Amadeus. As a Business Analyst, do you work primarily on the technology front or more on client development side? Will be critical to understand the uniqueness of your profile. You have to also look at career progression and put that into perspective
2. Your geography (current and past) is not clear either. Did you intern in France? Are you currently in India? All important determinants.
3. Some of your ECs seem to be from undegrad/grad timeframe such as the Startup weekend et al. The 5 year experience doesn't quite add up for me. Will be great to have some years such as graduation year
4. One big and obvious miss is the GMAT. Without that, it is pretty premature to make a judgment. At a very high level, sure you can probably make the cut. But the devil really lies in the details.

Feel free to provide the clarifications

Cheers,

Hi,

First of all thanks for your reply. Apologies for not providing all the information. Here is all the info concerning my career so far:

Master of science - Telecommunication 2008-2010, I.S.E.P, Paris
Specialization: Value added service design, Project management

Bachelor of Engineering, Sathyabama University, Chennai (Madras), India, August 2004 - May 2008
Specialization: Electronics, Telecommunication systems

Academic awards and scholarships received:
Orange - Ministre des affaires européennes et étrangères, Orange -France Telecom September 2008 - March 2010
Dr. Radhakrishnan award for academic excellence, Sathyabama University August 2004 - May 2008
Gold medal for academic excellence, Sathyabama University May 2008
Received awards for academic excellence through out my under graduation

ACHIEVEMENTS
Nominated twice for STAR awards in Amadeus, London, 2014
Winner at Start up weekend, Nice - Sophia Antipolis, 2012
Winner at Inter University Student project design competition, Sathyabama University, Chennai- 2008
Winner at Inter University Student project design and business plan competition
IIT Kanpur, BITS - Pilani Goa 2007

ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS
Président, Résident committee Maison de l'Inde and Représentative at CIUP, Paris,
( 2009-2010 )

LANGUAGES
English, French [Read/write/speak - Professional working proficiency], Hindi, Telugu, Tamil (Elementary proficiency)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Amadeus, London - Oct 2013 ( Current position )
Amadeus, Sophia Antipolis - May 2010 - Oct 2013

In a nutshell here is what I do at my job:

-Analyze and validate business requirements from customers/Product management
-Establish functional specification from a written state of requirements
-Work closely with development counterparts in defining product release plan and lead product plan review meetings
-Interface with support, sales, marketing, implementation and strategy teams
-Perform functional acceptance and validate launch of UAT phase with clients
-Provide consultancy mission to key customers
-Support customer in case of incidents on production
-Automate functional testing by scripts and build regression framework

As a business analyst at Amadeus, I have worked with most of our key clients ( i.e.., client facing - mostly airlines such as Korean air, Singapore, Japan airways, TAM, SV,AF-KLM etc..,) in almost all the phases of Software development cycle and also was part of key airline programs

Apart from these, I have mentored two interns and am currently working as innovation co-ordinator for my department.

At France Telecom - Orange ( 2009-10), I was an intern development engineer responsible for development of Quality of service website and an automatic bot to spread content.

Other info:
Amateur footballer- Played for an entire season ( 2012-13 ) in Inter company football competition
and I still keep playing on and off.
Won quite a few awards during my school time for elocution, philately etc..,
Avid book reader

Thanks again for your time.

P.S: I haven't yet written my GMAT. Will be taking it on 29JUN.

Aimisb,

With your response, I have a much better sense on the profile. The great thing is BA roles are usually offered post-MBA in many organizations. So provided you can ace the GMAT and have right goals, many schools should be within grasp for you.

Cheers,

Hi All,

I plan on applying to the ISB programme 2016-2017. Here is a brief sketch of my profile-

1) Class X CBSE 2005 90%
2) Class XII CBSE 2007 88% (Commerce)
3) BA(H) Business Economics , University of Delhi (70.2%) First Div.
4) Master in International Business, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi (60.8%) First Div.

Certification Course-

1) 3 years Advance Diploma Chinese language, University of Delhi
2) 6-months Intensive Chinese Language Training , Tsinghua University, Beijing

Professional Work Experience-

1) Assistant Manager Grade 2 ICICI Bank- Relationship Manager May 2012-August 2102
- Generating business lead from DSA tracks for Personal Loans products of the bank
- Given responsibility to handle the biggest DSA in Western Mumbai region, Andromeda Pvt. Ltd., and was the highest leads convertor in the entire region for the months of June and July

Left the job and went to China to get a better grasp at Chinese language, and to follow a career in International Trade and Business Marketing

2) Business Development Manager- Retax Electricals Pv. Ltd.
- Joined the family-owned business ( my father is the founder and co-director of the manufacturing firm) in the position of Business Development Manager to bring in more clients for the company
- Started touring the states of MP (Indore) and Assam (Guwahati) and Rajasthan (Bikaner, Jaipur) to rope in more dealers for the factory's in house brand
- Couldn't achieve any significant increase in the sales target, felt frustrated due to the informal nature of the industry which is difficult to penetrate without giving risky credit to the dealers, got restless because of my inability to convince my father and his partner to change the ways of doing marketing and improving production processes

Got approached by a Chinese friend who had a small factory in the city of Jieyang, Guangdong, China to make drawer slides. He asked me to help him establish a market for his products in the Indian market. This product was made in China only, and all of it was imported, with no domestic production.

3) India Sales Representative- Fortune Plus Hardware Corp.

- Understood the price points at which the product was sold in the Indian market
- Evaluated the Indian government policy regarding the imports of this product, the duty structure, the entire shipping process, custom clearance from the ports, role of the CHAs in unlawful declaration of the value of the products which gave unfair advantage to a few importers with "useful contacts".
- Formed a liaison office for the company with the intention of marketing the products of the company in the country
- Met local dealers and wholesalers to understand the different types of specifications and varieties of the product which are imported in India and the price points at which they are sold to the further agents down the retail channel
- Marketed the products of our factory with the biggest importers in India, met more than 80 importers and successfully negotiated a deal with 23 of them in a period of 16 months, with all the payment in advance and almost no risk of default in payment for the factory
- By the end of our 15th month, achieved a monthly turnover of USD 410,000 after taxation and duty in India. Accounted for 6-7% of the total drawer slides sale from China to India
- Became the 3rd largest factory in Jieyang, out of a total of 40 odd, by volume, supplying products to India
- Gave valuable input regarding product development to the factory, becoming the first factory in Jieyang to supply 48-hours SST certified drawer slides to the Indian market. Pushed the clients to try and purchase the product which has an increased cost of about 11-12%, in a highly competitive market with profit margins ranging from 10-12%
- Planned for participation in Global Exhibition events, negotiated the pricing terms with the organizers, communicated with all current and potential buyers regarding our participation, worked with their designing team for the entire theme of the booth. Participated in CBD-Guangzhou, CIFM Guangzhou and Interzum Cologne to showcase our company product
- Achieved everything above in a period of 17 months, with I managing the Indian operation and 6 backend staff in Guangzhou and Jieyang.
- Regularly communicated with the Chinese staff, on a daily basis, who spoke no English.
- Organized trips for our clients to visit the factory in the city of Jieyang, and regularly visited the factory to advise the technician on how to modify the assembling process to cater to the taste of Indian clients.

With the sales decent and a good loyal customer base, I put in my money in the factory, became a director of the holding company in HK with a 30% share in the factory with a total investment of about 120,000 USD , of which around 50,000 USD were borrowed from my father.

ECA and Awards-

1) University of Delhi Post Graduate Scholarship year 2011-2013 , reimbursing the tuition fees for my Master's Degree
2) University of Delhi cricket team squad member, played in various university cricket leagues
3) 2-3 NGO volunteering internships in Sikkim and Delhi

Reason for applying to ISB

1) Difficult to scale up- Informal sector, dearth of funding, focus on cost-cutting with no break through innovation possible at such a small scale
2) Modi Make-in-India campaign- Insane duties being put up on imports, domestic firms taking up manufacturing
3) Want to work in consulting and/or General Management/International Sales in an established and formal organization where I can use the skill sets I acquired over the past few years

Scoring 680 odd in the GMAT preps, hopefully can scale it up tp 720 in the coming few months.

Its not a usual type of profile which the admins might have gone through previously. Any suggestion/point of information from you will be welcomed as to how to proceed forward with my application. I just have three months to go to apply within the first deadline. I will be 26 by the time I join ISB next year( If i get through)

Regards,

Udit Gupta

Hi All,

I plan on applying to the ISB programme 2016-2017. Here is a brief sketch of my profile-

1) Class X CBSE 2005 90%
2) Class XII CBSE 2007 88% (Commerce)
3) BA(H) Business Economics , University of Delhi (70.2%) First Div.
4) Master in International Business, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi (60.8%) First Div.

Certification Course-

1) 3 years Advance Diploma Chinese language, University of Delhi
2) 6-months Intensive Chinese Language Training , Tsinghua University, Beijing

Professional Work Experience-

1) Assistant Manager Grade 2 ICICI Bank- Relationship Manager May 2012-August 2102
- Generating business lead from DSA tracks for Personal Loans products of the bank
- Given responsibility to handle the biggest DSA in Western Mumbai region, Andromeda Pvt. Ltd., and was the highest leads convertor in the entire region for the months of June and July

Left the job and went to China to get a better grasp at Chinese language, and to follow a career in International Trade and Business Marketing

2) Business Development Manager- Retax Electricals Pv. Ltd.
- Joined the family-owned business ( my father is the founder and co-director of the manufacturing firm) in the position of Business Development Manager to bring in more clients for the company
- Started touring the states of MP (Indore) and Assam (Guwahati) and Rajasthan (Bikaner, Jaipur) to rope in more dealers for the factory's in house brand
- Couldn't achieve any significant increase in the sales target, felt frustrated due to the informal nature of the industry which is difficult to penetrate without giving risky credit to the dealers, got restless because of my inability to convince my father and his partner to change the ways of doing marketing and improving production processes

Got approached by a Chinese friend who had a small factory in the city of Jieyang, Guangdong, China to make drawer slides. He asked me to help him establish a market for his products in the Indian market. This product was made in China only, and all of it was imported, with no domestic production.

3) India Sales Representative- Fortune Plus Hardware Corp.

- Understood the price points at which the product was sold in the Indian market
- Evaluated the Indian government policy regarding the imports of this product, the duty structure, the entire shipping process, custom clearance from the ports, role of the CHAs in unlawful declaration of the value of the products which gave unfair advantage to a few importers with "useful contacts".
- Formed a liaison office for the company with the intention of marketing the products of the company in the country
- Met local dealers and wholesalers to understand the different types of specifications and varieties of the product which are imported in India and the price points at which they are sold to the further agents down the retail channel
- Marketed the products of our factory with the biggest importers in India, met more than 80 importers and successfully negotiated a deal with 23 of them in a period of 16 months, with all the payment in advance and almost no risk of default in payment for the factory
- By the end of our 15th month, achieved a monthly turnover of USD 410,000 after taxation and duty in India. Accounted for 6-7% of the total drawer slides sale from China to India
- Became the 3rd largest factory in Jieyang, out of a total of 40 odd, by volume, supplying products to India
- Gave valuable input regarding product development to the factory, becoming the first factory in Jieyang to supply 48-hours SST certified drawer slides to the Indian market. Pushed the clients to try and purchase the product which has an increased cost of about 11-12%, in a highly competitive market with profit margins ranging from 10-12%
- Planned for participation in Global Exhibition events, negotiated the pricing terms with the organizers, communicated with all current and potential buyers regarding our participation, worked with their designing team for the entire theme of the booth. Participated in CBD-Guangzhou, CIFM Guangzhou and Interzum Cologne to showcase our company product
- Achieved everything above in a period of 17 months, with I managing the Indian operation and 6 backend staff in Guangzhou and Jieyang.
- Regularly communicated with the Chinese staff, on a daily basis, who spoke no English.
- Organized trips for our clients to visit the factory in the city of Jieyang, and regularly visited the factory to advise the technician on how to modify the assembling process to cater to the taste of Indian clients.

With the sales decent and a good loyal customer base, I put in my money in the factory, became a director of the holding company in HK with a 30% share in the factory with a total investment of about 120,000 USD , of which around 50,000 USD were borrowed from my father.

ECA and Awards-

1) University of Delhi Post Graduate Scholarship year 2011-2013 , reimbursing the tuition fees for my Master's Degree
2) University of Delhi cricket team squad member, played in various university cricket leagues
3) 2-3 NGO volunteering internships in Sikkim and Delhi

Reason for applying to ISB

1) Difficult to scale up- Informal sector, dearth of funding, focus on cost-cutting with no break through innovation possible at such a small scale
2) Modi Make-in-India campaign- Insane duties being put up on imports, domestic firms taking up manufacturing
3) Want to work in consulting and/or General Management/International Sales in an established and formal organization where I can use the skill sets I acquired over the past few years

Scoring 680 odd in the GMAT preps, hopefully can scale it up tp 720 in the coming few months.

Its not a usual type of profile which the admins might have gone through previously. Any suggestion/point of information from you will be welcomed as to how to proceed forward with my application. I just have three months to go to apply within the first deadline. I will be 26 by the time I join ISB next year( If i get through)

Regards,

Udit Gupta

yudi90 wrote:Hi All,

I plan on applying to the ISB programme 2016-2017. Here is a brief sketch of my profile-

1) Class X CBSE 2005 90%

<<snip>>

months to go to apply within the first deadline. I will be 26 by the time I join ISB next year( If i get through)

Regards,

Udit Gupta

A few thoughts and questions for you Udit:

1. The eclectic mix of experiences you have will definitely grab attention. It has to be well explained though. Your decision to leave ICICI for instance seems a bit fickle; and did you essentially learn the language for six months in China or something else too? This after that look pretty interesting. Entrepreneurial experience(s) can be very maturing and that is how you need to present them.
2. The post MBA goal plan seems a bit contrived and shallow. Exactly because of your unique profile, the onus is on you to connect the dots and explain this aspect well. So think deeper.
3. With the kind of GMAT target and well articulated goals/essays, you should definitely have a pretty good shot at it so go for it.

Cheers,

HI mcbMcK

1) I left ICICI because-

- I knew I always would be a drop in the ocean..a small fish in the big ocean..Although I was told by my boss in my very second month that I got the best business in the department and that I had been assigned a pretty important sales lead generator, it will be pretty tough for me to get noticed. ICICI banking sales channel was supposed to be like this only- you get noticed only after a few years of slogging. I didnt want to be a part of something like that.

- It was not challenging enough. The entire structure was in place already. It is a huge brand, I got entry pretty easily amongst the channel partners and the way we were getting business done were by flexing our monetary muscles. Whats new in it or what's challenging in it? You just snatch the business away from the competitor(in my case it was Citi) by offering favourable terms and conditions-no innovation in it.

- I will not be creating anything by selling PL for the bank. No new company, no new products, no new contacts, no new employment for people. Even if the targets were met, they were just a small dot of ink on their book thick balance sheet.

Within a month I knew ICICI wasn't the place for me.

In China I just learnt the language. I did some freelancing work and supplier verification work for the TI Muruguppa group and Atlas cycles who wanted to purchase bicycle breaks spare parts- I did their OEMs production verification and helped them find other small product supplies factories in the Hebei region surrounding Beijing, I also worked as a waiter for an Indian restaurant for three months- the Indian food was pretty expensive and I couldnt afford a meal in the restaurant everyday; thought working their for a couple of hours will help me know more about the backend of managing a foreign eatery in China along with some free food in the evening, and some pocket money as well.

2) Post MBA goals- frankly speaking, I havent figured out which industry I want to work in yet. I just want to be surrounded with really intelligent people right now, who are, at least on paper, much smarter than I am- people from IITs and NITs and SRCCs of the country, who have achieved a bit in their early careers. I want to learn from them, how they do things differently from me, how they approach towards problem solving and making a team decision in a pressure situation. I missed out on all these things in a formally organised company- I need to know and learn from them every detail of taking a big company forward. I always believe you need to be surrounded with good people. In my job, I was surrounded by clever and cunning and sly people, but none I found were innovative enough or had a vision to keep on improving relentlessly. These guys in ISB, along with the academics, will help me re-invigorate me and make me exposed to newer ways of doing things.

After that I would like work for BD or Sales in a product-focussed company. Maybe service focussed as well, depending upon the options available. But yeah, I want to shift from the un-organized to the organized channel, learn from some really smart and intelligent people around me, brush up my acads so that I can learn about the workings of the various departments of a well-structured organization, and then see where life takes me forward from then on.

Regards,

yudi90 wrote:HI mcbMcK

1) I left ICICI because-

- I knew I always would be a drop in the ocean..a small fish in the big ocean..Although I was told by my boss

<<snip>>

channel, learn from some really smart and intelligent people around me, brush up my acads so that I can learn about the workings of the various departments of a well-structured organization, and then see where life takes me forward from then on.

Regards,

Thanks for the heartfelt post Udit.

Make sure you reflect your freelancing and other experiences in China well instead of letting that show as a gap! Read here for some perspective on career breaks. In addition, avoid being critical of an organization - maybe you were not able to derive the value from it when many others do - so think of both sides of the puzzle.

While I understand at a high level where you are coming from, but you will need to gain better clarity on at least a 'preferred' post-MBA route you want to take up. Going in with a very broad mindset can be taken as a sign of being unclear of what an MBA can do for your career. In addition, the post-MBA goal is also a way to show that you understand the skills you have and how and where they can fit into a future role. So research on all the areas you have mentioned and then zero in on the one that appeals most to you.

All the best

Cheers,

Dear mcbMcK

Thanks again for your reply. I just want to ask one more thing-

) Do you have much knowledge about the Chinese B-schools? Their is CEIBS, HKUST and Beijing University BiMBA. CEIBS is pretty unknown in mainland China, however its alumni are working in some reputed firms in Shanghai area. HKUST is outside the mainland, and I want to focus right now on the mainland only. BiMBA is the program of the prestigious Beijing University of China, and everyone knows about it in the country, even the villagers in the countryside. So it has a huge reputation in the mainland. But I haven't come across any Indian who passed out of it.

2) What kind of jobs could I search for if I want to stay there for a longer duration? So many Chinese students who went overseas for higher education are coming back to China, they speak perfect English and Chinese, and are aware of the local customs and procedures. Why would they want to hire an Indian MBA in China? By "they" I mean anyone- a Chinese company, an Indian company operating in China, or an MNC operating in China

Regards,

Hi Udit,

You have a pretty interesting profile - provided you can also do well on the GMAT - you should be a good candidate for ISB.

I agree with Manish - you need good stories connecting the dots. You also need to be able to articulate your career goals well - true you are fairly open minded at this point, and the Business schools probably expect that deep down. But people still like to see the semblance of a plan - the more well researched it seems, the more clear headed you will come across as - and that will make you an attractive candidate.

Regards,
Karthik

Just saw the second half of your question - CEIBS and HKUST are definitely better global brands. BiMBA might work well if you are looking at a career in China - but why would you want to restrict yourself when you can just as well have a global brand?

I am not very familiar with the job market in China - but I can speculate: If you are looking at sitting outside China and doing business with a Chinese company, having a Chinese brand on your resume (along with the fact that you've actually spent two years living in the country and learning its culture) will help.

Regards,
karthik

yudi90 wrote:Dear mcbMcK

Thanks again for your reply. I just want to ask one more thing-

<<snip>>

in China

Regards,

I suppose you've partly answered the question yourself. China is not very conducive to international applicants yet; the only ones worth considering are CUHK and HKUST. Even so, I usually do not recommend them unless you have a strong network in China and can make things happen for yourself.

Cheers,