I don’t believe in education rankings, apart from those in which HEC Paris comes first (it means the ranking’s serious)). HEC Paris had already ranked first amongst all European Master in Management programs (see my post here), a program of which I’ll graduate in June 2007. Now, HEC leads the overall business schools Financial Times ranking. What matters most isn’t the ranking in itself but the virtuous circle such a ranking might create. Since many people in HR departments and/or MBA admission offices can’t think on their own and have to rely on what comes out in the different league tables and rankings, having HEC Paris come on top will help HEC alumni get into top jobs/programs/whatever, and maybe get married with even more beautiful (rich) women (men) too.

Another positive point which is directly related to me being a student is that the number of internship and job offers coming from abroad on the HEC Paris Intranet increases everyday. Recruiters see: 1 – HEC Paris; 2 – LBS; 3- IMD; 4 – IE; 5 – IESE; 6 – ESCP-EAP; 7 – RSM; … 10 – INSEAD; 11 – ESADE; …

Here’s the full ranking (.pdf).

Just a couple things before I get nasty comments:

1) why I believe there are good and bad HR people. Bad HR departments can’t think.

Bad HR depts. are looking for profiles, not people, not individuals. Human Resources die to lower their risk in general. In case something goes wrong, they want to be able to say: “but (s)he just had the perfect CV!”. Had they hired someone who had followed an original path, showing a weird CV wouldn’t have helped their own career. Top HR guys want to bring in diversity, people and not CVs inside the company. But is seems the latter are in short supply.

2) don’t trust rankings (unless you come first , or you’re an HR person)

Last year, I took a 6-months job as a financial auditor in New York. We were four young graduates to join the team. We were all committed and good at our job. This being said, the best of us in my humble opinion (I actually believe he was blowing all of us away), my former colleague and now friend Matthieu, came from a fairly good (but not a leading) French business school, namely Euromed Marseille. Whoever you are, don’t behave the latin way, do like the Americans: never sleep on your degree, do your best and be the best at your job.

For those who might not know what a Minitel is (don’t worry about that, it’s a very French thing), I invite you to read this article published in 1996 in the International Herald Tribune, an all-times excellent newspaper, prior to going further in this post.

Are you back? Great. Let’s get going.

Three of the most successful French Internet entrepreneurs come from the Minitel era: Marc Simoncini of Meetic, Xavier Niel of Free and Thierry Ehrmann of Artprice. See on on your right hand the stockcharts of Groupe Iliad / Free vs. Artprice.

• Marc Simoncini, founder of European dating websites leader Meetic, first started to write software for Minitel service providers in 1985. He was then 22. In 1998, Marc Simoncini founded iFrance, a highly successful website of which he exited in 2000 (selling for about 30 million € to Vivendi Ventures!). Marc Simoncini (also a speaker at the IE Club symposion I had attended 2 months ago) also is a shareholder in many highly successful French Internet websites, one of them being 1000Mercis.

• Xavier Niel, founder of Groupe Iliad / Free, a French pretty dynamic telco operator (see Ouriel’s post, jealous)), started back in he eighties his career in the glamorous-services-over-the-Minitel business, before founding one of the very first ISPs in France, Worldnet. After a comfortable exit back in December 2000 (40 million €), he started all over from the beginning with Free, a pretty disruptive, technologically speaking, and controversial, customer service-wise, ISP in France.

• Thierry Ehrmann, the President of Groupe Serveur, a holding company with majority stakes in about 20 technology companies ranging from tracking technologies to marketplaces, started his entrepreneurial career in 1985. Back then, he pioneered the transportation industry by providing the first freight services marketplace over the Minitel. Thierry Ehrmann is still in the marketplace business, as the CEO of Artprice, a highly successful platform matching supply and demand in the very opaque market of Art.

Now comes the question: in your opinion, on which technology/business/industry should one position his/herself to prepare best for and take most of the upcoming evolutions of the Internet?

People in South Africa will soon have access to the Bible on their cellphone. The Holy Bible will be available in English & Afrikaans first, through 2 canals: a Java application & text messages (SMS). Other versions in zoulou & xhosa are to be released as well.

At last, Bible booksellers are getting some competition on the Hotel rooms market. I was tired of always having to use the second drawer, since the first one is usually already occupied by The Book (often found in dusty conditions by the way).