Which campus to be in Singy or Fonty – INSEAD

 

This is not a simple question and so is the answer. You need to choose your starting campus that is either Singapore or Fontainebleau when you are applying to to INSEAD. Once admitted you will be informed about your home campus – the campus where you will spend your first four months called Period 1 and period 2. The four most intense and fun months that you will ever encounter.

Campus exchanges begins from period 3 and there are several possible combinations that you could do. Abu Dabhi, Singapore (vice versa if you started in fonty), Wharton and Kellog exchanges. There is no compulsion to change campuses. There are some who just stay in single campus for the whole term. We lovingly call them lifers. 

INSEAD Singapore campus

The normal pattern is to stay in the region where you want to get hired during the recruitment season. Period 4 is the main recruitment season, so make sure you are present in that campus during P4 based on your target geographies. Some common trends are as follows:

If you are a J batch that is graduating in July then the main graduation ceremony (P5)  happens in Fontainebleau and if you are a D batch that is graduating in December then the main ceremony is in Singapore (you can guess that this is because of weather). Accordingly P5 most of them will be in Fonty for J batch and vice versa for the D batch.

A typical J batch scenario starting in Fonty would look like this you will spend P1 and P2 in Fonty. Do an exchange in P3 mostly to Singapore and in some cases to Abu Dabhi and come back to Fonty for P4 & P5 (as graduation also happens in Fonty for J batch) if you are searching for jobs in Europe or stay in Singapore for P4 only and be back in Fonty for P5 (this is usually tricky as the fonty campus will be full by that time and same is true for singapore for the D batch) and finally you could do P3 to P5 bundle in Singapore.

Alternatively you could start in Singapore and stay P1 to P3 there and do P4 & P5 in Fonty. You can make any combination that suits you but remember there are limited seats  so its not necessary that you might get what you want. This is entire process is orchestrated through  a points based bidding system. In short every one will get 200 points and you use them to bid for both electives and campus exchanges.

If you choose to be in one location for the next three periods (i.e after p1 & P2) then its called a bundle. Bundles are easy to get as you should commit upfront to stay in a campus for the next two periods.

So you have to be in the campus / region where you want to find the employment this is the standard rule. If you have prior European experience and want to find a career in Europe you should aim to be in Fonty for P4 and vice versa. An important point to remember here is that for Consulting roles in Europe it does not matter much whether you are based in Europe campus or not. On the other hand for Consulting roles or for that matter for any Asia roles its crucial to be based in in Singapore campus.

To conclude INSEAD is one of the few schools in the world (or may be the only one) that gives you so many options to choose for your geographic preferences. I only gave examples of Singapore and Fonty in the post but there are some who did Singapore, Abu dabhi and Wharton exchange. So like all things MBA related know what you want upfront and plan accordingly.

Career overview head start

Having seen and experienced the recruitment drive at the business school, I thought knowing some aspects upfront would make others life easy. In today’s post I want to give an overview of careers with a retrospective view. Some of the facts are very specific to INSEAD and Europe.

It’s essential that you have an understanding of which Industry and Geography you are targeting. You might have heard this before but location plays a massive role in your choices. Its crucial to have a game plan as you will realize later that the time passes even before you realize.

Your location strategy depends primarily on three factors

1. Local language proficiency
2. Work-Permit
3. A connection / motivation for the location

Local language: Consulting firms and to an extent all other firms for roles in sales & BD require proficiency in local language of the region that you are applying to. There will be some locations where its sufficient to just have English. E.g UK, US, Australia, Singapore, Nordics and South Africa.

Work-permit: This is another important aspect that decides your location strategy. Work-permit is not an issue in Europe with exception to some specific firms. A vast majority of the firms that come to campus at INSEAD require you to have valid permit if you want to work in US . Some firms specifically state that they wont sponsor the work-permit and these are rather few. So if you need a work permit ask the firms in the coffee session if they sponsor the work permits. Its all right to ask the firms and know their position upfront. Keep in mind about a common myth that is not true: No firm will ever reject you at the interview process because you don’t have a work permit. They will not call you for the interview to begin with. You are rejected because of competence issues but not because of permit issues.

A connection / motivation for the location: You need to have a connection and be able to explain why this particular location to the firms. All firms ask you why so and so location. Connection could be family, you studied and lived their etc. But don’t apply to locations that you have no connection with as you rarely succeed.

How to proceed with the job search:

Make a list of all the companies and locations that you want to work in. Make an exhaustive list of up to 40 companies. Not all firms come to campus especially tech firms therefore check which firms from your list will visit the campus. For example if you are planning to go to tech startups or a specific company you need to network more with your target firms.

At INSEAD you are assigned a career coach who will have a one on one session with you to identify you career goals and craft your strategy. Use your career coach well as you can book multiple sessions with your coach. If you do not like your career coach don’t hesitate to change your coach. Bounce ideas with your coach. It’s a process not an instantaneous eureka moment to find the career path.

You will know more about several career paths during your stint at the school as you interact with people from more industries and get a comprehensive overview of their job descriptions. Talk to your friends ask them about their work and what they did. The more you know about an industry and the job the better it is. This is even more important if you are changing industries.

P4 is the recruitment period at INSEAD. By the time you are in campus you will see that the recruitment drive is on for the previous batch. Do not overload yourself during P4 with course work. Do the heavy lifting in P3 and keep P4 light as you would be juggling with company presentations, coffee chats, networking and your normal social activities and all these do take time.

Lots of companies give presentations for the senior batch when you arrive at school. Attending these company presentations will give you an idea of what the companies are looking for. Keep a book and document the notes with names of the people who spoke, dates and key points. This will come handy at the later stage when you are customizing your cover letter for the companies.

Check job portal for archived jobs from the companies in your list. Look in to the job descriptions of firms from the career portal to get an idea of the types of roles that each company is posting. Identify what characteristics they are looking for and what hard skills you are lacking. During the recruitment drive there will be several coffee sessions attend these as they give you a better picture of what the firm is looking for.

Knowing the skillets that a company is looking for can help you to pick the right electives and build up your skills. Your time at school is precious therefore don’t pick courses that you are not interested in or that will not help you in future. You will regret that once you graduate as this is your only time explore and learn about things that you don’t know in a safe environment.

Finalize your CV by P1 and refine it in the further periods. Ask people from other industries to review your CV and get feedback on how they look at your experience. Remember that CV is a live document and you need to continuously work on it. Also make sure you have separate CV’s for separate industries/jobs you want to apply for. Don’t use the same CV for all the jobs. Pick and highlight different aspects of your work experience for different roles.

Broadly the industry segments fall in to the following and in the following posts lets dig deeper in to each industry.

• Consulting – The famous MBB’s and the rest
• Finance – (Investment banking, PE, VC and others)
• Tech – Google, Facebook, Amazon etc.
• Leadership development programs – Industry e.g Danaher GMDP, Samsung GSG, Siemens FDP/CEO,
• Others

 

INSEAD

Well Finally I have some time to write the blog. As I expected its super intense here and the schedule is busy from 8:30 AM in the morning to 8:00 PM. As they say here you can only choose one of the three Study, Sleep, Socialize you cant get it all. In three weeks that I was here so many things have happened I lost track of them.  It started with Business Foundations program the Splash and the full academic work load of period 1 wow!!! let me take them one by one.

Business foundations:   The course is aimed at students who do not have a Quant background to bring them up to speed. Although I am an engineer and already have a masters degree, I choose to attend the program to get used to the study routine. I would strongly advise anyone who want to take it. I had my qualms in the beginning but now once the period one (P1) is in full swing I am so glad that I took it. It costs extra to take the program but its totally worth it. They cover three subjects Finance, Accounting, and quantitative methods for business. The schedule is grueling and it gives a peek in to what to expect once the course starts.

The class: Its amazing no matter how much I say I cant bring justice to it. We have failed entrepreneurs, sports athletes, Finance pros, the guy who owns 1000 buses, CFO’s of startups, NGO founders, phd’s in mathematical biology and the list goes on. I was scared looking at the profiles. I guess all of us were intimidated by each other in the beginning. But there are some things that are common among all of us and those are simplicity, eagerness to learn and willingness to collaborate. I now understand how much time the admission committee must have spent to put us all together. In one word its an amazing experience. There are several students who only apply to INSEAD because of the diversity it offers.

 

PLDP also known as personal leadership development program. Its the first  time they have started this and 18J are first to try the course. Its a 0.5 credit course. We have been asked to write an 8 page essay about ourselves before we even step foot on the campus. When I started writing I was not very keen on it but once I started writing I became so involved that I really liked it. It makes you think about yourself. And once you reach the campus you a have personal development coach assigned to you. Its up to you how you would use the coach and what topics you want to discuss with your coach.

CV/Careers Its a frantic and never ending story with careers. You are on the go from day 1. I would advice you to think very carefully about your career before you come to campus. Yes we all change the careers but its very useful to have an idea on the following questions. you dont need to explain the answers to anyone but you have to have a clear idea.

1. What area/industry do you want to work and in which function?
2. Which geography/country do you want to work?
3. What are your target companies?

You are also assigned a career coach who helps you with your career choices. All in all once you meet your coaches you get a fair idea on what your strengths and the careers department and coach can guide you on areas to work. But keep in mind the initiation has to come from you. Don’t expect anyone to chase you. If you miss something its gone whether its applying to a job or uploading your CV. Everything is on the website and its up to the individual to follow up. Start working on your CV (INSEAD format) its very important and will save some time.

For now I only have time for this post. Next time Ill write about Splash and P1 Core subjects

PS: At INSEAD every batch is referred with their year and  month of graduation. There are two intakes to INSEAD one is Aug/Sep intake that will graduate in June the following year and the other Jan intake that will graduate in December. So if someone says that he is from 18J it means that he or she will graduate on 2018 June similarly 19D batch will graduate in December 2019.

Both the intakes have the exact curriculum and program with exception of the summer break. The Sep intake is only 10 months long without a summer break and the Jan intake has a two months summer break allowing students to do a summer internship. So if you are looking to get in to the investment banking industry with no prior experience its advisable to aim for Jan intake that gives you the opportunity to pursue an internship. Not everyone in Jan intake choose to do an internship some prefer to take the time off and travel around.