Interviews: What to Expect and How to Prepare

(From the mbaMission Complete Start-to-Finish Admissions Guide)

If you get an invitation to interview, accept immediately and enthusiastically, even if the school is lower on your list of choices. If nothing else, the experience will give you great practice for future interviews!

The MBA interview can take on a variety of forms. Some MBA programs offer you the opportunity to schedule an interview at your leisure, while others will extend an invitation (or not extend one) after reading your application.

Further, some Admissions Offices conduct all candidate interviews themselves either on campus or at events in foreign countries, while others will ask students or alumni to conduct interviews in person or even over the phone. Regardless of the venue or of the person interviewing you, your goal remains the same — to communicate your distinct attributes and prove that you have the personality to support the stand-out application you have already submitted.

The vast majority of MBA interviews are simple and straightforward. Candidates often fear that interviews will be aggressive, but most are relatively friendly “get to know you” sessions, wherein you can expect to be asked questions about your personal and professional history, career goals and reasons for applying to the particular school that is interviewing you. Therefore, try your best to relax. By relaxing, you will enjoy the process more, and you will likely show your best side to the interviewer(s).

You will almost certainly know the answers to the questions you are asked during the interview, because they will virtually always be about you and your experiences. You will never be asked to explain the theory of relativity or to discuss economic policy in Namibia (unless, perhaps, you happen to be a physicist or a specialist in Namibian economic policy!). Remember, interviews are not tests of your general knowledge or subject knowledge, but explorations of who you are as an individual and a professional. The best strategy during an interview is to respond in a relaxed manner with the most natural, truthful and direct answer possible to the question asked.

The first rule of an MBA interview is “know your story.” Most interviews take place several months after you have submitted your application. We strongly recommend that before your interview, you reacquaint yourself with your story as you submitted it to the school: review your résumé, essays and application form so that you are prepared to discuss your ambitions, your experiences, and all of the other details and themes you presented in your application documents.

During your interview, time management is critical. Interviews are typically 30 minutes long, most interviewers will have a list of questions prepared (maybe not a physical list before them, but at least a mental agenda), and they want to get through their entire list in the time allotted. If you babble on and take eight minutes to answer a single question, for example, you could give the interviewer the impression that you lack self-awareness and may talk too much in class. Using up time in this way also limits the interviewer’s capacity to ask other questions and can thus prevent you from being able to offer other critical or interesting stories and information.

Many interviews begin with an open-ended request like “Tell me about yourself,” “Walk me through your resume” or “Discuss your career progress since graduating from college.” You should answer such open-ended “questions” in three to four minutes at the most. The interviewer only wants the highlights of your life/career and does not need to hear about each project undertaken in every position you have ever held. If interviewers are particularly interested in something you mention, they will ask follow-up questions and probe deeper.

After this open-ended first question, many interviews proceed with follow-up questions like “What are your short- and long-term goals after graduating with an MBA?” “Why do you need an MBA?” and “Why do you need an MBA from our school?” Generally, you should answer such questions in two to three minutes each. Your responses should be detailed but concise — though not too concise. Responding to a career question with “I intend to go into consulting and then pursue an entrepreneurial venture” is not enough. You should elaborate and offer details, as well as a rationale for why this career suits you and why pursuing these career goals upon graduating with your MBA makes perfect sense, but do so within the recommended two to three minutes.

Similarly, when you are asked why you have applied to a particular school, an answer such as “XYZ School has a great entrepreneurship program and a very small student body,” for example, would not be sufficient. A persuasive response would cite specific features of the school and display your intimate knowledge of the school’s particular benefits and culture: “When I visited XYZ, I was impressed by the school’s commitment to entrepreneurship. The programs offered through the Thompson Center, the Venture Formation Program and the Managers Round Table will offer me precisely the sort of academic experience I am seeking in an MBA program. What’s more, I love that the student body is small and intimate.” Offering a detailed response in two minutes is entirely possible, and the best way to prepare yourself to provide such a response is to refresh yourself on the school’s strengths in your area of academic interest and need (in this example, the Thompson Center and its benefits for entrepreneurship) and on the school’s culture and reputation (in this example, the small, tightly knit student body) before your interview.

After about the first four questions, the interviewer will likely ask about your career or extracurricular activities, posing questions such as “What are your strengths and weaknesses as a leader?” “Of what accomplishment are you most proud?” and “Discuss a time when you led a team. How were you effective as a leader? What could you have done better?” Again, you should answer such questions in detail but also concisely. You should also always offer real-life examples of your experiences to support any claims you make. Saying “As a leader I am a strong motivator, a clear communicator and a goal-oriented implementer” is simply not enough. By providing examples of instances in which you demonstrated such characteristics and skills, you will establish legitimacy for your claims: “As a leader, I am a strong motivator. I remember that on the XYZ project, morale was quite low because we were dealing with a difficult client. Recognizing the problem, I took the following three steps.... In addition, I am a clear communicator. I find that by establishing very clear expectations with my coworkers, I am able to set the agenda in an effective but respectful manner. On one case in particular, our team was....” Again, “fleshing out” your claims with real examples drawn from your life makes your answers much more effective and persuasive — not to mention much more interesting.

The second phase of questions will generally be very open and malleable. Candidates often get flustered because they cannot, for example, come up with their “greatest accomplishment” on the spot. Whether your greatest accomplishment is when you took an entrepreneurial risk or when you raised $10K for charity does not matter — there is no “right” answer. Rather, the key is to respond intelligently, thoughtfully, and thoroughly to the question asked.

The final phase of the interview often consists of a personal question or two, such as “What do you do for fun?” or “What are your favorite hobbies and activities?” Again, these questions have no wrong answers. Think to yourself how you would answer such questions if one of your friends had asked them. While these kinds of questions may seem unusual, given that you are focused on your career goals and on getting into a particular MBA program, the answers are still within you and are not difficult to find. Relax and answer — and, where appropriate, tie your answer to certain extracurricular activities you could pursue at the school. For instance, if you are asked “How do you most enjoy spending your free time?” an excellent answer could be, “I love playing ice hockey — my earliest memories are of skating on the frozen pond on my grandparents’ Minnesota farm. I still play twice each week with a group of friends, both because I love the sport and because it is great exercise. In fact, yet another reason I am so excited about earning my MBA from XYZ school is because of the student hockey team.” Note how this answer is concise yet detailed, how it uses real-life examples and links directly with the school’s extracurricular offerings.

Most interviewers will leave time for you to ask a few questions. The interview is not the time to learn about the school (you should know the school “inside and out” before you arrive), but rather a time to ask insightful questions that inferentially showcase your knowledge of the school or that show you are critically evaluating your options. For example, this is not the time to ask, “What entrepreneurial programs do you have?” If you are interested in entrepreneurship, you should already know the answer to this question. However, you could ask, for example, “The new dean has been in place for three months now. Would you say that the school has changed in any significant ways during this time?” Such a question shows that you know what is happening on campus and are evaluating the school in part based on this major change — you have not just looked at the school’s ranking and made the decision to apply, but have really done your research and considered your options. Avoid overarching exploratory questions (“What should I know about your finance program?”) and vague questions with no direct connection to your goals (“What do you like about the Booth School?”), while also keeping in mind who your interviewer is — alumni may not know specifics about recent changes to curriculum or budgets on campus, for example, whereas admissions personnel may not have as much insight into how the MBA comes into play in the workplace as an alumnus/alumna would.

Also, be sure to have multiple questions ready for the interviewer to show that you have not done just the minimum to get by and also so you have backup queries, in case your main questions are naturally answered during the course of your interview. Take the time and do the homework necessary to ensure that your questions show you are truly knowledgeable about and interested in the school, and that they pertain to information you need and want to know. Remember that the interview is also your opportunity to get immediate, personal answers to your questions about the place that could change the course of your career and your life.

Finally, treat this as you would any other job interview. Pay close attention to how you present yourself throughout. Be on time, dress professionally, bring copies of your résumé, and don’t forget to send a thank-you note afterward!