TL;DR — There’s no checklist that gets you into HEC or ESSEC. A strong MiM profile is one where everything you’ve done answers why this degree is your logical next step. Start from the career you actually want — not the activities — then choose the experiences, essays and references that make that direction obvious. I got into HEC Paris from a Computer Science bachelor’s with one freelance job, a music album and a YouTube channel, because they all pointed somewhere.
Most people asking how to build a MiM profile are asking the wrong question. They want a checklist that, if completed in order, gets them into HEC or ESSEC. That isn’t how admissions work. I got into HEC Paris from a Computer Science bachelor’s at a college you’ve probably never heard of, with one ad agency freelance job, a music album, and a YouTube channel. The reason it worked: everything I’d done answered the question of why HEC was my logical next step.
The MiM is not your goal
Buying a car isn’t the goal. The trips, the freedom, the people you want to drive around are. The car is the tool. The MiM works the same way. The degree is not the goal. The career you’ll build with it, the city you want to live in, the kind of work you want to do are the goals.
Admissions teams interview hundreds of candidates who treat the MiM like a finish line. They want the ones who treat it as a means to a clearly articulated end. So the first thing to figure out is not what extracurriculars to do. It is what career you actually want.
Marketing or finance? Consulting or product management? Europe long-term or home? Start a company eventually? Rough answers to these make the activities suggest themselves. No answers, no profile lands cleanly.
My profile, as a worked example
I didn’t follow a master plan. The plan revealed itself.
In twelfth grade I was already interested in business and creativity. I spent a year recording a music album in my bedroom and released it on Spotify. Two friends and I tried to film a music video and failed completely because we couldn’t edit footage. I taught myself video editing to fix that. Years later, that exact failure became one of my HEC essays under the prompt about a failure you learned from.
I did a Computer Science bachelor’s because I liked technology, but in college my pull toward creativity and business sharpened. I joined a student media body called MTTN and set up its video department because nobody had done it before. Through a friend I started freelancing for an ad agency in Udupi, near Manipal, editing video content for their clients including Karnataka Tourism. That work became my entry point into digital marketing.
I joined social media teams for college fests. I took the advertising elective. I minored in Business Management with A and A-plus grades across the board.
The summer after my second year, I attended the HEC Paris Summer School in Luxury Management. That is where I first heard the word MiM and learned that it didn’t require work experience. I came home, started studying for the GMAT, and went hard. I’ve written about how I prepared for the GMAT 760 separately.
When I sat down to write my HEC essays, everything in my profile tied to marketing, creativity, or business. The narrative wrote itself. That is what admissions teams mean when they ask for a cohesive profile.
What schools actually want to see
I’ve written longer posts on what HEC looks for and how to write the essays. The short version:
Clarity of direction. “I want to do marketing because it’s interesting” loses to “I want brand management in Paris beauty, building on freelance work for cosmetics startups.”
Coherence. Every activity should fit a thesis. If your thesis is sustainability consulting, your regional bank finance internship needs a connecting line. Once you’re in, that same thesis should steer which track you take — our guide on how to choose your MiM specialisation covers picking between finance, consulting, marketing and the rest.
Depth. Three activities with depth beat ten without. The interview tests whether you actually did what you claimed. (For how admissions actually weighs activities — and why depth wins — see do extracurriculars matter for a MiM?) When it comes time to put this record on paper, our MiM application CV guide covers how to frame internships, projects and leadership on one page. And if part of that record came from a year out, a gap year doesn’t hurt your application — what you did with it does the work.
Growth. They care less about the activity and more about what it changed in you. More in how this came up in my HEC interview.
Activities that genuinely move the needle
Some patterns I’ve watched work for international candidates over the years.
Sustained work over more than six months in your target field, even unpaid or freelance. Three months at a brand-name internship looks padded. Eighteen months at a small agency looks like commitment.
Something you started. A blog, a YouTube channel, a small business, a campus initiative. Founding things signals initiative, which is harder to fake than club membership.
A specific technical or language skill that supports your career story. SQL for product analytics, basic French for working in Paris, video editing for marketing. The skill must connect to the story.
A clear position on a difficult question. If you want luxury marketing, you should be able to argue why a brand like Hermes is doing digital better than Louis Vuitton. The interview at HEC tested me exactly like that.
What to do if you’re already in college
If you’re early in your bachelor’s, you have time to build deliberately. Try things, drop what you don’t like, double down on what feels right. The pasta-on-the-wall approach works in your first two years. By your third year you should be narrowing.
If you’re in your final year and just decided you want a MiM, focus on three things. Crush the GMAT, because a 730-plus score covers a lot of profile gaps. Spend a summer or semester doing one substantive project in your target field. Take time on your essays.
The profile-building doesn’t stop after admission
Getting in is step one. The HEC experience itself is demanding, and what you do during the program, especially during the gap year internships, determines whether you land the job you actually want. The same thinking that gets you admitted is the thinking that gets you hired. The summer school is also a strong signal both ways: it shows the school you’re serious and it shows you whether the school suits you.
Start with the question of where you want to drive the car. The rest follows — and once your profile is taking shape, the next decision is where to point it: how to build your European MiM shortlist turns that into a concrete framework. And if you’re worried the name of your undergraduate university will count against you, does your undergraduate university matter for a MiM? explains why your record and story matter far more than the brand.