Mentoring someone comes with high level of accountability. One is responsible for providing the correct information and guidelines so that the one seeking guidance achieves the required objectives or goals. And when it comes to students looking for advice, the role of educators or consultants becomes ever more crucial. They need to take care of the dreams of students and their families as well. When students turn to consultants or consultancies, they are looking not just for program and university specific information but a direction to their life.

A major challenge that the consulting industry faces is the lack of experienced consultants. In the international education space, especially given that an average international MBA costs upwards of INR 50 Lakh, advising students and mid-career professionals demands years of experience and research. While several people claim to be “experienced” consultants, their experience often ends up becoming counter-productive to the candidates’ endeavours. This may happen if the consultant doesn’t have a real understanding of which universities are good for Indian candidates and what exactly they look for in an application. Also, there are others who work with random universities and end up working more in favour of those universities than in the best interest of the candidates.

But when there are challenges, there are also people who know how to overcome them. Prashant Tibrewal led AdmitSquare Consulting and ISBmantra helps candidates prepare for some of the best Indian and international MBA programs.

Prashant overcame the underlying challenges to a decent extent by identifying the right people he would work with, not compromising on the ethics, and ensuring that the consultancy is committed to the success of a candidate more than how much the candidate himself does.

Taking a Defining Route

Prashant started his career with IMS Learning Resources, a leading test-prep organization with a strong focus on MBA Admissions. Working closely with students, he realized that the path he had chosen was extremely fulfilling and rewarding. After completing his MBA from ESSEC, France, he started his own Consulting company.

Having worked with over 1000 candidates who mostly have 4-6 years of professional experience, Prashant noticed that a good number of people aren’t happy with what they are doing and assume that an MBA will be the solution to all their problems.

Pursuing an MBA is an important life decision, with so much time and money that one needs to invest. An MBA should, therefore, not be an exit route from what one is doing, but a tool to upgrade one’s skills and career. People who aren’t motivated and driven in their professional life

aren’t able to demonstrate the kind of career growth, teamwork, and leadership that most top business schools look for. Motivation and drive are therefore not just critical to one’s success in securing an admission to a top MBA program, but also in succeeding in one’s life – with or without any MBA plans! This thought forms the basis of all he does at his company. Mentoring candidates for over a decade now, Prashant has worked closely with individuals from remarkably diverse profiles including Chartered Accountants, Marine Engineers, Army Officers, Sportsmen, Fashion Models, etc. – all looking to leverage an MBA to grow in their careers.

Hitting the Right Balance

Most of the clients at AdmitSquare Consulting and ISBmantra are mid-career professionals who are either not able to advance their career without an MBA or want to explore international opportunities post-MBA or even want to make an industry/function switch leveraging the learning and opportunities through an MBA degree from a top institute.

The key challenge with such candidates is that they are involved in their current job and don’t find it easy to take out time to plan their career well. The Firm acts as a mentor and coach to candidates, working closely with them through a series of brainstorming sessions and understanding their past experiences as well as professional aspirations.

Work-life balance is an important element of the company’s assistance, given that most candidates who apply to the top MBA programs are employed full-time. Prashant and his team’s assistance is designed in a way that the candidates have a good direction in terms of the plan and approach to the application process and they do not have to invest time researching on random online portals.

Further, their personalized approach ensures that they understand the needs of each individual and provide bespoke advice specific to their plans and aspirations. Above all, the company’s consultants are highly flexible in terms of their availability, often talking to candidates past midnight or on weekends.

The firm also makes use of technology to step up their services. It has been using cloud telephony to ensure seamless interaction between the team and the candidates since 2013. It also has a Student Management System (SMS) that helps manage the progress of a candidate as well as track the firm’s success for candidates from different backgrounds and the universities they secured admits to.

Words of Wisdom

As an advice to the future generations of professionals, Prashant says, “Having chosen what I love, and taking the liberty to assume that I am doing fairly well in my career, I would advise the future generation to pursue what they imagine they would enjoy doing in the long term. With most businesses going online, there are very few barriers to success in today’s economy, if you are really among the best in whatever you do.”

He further adds, “Innovation is the key, and being future-focused and committed to any area of interest doesn’t leave much scope to not succeed. Of course, the right amount of preparation and persistence remains important in all endeavours, but identifying the right goal and the right path is an important starting point.”

Poised for Growth

Going forward, Team AdmitSquare Consulting and ISBmantra are building some very diverse products and services in the education space to bring different stakeholders together through an ed-tech platform. At the same time, the focus has also been on building short term international immersion programs that will allow college students to gain bespoke academic as well as cultural

exposure in areas such as Robotics, ML, Cybersecurity, Analytics, Leadership, etc. delivered at an international university campus.

Prashant further divulges, “We have built a good portfolio of such programs at universities in the UK, USA, Singapore and France and our vertical GIC Academy (www.gic-academy.com) is facilitating the same. In the long term, we have a robust plan to go global with a wide range of products in the education space, catering primarily to fresh graduates and mid-career professionals.”