Category Archives: MBA Interviews

MBA Adcom, MBA Admissions, MBA Interviews

The MBA interview is a 3rd date – time to take it to the next level

1 Comment

We’re in MBA interview season, and its been gratifying to see how many R1 clients have come back with interview invitations so far. So, a few observations, hopefully non-obvious ones, on managing MBA interviews. I’ve written a whole additional chapter in my book (2e, 2010) on MBA interviewing, and I’ll be adding a few more thoughts here in the next few weeks.

The first thing is to be ready, willing, and able to go “to the next level.”

In some of the top-tier programs you can choose to be interviewed, but in most it works the other way. They tell you if they want to talk to you. They are saying: “So far, so good. Let’s go to the next level.” You, the applicant, have to meet them there.

Sometimes (depending on the school’s policy) the interview is “blind,” that is, the interviewer has seen nothing but your resume. This means you have to deal a bit more in background-catchup information. Sometimes they have seen your essays, and sometimes your whole file. The point is, whatever the interviewer knows about you going in, your job is to go beyond it.

If she comes out of it thinking, “this person just told me what was in his essays or just repeated what was on her resume,” then you have failed.

Think of the interview as a third date. (In the analogy, your application was the second date; first date was when you visited the campus or met school promo people at a tour venue.) So now there you are on date three. Things are hotting up. You are wooing them successfully so far; they are clearly interested in you. Would you on date three just say again what you said last time? That would be inviting, like, “hello, who is this dork?”

How do you go beyond? First establish what your interviewer knows. It’s fine to ask if she has seen your essays/file — it’s a perfectly professional question. As far as possible, don’t repeat that stuff. But, more importantly, it is time to go beyond the facts of your bio, career, achievements and get to deepening their understanding of you. Tell stories that shed even more light on you as a person, your motivations, your choices, why your goals matter to you; enhance their understanding of the value you bring to the program; give a motivated sense of how great your future is, which they could be part of … third date stuff.

By the way, they are not ready to dim the lights and go to the bedroom. Nor should you be. They are still checking you out, and you are still checking them out. When they send you an admit package, then let the love-fest begin. Expressing interest is fine, but expressing undying adoration for the program, its professors, its reputation and so on, at this stage would be like taking your clothes off in the restaurant.
.

MBA Adcom, MBA Admissions, MBA Interviews

‘Never let an MBA Admissions Committee assume anything – because we always guess wrong’

MBA Podcaster’s MBA Pod TV provides this 10-min take-out from Q&A at a recent Forte Foundation-hosted MBA Admission Directors Panel:

.
In the video, Pat Harrison refers to one of the key mistakes applicants make in MBA admissions: they leave Adcom to make connections and assumptions in joining the dots (as to their prior education choices, career path decisions, reasons for wanting an MBA, etc.) Doing this leaves applicants open to clumsy misinterpretation. As Harrison puts it: Adcom will “guess wrong!”

The solution is not just to be clear. That’s obviously good, but just first base. They key way to get beyond the problem is to consciously take care to provide insight into the reasoning and decision-making behind each important past (and planned future) choice in your life and career.

Other topics covered in the video segment are: how to strengthen an MBA interview; who to get letters of recommendations from; appropriate use of the optional essay; and managing “over-sharing” of personal information.

The panel is Pat Harrison, Associate Director of Admissions, Tuck School of Business; Sharon Thompson, Director of Diversity Initiatives, Duke Fuqua School of Business; Analilia Silva, Associate Director of Admission Kelley School of Business, Indiana University; and Erin Nickelsburg, Director of Admissions and Recruitment, Wisconsin School of Business.