Welcome to MBA Podcaster – the only source for cutting-edge information and advice on the MBA application process. Being selected for an MBA interview is your one chance to show the admissions committee who you are beyond your essays and application. In many cases, it’s a step closer to getting in. “If you are invited to interview at Chicago, your chances have increased greatly to be admitted.” You might be nervous, but you don’t want to freeze up. You also shouldn’t walk in overly confident and turn off your interviewer. We’ll give you tips on how to compare, so you can find your perfect balance and ace that interview. We’ll talk to admissions directors from two top business schools, we’ll find out what they like to see and hear when they talk to a candidate, and an MBA admissions consultant will lay out the best strategy for your next MBA interview. “The applicant should do what he or she can to close the sale.”

Since business schools have various interview policies, be sure to find out what the process is at the schools you’re applying. Some schools want to talk to all their applicants like at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. Admissions Director Jim Hayes: “We strongly encourage all of our applicants to interview prior to the application deadline. That’s not always possible, so it’s not an absolute requirement for the application. It is, however, a requirement for anyone that we’re going to admit. In other words, we don’t admit anyone who hasn’t been interviewed.”

Other schools may select you for an interview. Rosemaria Martinelli is associate dean for student recruitment and admissions at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. “At Chicago GSB, we use an interview-by-invitation policy, meaning that once we receive an application at a deadline, it will go through a full review process; whereby, it’s analyzed on a number of metrics by a student reader and then by one of the associate directors. And at that point, we will either invite them to interview or deny them from further considerations. So, about 50-60% of our pool will receive an interview invitation. It really is based on the quality of the applicant. In the land of MBA consultants right now, it’s so easy for somebody to be overly crafted in their essays. It’s a very important thing for us to discern the difference between a great application and a mediocre applicant and a great applicant and a mediocre application because, basically, we’re looking for the very best applicant and need to understand who that person really is. So, the interview plays a very important role for us to understand that individual as they come into an interview under a bit of stress. But it’s a chance for somebody to come and talk about their background, their path, how they discovered the MBA and why it makes sense for them. So, we assess communication skills, passion, charisma, the ability to effectively communicate a message—and really converse and not be overly crafted—which we sometimes see in the essays. So, it’s really an important source of information, but by no means is it the deal breaker. No final decision comes off of that component solely.”

The interviewer will only have 30 minutes to an hour with you. In this short window, you not only want to leave a good impression, but a lasting one as well. To do this, first and foremost, know all your basics. Why do you want an MBA? What are your future goals? Sound like questions you spent hours on for your essays? Well, they should. You’ll have to be able to communicate these very basics to your interviewer. But speaking about yourself is a lot different from writing, so it’s probably a good idea to practice aloud says Rosemaria Martinelli. “What I think is really helpful is for them to sit down with friends or colleagues and to discuss their path and plans and dreams and really kind of get into a mock interview experience. The more you interview—it is a skill—the better you become. So, making sure that you’ve talked it through with somebody who can kind of quiz you, you can get your language straight so that you can map out what you want to say. But also, at the same time, allow yourself to be natural and to kind of follow the train of conversation. So, it’s a chance for you to take the thoughts that have been internalized and externalize them where somebody else can understand them. It is important to talk out loud and not just think it through inside your own mind.”

At Chicago GSB, Marinelli says you’ll be coming into the interview a blank slate—even more reason to have answers to those key questions down cold. “We do a blind interview, so it’s really important for the student to talk to that interviewer about their kind of path and plan. So, going over the basics is going to be important because the interviewer will not have read the application. All we’ll have in front of them is the applicant’s resume. And I think it’s really critical to go over the basics. It’s one of the ways that the applicant introduces themselves to the interviewer. The interviewer will kind of explain a little bit about themselves as well, so it kind of equalizes the information and helps create a sense of rapport when you first begin your interview.”

At the Ross School, Jim Hayes says the admissions committee will check to see if what you say in the interview matches with what you wrote in your essays. “A very important part of the preparation is to know the school’s essay questions because just from a personal approach—me, individually—I will often grab questions from our essays just to see what response you get in the interview, and then later on, look for consistency in those responses.”

One commonly asked question during the MBA interview is: How will you contribute to the MBA program? This is also one that many applicants get stuck on. Chicago GSB’s Martinelli says you’ll find the answer by doing some digging. “It’s very, very important that an applicant understand and do research about the particular school. So, to talk about how you will contribute without knowing what the school offers can really show some chinks in the armor. So, it’s important to understand what that school values, and what the areas or student groups are that you would have interest in, and what you bring to the table that you believe is unique that would help others grow around you, because it’s really a give-and-take kind of approach in the MBA experience. So, it’s about: Will you contribute? Will you be involved? Or will you be a taker? So, understanding whether it’s leadership, or student group involvement, a particular area around community service, or about your background or your cultural upbringing that might give you a sense of a different perspective. But all of those things will be important to articulate because it gives us an indication of whether you have done your research or not. I think that’s very important because fit and match is what we’re all assessing at the point of the interview—whether you fit our culture and we fit your culture, in terms of the types of people that you would want to be around.”

Open-ended questions like “Talk about yourself,” can be tough to answer. Where do you begin? And where should you end? Rosemaria Martinelli says when asked these kinds of questions, don’t be afraid to take a moment to pause. “And understand what you would like to communicate within that open-ended question. So, if you have two or three points that you want to make along the lines around discussing yourself—which is, basically, where you come from, how you got to this point, and why you’re here at this table and chair right now talking about an MBA—think about minimum points, a couple of things you want to cover. You shouldn’t let any discussion go beyond maybe a few minutes, because then you cut down the chance for a conversation to ensue. And, sometimes, it’s not bad to close a question that you’ve been asked with another question for them—‘Tell me about your experience,’—so that it becomes more of a conversation as well.”

Addressing weaknesses can also be a challenge. While it’s important to be honest to the admissions committee, you don’t want to blurt out unnecessary shortcomings. Chad Troutwine is co-founder of Veritas Prep, an MBA admissions consultancy. Troutwine says chinks in the armor should make the armor stronger not weaker. “The question posed about an applicant’s weaknesses, or frustrations at work, or an ethical situation, or a time when they failed is a very common question. So, any interviewing candidate—no matter how successful—should prepare an answer for that question. So, the response should be nuanced. It should be a serious story—not something trite. It’s just not enough to say, ‘Well, I’m a bit of a perfectionist.’ It’s only going to be useful to respond to the question in a way that shows that you’ve given it some real thought. It’s something that is a legitimate weakness or failure. And it’s equally important, naturally, to demonstrate that, as the applicant, you’ve learned from the failure or you’ve taken steps to correct the weakness. And I’ll be more specific. If it’s a weakness in the applicant’s academic background, for example. Let’s say the candidate is strong but has a modest score on the quantitative portion of the GMAT and little to no math background in their academic history or their vocational history. A candidate would be well-served by noting to the interviewer that, although I don’t have a lot of background in math, I’ve taken steps to remediate that. I’m already enrolled in a calculus and statistics class and look forward to the quantitative aspects of my MBA program. If it’s a failure—let’s say something in the work place—then the applicant wants to take the further steps in saying that there were lessons learned, and that the experience was life-changing and in a positive way and, certainly, not the kind of failure that would ever be repeated. A really good applicant can take this question and turn what might be a weak area on the resume into a positive, based on the way that the applicant has addressed it.”

As Rosemaria Martinelli said earlier, it’s a good idea to practice out loud. You can check out our website, mbapodcaster.com for a list of sample questions. After you have your list together, Chad Troutwine from Veritas says one way to practice is to script out your answers. “Whether or not to script an interview in advance depends on the kind of interpersonal speaker the applicant has become. If the applicant is someone who is extraordinarily uncomfortable speaking with other people, then they may want to rely more heavily on scripted answers in the beginning. The second part is this: No matter how comfortable or uncomfortable someone is in an interviewing scenario, we highly recommend that the applicant refrain from trying to memorize any kinds of answers. That can lead to a variety of bad things. It often leads to wooden, insincere-sounding responses and could contribute to a kind of stage fright if the applicant is vainly struggling to remember the precise wording that he or she drafted in preparation for the interview. It’s much better to script answers as a way to prepare oneself mentally for the interview at hand, and then to mentally push those notes aside to just be ready to be flexible and to give natural-flowing responses.”

Remember that an interview is meant to be a conversation. Chicago GSB’s Rosemaria Martinelli tells us about some common mistakes candidates make. “I’ve seen a number of people come in with such fixed descriptions of what they want to say that it’s no longer a conversation, but it is a regurgitation of things they’ve memorized. And that’s not helpful, and the short response—yes, no— and that blank stare of the deer-in-headlight look. And the other thing is going on and on talking about accomplishments but not allowing the conversation to kind of form. The interview is really a dialogue, and there’s got to be some interest by the candidate to understand the interviewer and vice versa. It’s important that the common pleasantries really do take place and that a conversation can ensue. I think the final thing is that people are so nervous that they can’t think straight. I would just encourage people to practice and to relax once they get in there. If they need to crack a joke, or if they need to admit that they’re pretty nervous, some of those techniques can help break that crazy atmosphere that sometimes happens during the interview. But most importantly, be yourself and know yourself. Don’t try to be more than you are and don’t try to be less than you are. You have to believe in yourself as well.”

Jim Hayes from the Ross Business School reminds you to be engaged in a dialogue. “Sometimes they ask no questions which may raise the question of their level of interest in the program. I think sometimes they ask too many questions and they read questions from a list. And I might question the extent to which they prepared themselves for the interview. And there are some other things—poor eye contact. Everybody gets nervous about these interviews, but you’ve got to be able to control those nerves. And sometimes applicants aren’t as successful in doing that. And it really does reflect negatively on their impactfulness. One of the things we’re trying to assess in the interview is their personal impact.”

Chad Troutwine gives us a quick rundown of things to remember. “First, learn as much about the interviewing school as possible. That could be visiting the campus, talking to students and alumni, meeting with faculty and staff, reading descriptive books like “Your MBA Game Plan”. And we ask the applicant to weave that knowledge into the interview as seamlessly as possible. The second step is to develop an interview framework—to be able to speak for six to eight minutes, for example, in an engaging and comprehensive way discussing their work history, their academic background, why an MBA is appropriate now in their career path, and why the interviewing school is the perfect fit. For other types of questions, we suggest that the applicant maintain answers that are confined to about 60 to 90 seconds. Third, stay flexible. They should, as best as possible, anticipate all sorts of questions and do what they can not to freeze up if they’re posed with something odd or unexpected. On a kind of similar vein, the interviewing styles can vary pretty wildly from maybe a laid-back interview, that’s very common during alumni interviews, to something that’s much more professional and focused, that’s far more common when a top member of the admissions committee conducts the interview to, occasionally, a practically-hostile interview. They’re rare but they’ve happened enough that students should be prepared for that kind of contingency. Four, remember how they’re going to come across to other people. We would never suggest that someone change themselves just for the sake of an interview. It’s probably transparent and it’s just phony. On the other hand, we’ve noticed that most successful applicants are typically self-aware, modest, confident, empathetic to others—all the kinds of attributes of any emotionally intelligent leader. Fifth and finally, be mindful of the basics. Dress professionally, show up on time, project warmth and make eye contact, keep answers as brief and focused as possible based on the question, speak with enthusiasm and energy, be as humble as possible, certainly ask questions at the interview to better clarify the school’s admissions requirements. And finally, the applicant should do what he or she can to close the sale.”

Remember you can register for your weekly MBA podcast at mbapodcaster.com. Thanks for listening, and don’t forget to join us next time when we talk about getting off the wait list and on to being accepted.

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Resources:

Use this list to help prepare your responses and thoughts on the following topics:

1. Reasons for choosing a particular undergraduate university
2. Talk about a class or school experience from your undergraduate university that you still remember
3. How were you active while in college?
4. Reason for choosing your job
5. Why an MBA?
6. If you have a lot of experience: why do you want to get an MBA now? If you don’t have much experience, what will you gain from an MBA now?
7. Where do you see yourself after the MBA?
8. What types of companies are you interested in working for after getting MBA?
9. What are your long-term and short-term goals?
10. What drives you? What makes you get up in the morning each day?
11. Why this school? Which other schools have you applied to? Reasons for choosing them.
12. What do you expect from the classes at our school?
13. What is your ideal breakdown of lectures and case based studies?
14. What do you offer to our program and community?
15. Current events questions. Opinion on outsourcing, ethics and business
16. Walk through of your resume
17. Questions about your extracurriculars and interests
18. Have you had any mixed cultural experiences? How was it?
19. How would your colleagues describe you?
    1. How would your friends describe you?
    2. How would your supervisor describe you?
    3. In five years, how do you hope people describe you?
20. Talk about a time when you had a disagreement with someone. What happened?
21. Talk about a team situation where you faced an obstacle.
22. Describe an ethical dilemma you faced. How was it resolved?
23. Describe your contributions or involvement in community service
24. How do you generally solve problems?
25. What is your leadership style?
26. Discuss a time when you were part of a group of peers and you failed to meet your objective.  How did you deal with this?
27. Structured questions with point answers. Rate yourself on a scale of 1-5 and explain why
    1. Motivation
    2. Collaboration
    3. Spirit to Succeed
    4. Confidence
    5. Leadership
    6. Organization
28. What are your three strong points?
29. What are your weaknesses? What are you doing about it?
30. Which is your top priority school?
31. Will you attend our school if you’re accepted?
32. Is there anything about your application that you would like the adcom to know?
33. What are three things about yourself that you would like the adcom to know?
34. If you didn't have to worry about money, what would you want to do?