Profile Evaluation Please.

[thssrinivas]

Here is my profile, would like to seek your advice if the Business Schools that I am targeting are doable for me. Appreciate in advance.

Nationality: Indian
Country of Residence: Permanent Resident of United States, in the US for the past 11yrs.
Age: 33
GMAT: 710 (V36 Q49 AWA 5.5)
Education:
Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering, MSEE - Class of 2001 - Top 50 University in USA
Bachelors of Engineering, BE - Bangalore, India.

Work Experience
- I am currently in the role of 'Project Manager' with the "˜Research & Development Software Division’ of "˜Broadcast Communication’ Business Unit of a Fortune 500 Company. I lead a team of 18 members, encompassing Sr. Engineers and Architects.

- As a Core Member of R&D Product Development Initiative in the department, for which a very little percentage of employees across the Division were handpicked, I am Sr.Engineer acting in the capacity of Project Manager. My core responsibility is to derive clear business requirements and bridge the gap between the business team and design team to help facilitate the development team to focus on core tasks.

- I report to the Vice-President of the Division and report on Cost/Time/Scope parameters of the Project.

- I have joined the company 7yrs ago as a Mid-Level Engineer and subsequently got promoted to Sr.Engineer then to Project Lead and currently as a Project Manager I overlooking 2 Enterprise Level Products targeted for Advanced Advertising market for the next generation Advertising using Mobile apps, Digital Signage, Advanced Data Modeling and Pattern Recognition, the products are projected to earn $20million in the first yr. of their entry in the market.
Our, client for these deployments is primary Google along with many other Major Television Network Providers and potential for other multi-million dollar deals with private Network Providers. The model is based for US and European Market currently with possibility to address Asian market segment very soon.

- In the past I have worked on projects requiring effort on streamlining the cross-product development requirements for seamless integration. Work directly with teams in UK, Hungary and USA to meet above defined targets. Estimated revenue in the order of 5million $+ over various cross-product functionality offered to clients.

- I have been awarded 'Excellence Award' twice in my current organization for Leadership Work and delivering Projects as projected in line with the quarterly revenue targeted .

- I have traveled extensively within the United States and to Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hungary, UK, UAE, Canada and India on work. And to France, Germany, Holland, Sri Lanka for pleasure.


Certifications and Publications:

- I am a Certified PMP- Certified Project Management Professional attested by the Project Management Institute.
- I am a Certified Scrum-Master (Scrum Methodology is a Process Framework practice used for Project Management).
- I am a Six-Sigma Green-Belt Certificate Holder, attested to have implemented Six-Sigma framework to deploy Project.
- I am a Certified MCSD - Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, encompassing 5 technical Certificates.

- I have co-authored a Pending Patent for 'Content-Synchronization Algorithm' - involved in design and solely
implemented the same. (Currently, deployed at Client Site)
- I am currently co-authoring a 2nd Patent which we will be applying soon for Advanced Algorithm for Plotting Engine.


Activities - Outside Profession:
- CAHEP Member (Colorado Asian Health Education & Promotion) - volunteer and help conduct free health fair for the under privileged.
- Conducted several Health program initiatives in India for the needy and poor.
- Founded a group 'Get Employed' program during under-grad, which was responsible for marketing and convincing Employers to visit Campus for college recruitment. The on-campus recruitment jumped from 10students/yr to 40students/yr as a consequence as a direct effort of more than 10companies visits to the campus for recruitment.
- Worked as a Graduate Assistant for the Vice-President of Admissions office during graduate School.
- Prior General-Secretary for Indian Student Association at graduate School.

Career Interests After MBA:
- Having clear defined career goals geared towards Technical Management and Research and Development initiatives, I want to leverage MBA to move to the next level of Management towards A Director / Vice-President Position.
- Economic and Financial level detail along with Strategy techniques and skill set required to start a project
initiative has always attracted me., I don't have formal experience in that area per say, and with an MBA I would certainly want to cover gaps and have a clear Big Picture scenario of the same.
- I come from a very strong Technical Background and process adequate General Management experience, this coupled with a MBA focusing towards Strategy with make my transition easy and I am ready to take the next career jump.
- Long term plans are also to start my own initiative for which also the MBA will help build the necessary social circle along with the necessary skill set and a balanced resume( reflecting Technical/Business acumen) that would attract the much needed Venture Capitalists. :)
- Long term plans could also be of the nature of Consulting, where the adequate experience and skill set would help leverage an easy transition.


Schools Targeting:

Primary Target:
INSEAD - 1yr MBA
Cornell - 1yr MBA

Secondary Target in the order of priority:
MIT - Sloan - Full Time MBA
Stanford - Full Time MBA
Haas - Full Time MBA
UCLA - Full Time MBA
Tepper - Full-time MBA
Univ. Of Texas Austin - Full-time MBA

[mbamission]

Hi, and thanks for your inquiry.

Your profile is quite strong - solid scores and grades, clear work evidence of increasing leadership and responsibility, demonstrating an ability to drive results, a good amount of global interaction, and clear goals. Your activities may be a bit on the weak side only because it seems like your most leadership-oriented activities were quite some time ago in college, but it may be that you have demonstrated that in the more recent activities and they just didn't come across in your quick summary. Remember you can also use personal stories, outside of organizations, to present the multi-faceted vision of you the schools are interested in.

That being said, there are two challenges you face, neither of which you can change - your age, and your membership in the extremely popular male Indian technologist demographic. For the age, I would try to make it work in your favor by showing how your additional experience at work have added depth, maturity and interest to your leadership. For the demographic, the key here is to place it in context of a vibrant interesting person. We have a blog post on this you may be interested in, called "overrepresenting your overrepresentation" which gives some guidelines on how to position yourself. In essence, don't focus on the IT part of your background, focus on the leadership, global, initiative, teamwork dimensions, which happen to take place in the context of R&D and technology.

So to your question - the European schools' classes skew older, so I think you'll be competitive there. I actually think that you'll be competitive at all the schools on your list, but to reach the top US ones will have to really present yourself well, showing multiple dimensions.

Best of luck,

Jessica Shklar
Senior Consultant
mbamission
www.mbamission.com/blog

[thssrinivas]

Hi, and thanks for your inquiry.

Your profile is quite strong - solid scores and grades, clear work evidence of increasing leadership and responsibility, demonstrating an ability to drive results, a good amount of global interaction, and clear goals. Your activities may be a bit on the weak side only because it seems like your most leadership-oriented activities were quite some time ago in college, but it may be that you have demonstrated that in the more recent activities and they just didn't come across in your quick summary. Remember you can also use personal stories, outside of organizations, to present the multi-faceted vision of you the schools are interested in.

That being said, there are two challenges you face, neither of which you can change - your age, and your membership in the extremely popular male Indian technologist demographic. For the age, I would try to make it work in your favor by showing how your additional experience at work have added depth, maturity and interest to your leadership. For the demographic, the key here is to place it in context of a vibrant interesting person. We have a blog post on this you may be interested in, called "overrepresenting your overrepresentation" which gives some guidelines on how to position yourself. In essence, don't focus on the IT part of your background, focus on the leadership, global, initiative, teamwork dimensions, which happen to take place in the context of R&D and technology.

So to your question - the European schools' classes skew older, so I think you'll be competitive there. I actually think that you'll be competitive at all the schools on your list, but to reach the top US ones will have to really present yourself well, showing multiple dimensions.

Best of luck,

Jessica Shklar
Senior Consultant
mbamission
http://www.mbamission.com/blog

Sorry for the delay in replying my side, Thanks so much for you kind advise. I would certainly pay attention to your suggestion and project myself emphasizing on multiple dimentions. Your perspective has helped me a lot.

Thanks again.