INSEAD MBA Essay Advice 2025-2026

The following essay topic analysis and advice examines INSEAD’s MBA admissions essays for the January 2026 intake. You can also review essay topic analyses for all of the other leading MBA programs as well as general Essay Tips to further aid you in developing your admissions essays.

INSEAD MBA Essay Advice 2025-2026

Job Essay 1

Provide a summary of your career since graduating from university, explaining the rationale behind your key decisions and career progression. Include a description of your current (or most recent) role, covering the scope of your work, major responsibilities, employees under your supervision, budget size, clients/products, and any notable results achieved. (500 words, maximum)
INSEAD has combined two of their short answer job questions into one. First, the adcom is looking for applicants who can present their career as a coherent whole, and demonstrate that they have been on an upward trajectory since the outset. While it would be ideal for you to include some comments on lessons learned and skills gained over the course of your career, the primary focus should be touching upon each full-time post you’ve held, explaining the reasons behind each move you’ve made, and commenting on increases and changes in responsibility. Second, applicants are asked for a bit more details about their current or most recent role. Keeping in mind that this will be the adcom’s introduction to your application materials, you might also provide the context necessary for the reader to understand your place within your company’s organizational structure and the work that occupies your days. While there is some room to talk about “results achieved,” there’s no need to get bogged down in the specifics of certain projects or engagements – an effective response to this question will be composed of fairly general comments that are focused on the present. It is fine to incorporate some more specific information about your career’s “greatest hits” later when responding to other questions.

Job Essay 2

Describe your short and long-term career aspirations, including your target geography, industry, and function. How do you plan to bridge the gap between your current position and these goals, and how will INSEAD help you achieve them? (300 words, maximum)
Updated for the January 2026 intake, this question adds “why INSEAD” in addition to the longstanding request for goals. This is a fairly straightforward career goals essay question, asking applicants to discuss both their short- and long-term career plans. Candidates will want to identify the position that they hope to hold immediately after graduating from an MBA program, naming both a job title and 1-2 organizations for which they would most like to work. They will then want to discuss their longer-range 5-10 year plan, explaining not just what role they hope to occupy but also commenting on the broader impact they hope to have in this position. Then, it would also make sense to touch on the ways an MBA would facilitate progress toward these goals, and the factors that make INSEAD an especially good next step. To underscore this fit, it would make sense to name some curricular or programmatic offerings that are relevant to these objectives. Conducting thorough research on the program — whether by attending online info sessions, or speaking with students and alumni — will help you achieve maximum impact with this brief response.

Motivation Essays

Essay 1

Give a candid description of yourself as a person and a leader, emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses you recognize in yourself. Explain how you are actively working on your development, sharing key experiences that have shaped you, providing specific examples where relevant. (500 words maximum)
This is a fairly open-ended question that essentially asks the applicant to introduce him or herself to the admissions reader, delving past the facts of one’s job and hobbies into a deeper discussion of the candidate’s personality and leadership. That said, there is still an opening to provide illustrative examples that show how these qualities manifest in one’s day–to-day life. Applicants should of course note that this prompt also asks them to discuss formative past experiences that have shaped who the applicant is today, giving them plenty to do with the 500 word allotment for this response.

It’s important to address the question in full when responding to this sort of essay, but it’s also in one’s best interest to focus as much as possible on the positive. This is a akin to describing oneself to a new friend or on a first date: you do want to provide a heads up about any salient shortcomings you’re aware of, but want to spend most of your time selling your strengths (i.e. the reasons that someone might want to befriend/date/admit you). With this in mind, you might lead off with two or three positive qualities, sharing brief examples of what these characteristics have enabled you to accomplish or how they’ve positioned you to help others. When discussing these kinds of personal qualities, it’s ideal to back up every statement about your character with a brief example to really “prove” that you possess the quality in question. By doing so, you’re effectively “showing” rather than “telling” the reader how your personality and values inform your behavior (and potential contribution to the INSEAD MBA program). After illustrating your strengths, you’ll then want to comment on one or two weaknesses – ideally ones that you’ve already taken steps to address.

Note that this response also calls for the candidate to reflect on the forces that have shaped his or her personal development; commentary on this topic could be built into the discussion of each personal characteristic introduced — or in an introduction or conclusion if there are themes that run throughout your examples. INSEAD’s framework gives applicants free rein to choose personal, professional or extracurricular subjects, and applicants would do well to select examples with an eye for presenting a balanced picture of their leadership, skills, and experiences.

Essay 2

Describe a highly stressful situation you faced and how you managed it. What did this experience teach you about yourself and your interactions with others? (400 words maximum)
You will need to provide sufficient context for a reader to readily understand the nature of the situation or project, the stakes involved, and the outcome. Another word of caution: Be wary of simply presenting a veiled strength (or humble brag). Make sure the stress is truly embodied–and that it was, indeed, “highly” significant.

You’ll want to summarize the situation and what made it stressful (e.g. the scope of a project was beyond your usual work, you had to make a decision with incomplete information, a teammate wasn’t carrying their weight, etc.) in relatively few words. Regarding your response to stress, focus on the positive. The bulk of the essay should be reserved for your response and related actions, then moving onto what you learned and how you ultimately applied that successfully. Be sure to select a situation that entailed collaboration or engagement–INSEAD wants to see your interactions with others. Assert how the event improved your professional outlook or changed your approach to work, then account for the actions related to this improvement. You can then expand on a successful example in which you applied what you learned from the stressful situation.

Optional Essay

Is there anything else that was not covered in your application that you would like to share with the Admissions Committee? (300 words, maximum)
This is a rather openly worded optional essay, suggesting that applicants are free to share any information that they feel would add value to their file (in addition, of course, to explaining extenuating circumstances or acknowledging weaknesses in their applications). That said, INSEAD’s essays themselves cover a fair amount of ground, so candidates would do well to consider whether what they’re sharing in this essay could have been covered in response to one of the program’s required prompts.

Video Essay

Shortly after submitting this application form, you will receive a link to a video interview. This video component is required to start the evaluation of your application. Please submit the video interview at your earliest convenience and no later than 48 hours after the deadline to which you are applying. Once submitted, the video interviews cannot be modified. Therefore, please ensure that you carefully test your devices before starting the exercise.

We are keen on getting to know you better and believe that through a video you can come to life, so be spontaneous, be creative and be yourself!
Before pressing the “record” button, it would be worth reviewing our advice on video essays to understand the broader goals of a video prompt. As this is a visual presentation that will be recorded live, ensure you are dressed in appropriate professional attire. In terms of a background, clean and steady may work best—you do not want to make the adcom dizzy by taking them on an unsteady walking tour with your laptop. While many applicants will be tempted to introduce props into their video, such as signs, souvenirs, or any prized possessions, we would like to urge caution in this domain. A focused response to the question (while looking your audience in the eye) may be far more effective than a distracting string of props, signs, charts—each requiring valuable time to make transitions—not to mention careful attention to readability/visibility on screen.

Clear Admit Resources

Thanks for reading our analysis of this year’s INSEAD essay topics! As you work on your INSEAD MBA essays and application, we encourage you to consider all of Clear Admit’s offerings:

• INSEAD School of Business Profile on the Clear Admit website: up-to-date advice and admissions information
• Clear Admit LiveWire: admissions updates submitted in real time by applicants to INSEAD
• Clear Admit DecisionWire: school selections in real-time by admits to INSEAD