Help regarding PhD economics application for 2018

[Swayam]

Hii, I am a post graduate (Masters) student of Economics in India and I ended my coursework this summer (summer 2017) from University of Hyderabad after completing my Graduation in Economics from University of Delhi. I have been interested in applying to schools in the US and Europe for Research Masters or PhD program for over a year now. I gave my general GRE and scored - 160/170 (85th percentile) in Verbal and 163/170(88th percentile) in Quantitative with an AWA score of 3.5. I have a TOEFL score of 116/120 I have completed two summer internships previously and have a job offer(without an enforceable employment bond) from HSBC for a business analyst. My CGPA has been 9/10 for MA program and I got a 73.4% during my B.A Hons in Economics.

 I applied to 2 colleges (WUSTL and Tinbergen Institute) in 2017 and was rejected, but I guess this was more because I was applying during rolling admissions period than due to any problems with my application. I was not very confident about my chances in fall 2017 because of delay in applying and because I was not very clearly articulating my research ideas. I am now deciding to apply for fall 2018 for which majority of colleges will have their application windows starting from October, Nov 2017. So I will start applying this year but here is the issue - I am willing to take up the job offer and work for at least 6 months, ie. July 2017 to January 2018 and after talking to a few profs, they have agreed to help me out with recommendation letters. I do not know if it is a smart decision to work for 6 months before applying for a PhD and if with the qualifications I have, a good college will take me in. I am trying meanwhile to work on my area of interest, reading books and writing blogs before I have to join HSBC in july. I do not know if this gap of 6 months is going to be useful for my academic career and I need some assistance on how to strengthen my chances of getting into a PhD program (exams such as GRE Advanced Maths etc). I have outlined a few of my interests namely, Labour Economics, Cultural Economics, New institutional economics. I am not aiming for top 10 schools and would rather want to enroll into a heterodox school in economics. Any help and suggestions on this matter will be valued at margin :p. Thank you !