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Why INSEAD MBA is good for a Management Consulting Career

Insead
MBA Consulting

Insead MBAAtul Jose, Editor of F1GMAT, Interviewed Minh Huy Lai, Managing Director of the INSEAD MBA Programme to get a first-hand view of the curriculum, post-MBA opportunities, Campus structure, INSEAD's dominance in Management Consulting and the Admission process for the full-time MBA.

How does INSEAD complete the core and electives in such a short period (10 months) compared to US Business Schools that are typically 2-years in duration?
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA): When you look at the average age at INSEAD, it is 29. Our class is quite older. Students with considerable experience absorb faster. Another thing is that our Founder was an educator at Harvard Business School. He realized that we could deliver the same quality at a much shorter time. Our classes are longer in duration with a typical break at INSEAD ranging 3-4 days instead of 1-2 weeks that you see in US Schools. Our program is much more intense. That is how we cover so much in a short period. We have done that for 58 years. Recruiters will never come to us if we are not delivering on the quality of students at INSEAD. That is why INSEAD has the highest return on investment (according to Forbes).
 
How can students customize their INSEAD MBA Curriculum? When can they choose an elective?
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA):The INSEAD MBA program is divided into five periods of two months each. The first two are made up of core courses which all the students have to take. They can opt out of some core courses through exams. From period 3, INSEAD MBA students can choose from a portfolio of 75 electives in 10 academic areas based on their post-MBA goals.

How are the 900+ students allocated to the three campuses? Are there any criteria or the applicant chooses the home campus?
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA): It is a personal decision. Let us say you are from Asia, and you would like to start with France to explore Europe. The decision mostly depends on the candidate’s post-MBA career path. Those who want to be in North America or Europe, tend to favor France during the last two periods (4 and 5) for recruitment purposes. 77% change campuses. Only a small minority stay on one campus.

Post-MBA, 46% of the class, joined the Management Consulting function. Apart from the Curriculum, why is INSEAD so strong in the function? What is the secret?
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA): We are a top provider of talent to McKinsey. Our MBA is one of the shortest (10 months), and extremely intense. A Management consultant's job is stressful with travel requirements, demanding deadlines and ambitious goals. They have to make the clients happy. INSEAD prepares them well. An INSEAD student has to work with an international class with diverse backgrounds and produces results in a very short time. They have to work productively at a very fast pace to survive. Consulting firms know that if you survive INSEAD, you would have the caliber, resilience, agility, and toughness to survive a Management Consulting career. Because ours is an International class, firms know that students have the capacity to work with a multi-cultural team and adapt to any environment.
 
Are there any preference for campuses when it comes to recruitment for Management Consulting openings?
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA): No. Typically consulting companies come up with the recruitment needs and they find candidates who could fit the role. There are no campus preferences. It is about matching the job profile with candidates who have the right skill and background for a particular office or country.

Can students switch campuses? For instance, someone in France, will they be able to move to Singapore for post-MBA opportunities?
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA): During the first fourth months (Period 1 and 2), students are required to be at the home campus that they first chose. Let us say someone started in France. During Period 3, they can bid for an exchange to Abu Dhabi or Singapore. Our Career Development Services team is Global. They share openings on our internal job platform. Students can apply from anywhere regardless of their study campus. Obviously, there is on-campus recruitment, so some employers are willing to go to more than one campus, but some are keen on only one. For example, the Asian Development Bank, which is based in Manilla, decided to come only to the France campus. Having said that, students in Singapore can still apply for the interview process.
 
Many applicants want to move to Europe. Right now, the mood against immigration is negative. In France, although a liberal party won the election, has the rhetoric of anti-immigration campaigns impacted the policies in Europe.
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA): Some countries in Europe are tightening their immigration policies. For International students, this can be tricky. Students accepted to INSEAD are of high caliber. They already have an international background, but a few have faced difficulty in securing residency in Europe post-MBA. In France, the policy is that if you come to study, you can change to work visa with a year's validity, immediately after graduation. With the new open-minded government, the policy is unlikely to change. In Europe, with Brexit, in the short-term, companies recruiting for London or UK haven't changed much of their strategy. They still recruit at INSEAD, but we anticipate that finding placements in the UK would be more difficult in the long run. For the rest of Europe, our students tend to get placed in Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and Netherlands. For recruitment at INSEAD, the four countries have not changed their policies in a big way, but we have seen a much bigger change in the US.

With a three-campus structure will the students get the chance to network effectively?
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA): Each campus brings in a different flavor. INSEAD Fontainebleau campus is in the countryside on the outskirts of Paris. Singapore campus is in a dynamic urban environment. But both campuses have similar student clubs and infrastructure support. Abu Dhabi campus has only one residential period with a smaller class (45 students). Therefore, the community connection is much stronger. The biggest fear for INSEAD students is not the lack of networking but Fear of Missing Out as they have too much to choose from.

A majority of our readers are from the US. For an American student at INSEAD, what are the post-MBA mobility trends?
 
Minh (INSEAD MBA): We have seen that a third of the students return to the US. Rest of them move to Europe and Asia.
 
Read the Second Part of the Interview with INSEAD MBA, Managing Director where we cover the Admission process, entry criteria and scholarship opportunities for MBA Applicants


Visit INSEAD MBA Programme page to learn more

About Minh Huy Lai

Minh is the Managing Director of the INSEAD MBA Programme. He was formerly the Executive Director of Degree Programmes at HEC Paris. Prior to his move to the higher education field, he has worked in investment banking and international development.

Winning MBA Essay Guide - A Complete Guide for M7 and Top 15 MBA Application Essays 


F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay guide will teach you how to transform your essay into a life journey with trials and tribulations that will move the admission team.

+ Over 245 Sample Essays (Read Previews of F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay Guide Sample Essays here)

+ Top 15 MBA Programs (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Booth, MIT, Kellogg, Yale, Haas, Darden, INSEAD, LBS, NYU Stern, Tuck, Duke Fuqua, Ross)
+ The Art of Storytelling 
+ Leadership Narratives
+ Review Tips
+ Persuasion Strategies
+ The Secret to "unleashing" your unique voice
+ How to prepare and present for the Video Essay
+ How to write about your Strengths
+ How to write about your Weaknesses
 
 

Want to try the individual school Essay Guides before upgrading to the Winning MBA Essay Guide? Try below.

F1GMAT's Essay Guides

  • Harvard MBA Essay Guide (20 Sample Essays)

    Growth-Oriented Essay: Curiosity can be seen in many ways. Please share an example of how you have demonstrated curiosity and how that has influenced your growth. (up to 250 words) 

    Example #1: Persistence Narrative 
    Background Information: The applicant – a design and music talent, shares her journey through several setbacks. She attributes curiosity to her growth.  
    Curiosity: Philosophy  
    Curiosity (Explained): Curiosity as a philosophy is tough to translate into a narrative unless you are from the creative industry or your contributions had an influence on a solution or an initiative.  
    MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to capture the humanity of the applicant and her influence in music instead of just highlighting how she overcame multiple roadblocks to gain attention as a designer.  
    Theme: Persistence  
    Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Life Starts at NO (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example) 

    Example #2: International Community Building 
    Background Information: The applicant, a Machine Learning (ML) entrepreneur specializing in healthcare diagnostics, shares how his curiosity to learn other ML algorithms’ evolution in diagnosing Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease transformed his platform into a global community. 
    MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to show the applicant’s contributions in diagnostic from 2020 to 2024 by citing two events. Such examples build credibility instead of engagements that were recent. The evolution of the platform from an AI development community to a community for discussing the application of AI in diagnostics is captured through a ‘curiosity’ angle.
    Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Growth through Collaboration (AI in Healthcare) (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #3: Culture
    Background Information: The applicant, an Entrepreneur from India narrates his first entrepreneurial experience – facilitating exchange of stamps in the late 1990s.
    Theme: Culture
    MBA Essay Strategy:  Instead of addressing the biases in the investor community that could turn preachy, I wanted to focus on the applicant and his entrepreneurial journey by citing two entrepreneurial experiences – a platform(club) for stamp collection and his Grocery delivery App.
    Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – The American Dream (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #4: Addiction
    Background Information: The applicant – a beneficiary of the foster home system, captures the sacrifice his adopted grandparents made to save him from a path of addiction. Paying it back through early intervention among teenagers and community engagement is the curiosity narrative.
    Theme: Addiction
    MBA Essay Strategy:  My strategy is to capture a gratitude narrative in the first one-third of the essay to demonstrate motivation for starting the venture and dedicate the latter part of the essay to the unique solution
    Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Drug Addiction and Gaming (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #5: Scarcity
    Background Information: The applicant, an education major, recognizes that 70% of all students in Kenya don’t have a computer. The curiosity that drives him to pivot from one solution to another is the growth narrative.
    Theme: Innovation
    MBA Essay Strategy:  Often, innovation is captured with a ‘hero’ narrative where the applicant is the sole originator of an idea. I wanted to break that cliché and include a person from whom the applicant learned to use a concept called ‘scaffolding.’
    Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Scarcity (Growth-Oriented HBS Essay Example)

    Example #6: FinTech
    Background Information: The applicant captures a vulnerable moment of a beneficiary to compare his journey of side hustle before a technology giant noticed his talent. Although cryptocurrency is not a flavor for the year, capture niches where innovation is still happening. 
    Theme: Education, Child Welfare
    MBA Essay Strategy:  Empathizing with a techno solution is tough without a strong backstory around the beneficiary. For the essay, I wanted to clearly establish the beneficiary – Rami, before the applicant narrates the similarities to his journey and finally shares the solution that emerged from his curiosity.
    Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – FinTech as a Tool for Good (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #7: Learning from the best
    Background Information: The applicant – a Remote Engineer in the Oil and Gas industry, reflects on a value that has helped her learn from the best regardless of her geographical limitations.
    Theme: Learning
    MBA Essay Strategy:  The effectiveness of the case-study method depends on the assumption that peers in a Harvard MBA class will help elevate your learning experience. For the essay, I have highlighted the applicant’s recognition of this value proposition with three examples.
    Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Learning from the Best (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #8: Military & Search for IMPACT
    Background Information: The most common narrative for US military applicants is to quote 9/11 and the reaction your immediate family had while watching the events unfold. The horrifying moment is captured as a motivation to join the Military. On digging deeper, most applicants would share that their motivations were diverse.
    Theme: Career Choice
    MBA Essay Strategy:  I wanted to quickly highlight that the applicant had the choice of entering any industry. One achievement to demonstrate his curiosity that I shared in the first half is the invention of a game. Since the game is mentioned in the resume and verifiable through search, I didn’t quote the name. By clearly highlighting the person’s curiosity and career options, the family legacy is used as a factor in joining the military.
    Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Career Choice after a Military Career (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
     
    Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)

    Example #9: Small Business Values
    Background Information: The applicant - a second-generation Asian American, is familiar with the values of fiscal conservatism, building relationships, and understanding the daily struggles of the community through his family’s department store.
    Theme: Customer-Centric
    MBA Essay Strategy:  The applicant’s role in developing an App for the store is highlighted in the essay at a crucial part of the narrative so that the essay is not all about his father. I have also humanized the journey – by sharing how upset the father was when the revenues fell by 40%. The essay is about the transformation in the applicant’s value from a person chasing productivity and optimization technique to someone who is truly thinking about the customers. 
    Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Small Business Values (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #10: Breaking Away from Family Business
    Background Information: A unique challenge that applicants whose parents are public figures or CXOs of businesses or entrepreneurs are the pressure to live up to the parent’s standards or milestones. For the leadership narrative, the burden of legacy is established before the narrative addresses his leadership principles.
    Theme: Authenticity  
    MBA Essay Strategy:  For the essay, I want to capture an entrepreneur’s journey to rise above his entrepreneur father’s image. But I didn’t want to make the entire essay about this complex dynamics. The narrative is around the applicant’s focus on customers and surrounding with teams who keeps him grounded. 
    Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Breaking Away from Family Business(Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #11: Creativity and Communication 
    Background Information: When the overall percentage of users with internet access is 62% in South Africa and the inequality accentuated by the rural and urban divide, the applicant endured the lack of digital infrastructure, and spending close to 22% of the family income on gaining relevant information on schools, global exams, and financial assistance. 
    Theme: Creativity, Communication
    MBA Essay Strategy:  The strategy is to share why the applicant values no distraction in a child’s home for optimum education experience. Then I highlight the many roadblocks the applicant’s non-profit faced in receiving fee waiver for their cooperative run ISP.
    Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Non-Profit (Telecom) (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #12: Mental Health
    Background Information: The applicant like most didn’t pay much attention to the mental health epidemic until tragedy hit home.
    Theme: Communication, Innovation
    MBA Essay Strategy:  A question we frequently get from applicants is whether they should cite tragedy in the family as a motivation for a venture or a non-profit initiative. As long as you don’t linger too much on the tragedy and offer a balanced narrative, there are no restrictions on leveraging unique stories from your life. 
    Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Mental Health (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #13: Trauma, Healing & Finding Authentic Self
    Background Information: The applicant narrates the absurdity of war in the narrative about the duties in Kabul, and the trauma. Instead of wallowing in on the horror, the applicant takes what makes military applicants strong and guides unprivileged children build life and leadership skills.
    Theme: Resilience
    MBA Essay Strategy:  Capturing PTSD in an essay, the healing process, and the cues that helped the applicant are too sacred to be shared in a Harvard MBA application essay. However, with the right motivation and narrative arcs, you can capture the essence of your journey without sharing the darkest secrets. That is what I did by merging two stories – the horrors of the war with a non-profit engagement.
    Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Military & PTSD (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #14: Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra
    Background Information: In this narrative, the applicant captures Peru’s Silver mining boom of 2006. The growth experienced in her father’s business shifted the family’s economic status to a new stratosphere. Through the changing economic and family dynamics, the applicant finds her voice in a unique way, initially to record her unheard voice but later as one of the youngest subject matter experts in mining and commodities.  
    Theme: Failure
    MBA Essay Strategy:  For the essay, the strategy is to show how life’s unpredictability is a blessing. By narrating two setback events, the essay demonstrates the applicant’s resilience and her acknowledgment of people who made a comeback possible.
    Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Example #15: War, Immigration and Starting Over Again
    Background Information: Despite a raging war in Syria, the family of the applicant was unblemished by the chaos. The strategic government assets near the applicant’s house would have made the region an easy target, but it was not. The calmness of her journey is shattered in one event. From the privileges of a cocooned life, the applicant is forced to think about survival, her sister’s future, and her future in the US. The second half of the narrative captures the change that was forced on her. 
    Theme: Gratitude, Resilience
    MBA Essay Strategy:  I consciously chose not to start the essay with a dialogue or trauma. Two lines are allocated to set up the narrative before the trauma event.
    Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – War, Immigration and Starting Over Again (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)

    Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)

    Example #16: Creative or Finance
    Background Information: The applicant starts the narrative with the origin of her talents. The unbridled enthusiasm receives a reality check when in high school, the applicant’s father has a conversation with her about academics. While the applicant picked up her quant skills, she was reaching over 50,000 loyal fans, and her videos captured 1 million views. 
    Theme: Passion, Talent
    MBA Essay Strategy:  Capturing vulnerability is the toughest part for Harvard MBA applicants. For this essay example, I have captured the applicant’s uncertainty about career choice throughout the essay. Here the goal is to show vulnerability in the career choice essay while for leadership and growth essay, I could capture one example each from creative and PE industry respectively to balance the narrative. So don’t follow this example without a strategy.  
    Read: Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay – Creative or Finance (Business-Minded HBS MBA Essay Example)

  • Stanford MBA Essay Guide (24 Sample Essays)
  • Columbia MBA Essay Guide (21 Sample Essays)
  • Wharton MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
  • INSEAD MBA Essay Guide (19 Sample Essays)
  • Darden MBA Essay Guide  (21 Sample Essays) 
  • Yale SOM MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
  • Tuck MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
  • Haas MBA Essay Guide (18 Sample Essays)
  • NYU Stern MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays + 6 Examples - Visual Essay)
  • LBS MBA Essay Guide (6 Sample Essays)
  • MIT Sloan MBA Essay Guide (6 Sample Cover Letters + 3 Sample Video Statement Scripts + 3 Sample Optional Essays)
  • Kellogg MBA Essay Guide (11 Sample Essays)
  • Chicago Booth MBA Essay Guide (12 Sample Essays)
  • Ross MBA Essay Guide (31 Sample Essays)
  • Duke Fuqua MBA Essay Guide (10 Sample Essays + Two 25 Random Things Samples)
  • Cambridge MBA Essay Guide (12 Sample Essays)

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