Profile Evaluation: Please Help

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Profile Evaluation: Please Help

by TheEntrepreneur » Tue Aug 05, 2014 4:34 am
Could you please evaluate my profile, advise me on target schools & help me point out my strengths & weaknesses?

India/Male/29 years
GMAT : 710 (Q49, V39, IR7, AWA: Awaited).

Education :
1. MBA from IIT Madras (one of the top tech schools in the world) with GPA - 8.01/10
2. Engineering from Nagpur University (from one of the top 100 schools in India) with GPA - 7/10

Professional Experience:(5 years as of today. 6 years at the time of beginning school in 2015).
1. Currently working for one of the largest media companies in the world as Sr. Product Manager in the consumer internet space. Responsible for a business - both product side as well as business. A team of 10 reports directly into me. Have been working here for the past 7 months.
2. Was Founder and CEO of a startup that raised two rounds of funding from HNIs. Led a team of 40 employees at one point of time. Made some bad mistakes and had to eventually shut the whole thing down. This business was a very popular portal in the consumer internet space in India. Worked here for 3 years.
3. Was a Product Manager with one of the big mobile operators in India. Led the business of mobile VAS products. Was responsible for new product development and revenue from across India. Worked here for 1 year 1 month.
4. Worked as Business Manager for a start up for only 4 months. Was waiting to find the right job after my first MBA and therefore the short stint.


Extra-curricular:
1. Led a startup/club of engineering students during college. We printed monthly student newsletters (10000 circulation). Funded the operations using advertiser money. Led a group of more than 30 students. We did a lot of other activities which I can talk about.
2. I own a Product Managers meetup in my city. 20 PMs from 18 companies are a part of this community.
3. I am a life coach and NLP Master Practitioner. I have coached about 20 people in the last 1 year. I am also working on a business plan to take it to the next level with a partner who is an internationally certified coach.
4. Involved with one of the leading Startup incubators as a mentor in New Delhi.

Career goals:
Short Term: I want to work for a cutting edge tech company as a product manager preferably in the consumer internet or mobile domain. I am dying to get some international exposure and changing geography is also very important.
Long Term: I want to be a leading tech entrepreneur.

Target schools: Stanford, Haas, Anderson,Sloan, INSEAD Singapore, UNSW Australia, Schulich & Rotman

I will need financial aid. My priority is to work in the Silicon Valley and therefore California is where I want to be. Thats my dream. I have shortlisted the last four options because of easier visa laws and higher chance of getting a scholarship. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Thank you for your help.

GMAT/MBA Expert

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by CriticalSquareMBA » Fri Aug 08, 2014 1:13 pm
Hey there,

Thanks for the post! Also, love all the info you provided - it's fantastic. So, without further ado, let's get into this!

Academics

Great school, decent GPA (thinking this is 1st class, but not distinction?), and a GMAT score that starts with a "7". You have the foundation for a good run here. It would be great if your GMAT was a bit higher - right now it's a little under the average for Indian males BUT you're not in IT so you have other things going for you.

Experiences

You've been busy. That's putting it mildy. You have a lot of diverse experiences here. From growing a start up to hands on product management experience, you have experience across the value chain and various functions. Funding, marketing, finance, growth strategy.

To be honest, in a weird way, I like that your business failed. That is a gold mine when it comes to lessons learned, humility, and development opportunities. You say "bad mistakes" and hopefully they're operational mistakes and not ethical or fraudulent ones. But, that assumed, it's a great story.

This is definitely the strongest part of your profile!

Involvement

I like the diversity of your activities. You do a little mentoring, some community building, and some stuff focused on entrepreneurship. The life coaching thing is interesting but you'd have to introduce that into your applications with a bit of thought. The best part about this is you've tied your involvement to things you care about. No resume-filler NGO activities here!

Goals

Short term goals make sense. Long term = nope. You have an entrepreneurial background so that's great but whenever longer term goals go the start up route, you need to have a concrete idea in place or at least a functional / industry focus. Tech entrepreneur is far too broad. And, if that's the case, then your short and long term goals need to jive together. You have product management experience so you'll have to convey what you would get out of the PM experience in the States or with international experience.

Schools

Stanford is one helluva stretch but you should definitely try. Haas is a more realistic stretch. I can see why you added Sloan to the list (tech and entrepreneurship focus) but that'll be a stretch too. But it's engineer friendly so that's great. The rest - kind of random. Ross would be a good school to consider. As would McCombs (ent & tech & Austin). UCLA is a good school so keep that on the list but the rest aren't going to necessarily get you where you want. Schulich and Rotman might but Singapore INSEAD won't get you to the Bay Area. Neither will the Canadian ones, really. Australia definitely won't. If your goal is Bay, then you need to go US.

I hope that helps and if you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out. If you want to talk in more detail, sign up to chat with us!

Bhavik
Critical Square | MBA Admissions Services

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