If your MBA application is as good as it should be, then you may be short listed for the interviews. The interview process varies dramatically from school to school. At some schools, your interview can make the difference between being accepted and spending another year at work. At others, it's meaningless and deserves no attention (Stanford).Some schools are very aggressive about interviewing candidates (like Kellogg), some require that the interview be conducted on campus, and some schools (like Harvard) use it as way to asses the leadership skill of the candidate under a stressful environment.
If you feel you're not a good interviewer, practice. But if you feel comfortable meeting new people, then it will be a time for you to ask questions about the school. A lot of business leader have to meet new people daily as part of their jobs, so they get very good at interacting with strangers.
Should I Interview with an Admissions Officer or an Alumnus?
It's best to interview with someone on the admissions committee, but that isn't always possible. You shouldn't worry too much, though, if you end up having to interview with an alumnus or even a current student. That person will write up a report that will go into your file. Just try to get along with your interviewer.
A Few Pointers on the Interview
- Whenever possible, interview with someone of the opposite sex.
- Dress formally unless your interview is with an alumnus and he or she said so
- Relax! Don't come off as stiff and overly formal.
You want your interviewer to like you, so treat him or her like a friend. - Prepare your answers ahead of time.
Typical Interview Questions
The questions asked at different schools are often surprisingly similar. Virtually all of the interviewers cover the same topics. Schools use the interview to just add more fodder to the essays, to make sure there are no huge discrepancies between the essays and the interviewee, that you are a social person, and just get another data point.
- Tell me about yourself.
- Why do you want an MBA?
- Why now?
- Why this School?
- Any questions for me?
Be sure to prepare a brief outline of your upbringing before going to your interview. It's easy to get lost and ramble into a long pointless diatribe when talking about your upbringing, so make your replies short and to the point.
Having your story together will help for a nice introduction, and help you as well to ease your welcome in the talk. A nice way to guide your interviewer will be to finish each answer with the obvious next question.
Tips for the interview:
Portray Yourself as a Team Player: Convey what you wish to get out of the MBA course, but more importantly, tell what you will contribute to it as well. Most MBA graduates consider their classmates and other students to be a big help during the course. So present yourself as a quality student and a valuable team member.
Be Sincere: Do not give answers to questions that you think the interviewer wants to hear. They can easily differentiate among students who are being sincere and those who just give the “expected” answers. So be honest about your expectations from the MBA course and why you have decided to pursue the particular program or school.
Prepare Yourself: Make a list of expected questions. Study the school before interviewing so you can ask informed questions about it. Knowing specific details about the program should convince the interviewer that you are serious about attending the school. Ask questions about his or her experience, a school club, or any other activities of the alumni association for example. Make sure you ask 3 pertinent questions, less is embarrassing, more is suspicious.
But Practice!
After two or three interviews, you feel like a piece of meat. Just remember that everyone has to go through the same process, and it’s a nice opportunities to ask question about an MBA experience to someone who has been through it.
Extra Interview questions
You have not enought yet, here is small list of questions that can happen during the interview. You might want to spend a couple of minutes for each of them and think what would be the answer that would give to the interviewer.
- What is your biggest accomplishment?
- What role do you see yourself playing on a team?
- What other schools did you apply to and how will you decide which to choose?
- Why an MBA?
- Walk me through your resume...and why do you feel like an MBA is right for you given your experience to date?
- What’s appealing?
- What are your plans in the event that you are not accepted to any MBA programs?
- What would your boss say is your biggest weakness?
- What would your colleagues say are your strengths?
- What makes you think you can succeed?
- What companies would you like to work for? Why?
- Do they recruit at this school?
- Assuming you are a student here and you are set up in a group, what type of background would you want your group members to have?
- What would your teammate say are your weakest and strongest characteristics?
- What are you doing for the rest of the day?
- If I were to ask your co-workers about you, what one thing would they say they least like about you?
- What is a mistake you have made at work? Was it resolved? How?
- Imagine it is your first day at this school. You are placed in a team with 4 other classmates. You are given a problem to solve. What role do you assume in that team? What contributions would you make to a group?
- Since you are a little [older] / [younger] that most MBA students, how would you plan on pursuing an internship after the first year? How would you sell yourself to recruiters?
- What would you like to be remembered for at this school?
- What do you find the most difficult part of your current job to be?
- If there was someone in your life that you could emulate whom would it be and why?
- What motivates you?
- Upon graduation from this school, what would classmates say about you?
- Let's imagine that you are graduating from this school, what would I say about you?
- Provide a creative name for a company and explain the product/service.
- Discuss your career progression.
- Give examples of how you have demonstrated leadership inside and outside the work environment.
- What do you want to do (in regard to business function, industry, location)?
- Describe an ethical dilemma faced at work?
- Describe your career aspirations?
- What are your long- and short-term goals? Why?
- What is an activity you are involved in?
- Why is it important to you?
- Talk about experiences you have had at work.
- Why did you choose your undergraduate major?
- Discuss yourself.
- What is most frustrating at work?
- Describe a typical workday.
- Have you worked in a team environment?
- What were your contributions to the effort?
- How did you choose your job after college?
- What do you do to relieve stress?
- It's two years after graduation, what three words would your team members use to describe you?
- Describe a situation where you brought an idea forward and it failed.
- How do you define success?
- What would you do if a team member weren't pulling his/her own weight?
- Why did you wait until now to apply to grad school?
- Have you looked into getting a job in?
- What type of research have you done into b-schools?
- Why only schools in this area?
- What makes you different from the rest of the applicants?
- Why will you be an asset to this school?
- What are your goals?
- If the interviewer is a potential employer, and you have just graduated from this school, why should he hire you?
- What is your biggest weakness?
- If your friends were sitting in this room with us, what would they tell me about you?
- Given your experience/background/personality, what do you think you can contribute to the school?
- If you had 24 hours to do anything that you wanted, what would it be and why?
- Describe a time when you failed - either a project or personal goal, etc.
- Describe a time that you had to work with others on a project and what the outcome was.
- What did you learn from it?
- Picture yourself in 20 years, as an alumni of our school.
- If you were at a reunion function and we were to introduce you, what would you want to be noted for?
- What personal or professional or community achievement?
- What is your dream job?
- If you had a successful career after this school and were asked to come back to give a speech to current students, how would the Dean explain to the group why you had been chosen to speak and how would he introduce you?
- What would you rate as the deciding factor to pick a school, if you got into everywhere that you applied to?
- Why did you move around in your jobs?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of your application?
- If you were not to get in what should you improve on for next year if you re-apply?
- If you are accepted, will you be locked out of any classes?