From Aspiration to Market Reality: Turning Ambition into Market Fit

By Rhoda Yap, Executive Director, INSEAD Career Development Centre | 2 February 2026Career transitions are often framed as personal journeys—stories of ambition, reinvention and courage. These narratives are compelling and often inspiring, but they rarely tell the whole story. In practice, many stalled or frustrating career transitions do not progress as expected; not because individuals lack talent, motivation, or clarity of purpose, but because effort is often concentrated on the self without a sufficiently structured way of engaging with market realities. 

Do I Belong Here? How Non-traditional INSEAD MBAs Discovered New Strengths

Is an MBA only for high academic achievers with successful business backgrounds? What if your previous life or work experience doesn’t seem to fit into any of the more traditional pre-MBA profiles you've come across? This collection of blogs showcases the inspiring stories of five INSEAD MBA students who came from non-traditional backgrounds and succeeded not only in getting admitted, but also in demonstrating that an MBA can be a transformative and enriching endeavour for anyone willing to embrace the challenge.

How INSEAD’s Executive Master in Finance Can Help You Transition to a New Career

It’s not just cutting-edge financial and accounting knowledge that participants gain on the INSEAD Executive Master in Finance (EMFin). INSEAD’s Career Development Centre (CDC) also supports EMFin participants with a wide array of powerful resources, helping them take their careers to new heights. We asked three INSEAD alumni to share their stories.

The 5 Things I Learned by Doing a Multi-dimensional Career Switch After My INSEAD MBA

In December 2019, when I was packing my bags to start my MBA at INSEAD and COVID-19 was still mostly unheard of, I would have never contemplated that by the following year, I would be starting a new role, in a new industry, and in a new geography after such an eventful and uncertain year. After graduating and obtaining my MBA in December 2020, I ultimately switched from Consulting in Brazil, to starting a new exciting chapter of my career in Investment Banking in London.

How INSEAD is Helping MBA Students Maximise Their Career Switch Goals

One of the few certainties emerging from COVID-19 is that it will have a lasting impact on the way people work. Employees are adjusting to a new set of realities in the workplace, with research showing 48 per cent are likely to work remotely at least some of the time – compared to 30 per cent before the pandemic (Gartner, 2020). The pandemic has merely fast-tracked a longer-term trend that is radically transforming the way organisations conduct business.
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