Essay 1:
One of the key intrinsic element at the Indian School of Business is “to develop principled, future leaders who improve lives around the world…” Please discuss how you will contribute towards this mission based on examples of your past work and activities? (400 words)
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” (Thomas A. Edison)
- After graduation there were a lot of career options, my interest was not only Computer Science, but also creative designing and I chose Diploma in Interior Designing from Hamstech Institute with an enthusiasm. This gave me insights to the world of Art, in-turn helping me to start a couple of own projects and I evolved to be my own boss. One such project was re-designing/renovating a Kitchen for a client. I am solely responsible for the material and workmanship. I gave a commitment to design, supervise and implement the work. I was accountable for every small expense and damage to the project. In this way, I’ve become independent, commitment oriented, detailed oriented and strong.
- Later I joined the Finance sector with a passion to learn new things. After the process training period, I was trained and tested on Lean Six Sigma as a project initiated by the Leadership. I implemented few of this learnings into Payroll process in the early stages of my career. Identifying defects in the Reconciliation process by researching and resolving the open items which in-turn reduced the wait time, that helped maintain quality and adhere to procedures by updating the Standard Operating Procedures.
- Being pro-active, I took an initiative towards report optimization: Our reporting has Leadership Dashboards with high level commentary that is shared with via email to the respective Leadership. I initiated a project which required automation of commentary through excel by removing manual intervention. I used advanced excel formulae by automating commentary which helped in reducing 7 hours per period in a package of 23 reports. This gave me an opportunity to create and develop a new Dashboard for a Service Line at Deloitte and was recognized at the Leadership and Business Partners.
I believe an E-MBA from ISB will help me learn, understand and enhance Leadership skills, build a powerful network and add value to my career. I would continuously be working towards such enhancements by learning new methods thus helping me to take charge of my career.
Scholarship Essay:
Why should the Admissions Committee offer you over other qualified candidates? (250 words)
The interests and choices I had throughout my career made me realize my fondness/desire/passion for learning new things at every stage of my career.
• I believe to be determined to take up new challenges and work towards achieving the goals efficiently. One achievement in my work front was to identify reports that take more than 4 hours a day and eliminate manual tasks. After identifying a report which takes approx. 5.5 hours a day, my approach towards it was to automate it through simple and advanced excel formula. The time reduced is 2.5 hours. This made the reporting consistent by giving Leadership a synopsis by detailing the report requirements in a nutshell.
• In this competitive world, giving a healthier chance to new/young people could bring in a change at the management roles by pursuing this career path / for a better understanding and progressive career path. Since, I am a graduate, holding a Post Graduate degree from a reputed institute would help me grow up the ladder in my career.
• Being a non-client facing professional, getting a high amount loan from the bank would be a financial burden. A scholarship from ISB would reduce that financial burden to some extent.
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Additional Essay:
Additional Information: Kindly share information that you feel is relevant for the Admissions Committee to be aware. For example: current or past gaps in education or employment, professional achievements, awards or other information relevant to your application. (250 words max)
I opted for B. Com (Computers & Finance) as my course in college since I had a lot of interest towards computers. DBMS is more of creating, updating and managing data. I tried typically hard to understand the subject but in vain. Learning through hardships and fear of delay degree, I gained interest towards it and helped myself to clear the subject. During the 6 months gap period, I was taking a course in Diploma in Interior Designing and now I can proudly call myself as an Interior Designer with 2 projects in the first year of my ID career. Ironically, the world revolves around Databases now.
• Nominated as “Best of FA” for my tremendous work during the 2 consecutive fiscal years.
• Took up challenging work, such as critical deliverables in a month’s time and was awarded a top performer
DO NOT CHECK THIS
Office:
Goals & Achievements:
I wanted to put forward about the things I’ve done and achieved in FY2016. I’ve bucketed them into the below 3 categories:
Strengths:
- Quick learner – Took up challenging work like Dashboards and learnt logical ways of problem solving and reducing turn-around time
- Reliability – Showed commitment/dedication and accountability in work assigned, and follows through on all projects, goals, aspects of work assigned
- Work prioritization – Check own work or information, plans and organizes time efficiently
- Adaptable – Responded to change with a positive attitude, showed willingness to learn new ways to accomplish work activities and their objectives.
Achievements:
Technical
- Automated commentary for 23 reports, reducing 420 minutes per period by using Formulae. Received a Spot award for the same.
- Learned & developed macro for refreshing the Essbase portions for 20 reports.
- Moved to Advanced level from Basics level in Excel.
Functional
- Pitched in to offer support to CRA Team in regular as well as ad-hoc activities.
- Enhanced researching complex/challenging activities
Developmental areas:
- Troubleshooting individually
- Willingness to learn excel formulae and macro