WHU Otto Beisheim School MBA Essays

WHU MBA Winning Sample Essays – 1

What are your reasons, both professional and personal, for applying for an MBA program? What are some skills or key competencies you would like to develop when studying at WHU? (300 words)

During my final year of undergraduate college, I co-founded a content writing services firm with a friend. This was my first experience with entrepreneurship and team building. I had experience in freelance writing and digital marketing, but building my team, and closing clients were some of the biggest challenges that taught me the most. I loved the extensive traveling, writing, marketing and client meetings. Although this was my first brush, it made me realize my true strengths towards team and people management.

After graduation, I got a full-time opportunity to join Accenture as an SAP Business Warehouse consultant, where I provided provided SAP and documentation support to 3 major international clients. My team and I worked with experienced consultants and witnessed high-level strategy and planning first-hand. I then came up with some strategies of my own, which helped increase efficiency of processes in these accounts. After extensive experience working with strategy consultants, I gravitated towards the strategy consultant role and joined Wipro as a senior executive in March 2018. At Wipro, I further strengthened upon my consulting, client facing and team management skills. My team and I worked on various client facing projects and laid out a strategy for time-critical assignment. I was able to successfully lead a team of 13 to deliver critical projects before the deadline, which resulted in a client’s contract extension and multiple appreciations.

These customer-facing role exposed me to some serious client negotiation and strategizing, two skills that I want to further develop and polish at WHU. I now want to transition into the rank of a full-time strategy consultant, and would like to develop the necessary leadership and execution skills in an academic environment. Having worked with local and international clients, I also want to improve on my networking and team building skills on the global stage, which will in turn help me develop an international outlook, as I aspire to become a effective and impactful leader.

What are your plans for the first 3-5 years after graduation? What are your long-term career aspirations? How do you think the WHU MBA will help you to achieve your goals? (320 words)

After acquiring strong consulting experience with Accenture and Wipro, after MBA in the shot term, I aspire to become a strategy consultant with one of the big 4 or the MBBs. During my time at Accenture and Wipro, I have worked closely with strategy consultants on client facing projects. This exposure have formed the basis for this goal of mine and now I want to transition from a support role to a client handling consultant’s role.

After gaining almost 5 years of professional work experience, I have been able to acquire leadership and management skills to an extent, but far from what I need to become a skilful, full time strategy consultant. With an undergraduate degree in engineering, my career progression is limited. I want to bridge that gap and get an MBA degree that will equip me with the right skills as I enter the consulting industry.

I believe the WHU MBA, with its course offerings like Strategy and Organization, Competitive Strategy, Operations Management and Strategic Sourcing, coupled with focus on leadership skills via the Integrated Personal Leadership Module, will help me realize my aspiration. In addition, the Management Practice workshops will keep me abreast with the current industry practices as I enter into the corporate world.

My long-term goal is to move into a teaching position – specifically management teaching, after I have enjoyed the hard work of being an established consultant across various industries. Teaching is one of my passions – I have volunteered at a non-profit to teach kids with special needs, I have taught and mentored people from school and work with academic and professional decisions. In the long term I wish to follow my passion for teaching and hopefully pursue a PhD eventually, to transition into a teaching role.

Why do you want to study at WHU? (200 words)

After extensive research and talking to current MBA students, I believe WHU would be a perfect fit for me to pursue my goals and the 3 core reasons are:

1. Be amongst the best – WHU has been consistently recognized as one of the best business schools in Germany, and has really accomplished teachers of strategy. I would love to study under the the guidance of Professors Le and Schaffer to hone my strategic thinking skills which can help me be a better consultant.
2. Gain the global edge – Although I have worked with international clients, I have not been exposed to real life international diversity, here in India, and the integrated international module fills this gap. The ideally small, yet highly international, diverse and experience cohort is another reason I want to study at WHU.
3. Fits my aspirations and personality – I really want to benefit from and contribute to the personal leadership module which I feel is unique to WHU. I also believe that the team player in me will feel right at home in a teaching environment where teamwork is the essence.

What sets you apart from other applicants? Why are you a perfect fit for the WHU MBA? (190 words)

I believe that two things that set me apart include the sound mentoring and client negotiation experience which I have acquired over the years while working as a consultant.

First, during my stints at Accenture and Wipro, I have successfully led teams that had a lot of new hires which have helped me groom my mentoring skills. I have mentored fresh graduates to deliver to my team’s requirements. I was also heavily involved in new hire orientation processes, and reduced their onboarding times so that they can start adding value to the teams at the earliest. I believe with my strong experience in mentoring colleagues, i can positively contribute to  the WHU MBA class with this experience.

Second, during extensive client-facing roles involving negotiating and strategizing, I have worked under strict deadlines, and faced situations with sudden changes in final deliverables which has helped me hone my client negotiation skills. I believe this experience will help me contribute positively during in class case discussions and contribute towards managing out of class situations and events while working the the various on campus clubs.

Therefore overall I believe I can add significant value to the class and along with the spirit of teamwork imbibed in me, would make me feel right at home at the WHU MBA.