Further Comments on MBA Admissions Interviews

As a follow-up to my primary posts (See here and here)  on MBA admissions interviewing, I just wanted to briefly discuss a few additional topics.

The role of the resume in interviews
I think it is worth remembering that the resume plays a significant role in most MBA admissions interviews as it is typically the only document that the interviewer has.   As such it serves form main functions:

A First Impression: Most interviewers will have your resume even before they meet you. For resume-only interviews, it really is their first impression of you.  Make sure your resume is really designed for ease of use by the interviewer.  One of my objectives when helping a client with a resume is always to focus on how effective the resume is for this purpose.

Agenda Setting Device: To a greater or lesser extent, a resume has an agenda setting function in many interviews.  While schools will provide interviewers with varying levels of guidance about what questions to ask, the resume may very well form the basis for some of the questions that you receive.  In fact, even in MIT’s behavioral interview, it is often the case that at least a few questions arise directly from resume content.

Booby Trap:  The resume can blow-up in your face if you are not careful.  Failure to review your own resume closely prior to interviewing can put you in an awkward position if you are not fully prepared to discuss everything on it.

Your Main Depository of Past Experience Answers: Since you have presumably highlighted many of the key things you would actually want to discuss on your resume, it is in essence, a primary source for your answers to past experience questions. Especially when I working with a client with limited English ability, I will tell them to practice explaining “Who What Why How When” questions related to their resume.

In addition, since you might get asked to “Tell me something about yourself that is not covered on your resume,” you can use the resume to figure out what that would be.


Interviewing with multiple admissions counselors

Depending on my client’s interview ability, budget and time, I have often advised him or her to do practice with multiple counselors in order to experience mock interviews with someone they did not know well and to get additional feedback.  In my own case, I have been referring my clients to Steve Green (guest blogger and colleague since 2001) and Vince Ricci (my colleague since 2002) for the past several years.  Both provide great advice and have significantly improved the admission outcome for many applicants.

By the way, Vince has a great blog related to MBA interviews, please see http://mbainterviews.blogspot.com/.  I especially like his video post of a mock Kellogg interview with a former client: http://mbainterviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/sampleinterviews.html.

If you have read my school specific reports on interview preparation, Steve is the one who has typically collected the questions that I include. You can find links to the school specific posts at the top of my blog.


Don’t Burnout Yet!

One thing I have noticed from working as an admissions consultant for over ten years is that clients frequently burnout by the time they get to interviewing.  The process can be a very exhausting one, so by the time most of my clients get to interview preparation, I know they are tired, but it is critical to focus on this last part of the process with as much as intensity as they can.   So every hour you put into preparation really will help when it comes to succeeding in the interview.  So don’t burnout yet!  Wait till you are admitted!

If you are interested in my interview preparation or other graduate admission consulting services, please click here. Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my recent post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant."

-Adam Markus

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Interview Practice is ABOUT SPEAKING!

You should probably read my post,  Overall MBA Application Interview Strategy, before reading this post.


Clients frequently ask me how they should prepare for interviews.  As I suggest in my post on Overall MBA Application Interview Strategy, I believe in a proactive approach to interview preparation based on actual practice of your key stories.  You might not know exactly what questions you will be asked, but you can generally have a pretty good idea about that by reviewing interview reports.


DON'T CONFUSE WRITING AND SPEAKING
I view any actual writing of notes and scripts as interview preparation, but not as practice.  Some people confuse the two. DON'T SPEND TOO MUCH WRITING NOTES OR READING QUESTIONS AND NOT ENOUGH TIME SPEAKING AND PERFORMING.  I have watched clients crash and burn when trying to deliver their essays or some long monologue that they wrote out because they were too focused on writing.   Speaking is speaking. Writing is writing.  You cannot communicate in the same way in an essay as you would when talking with another person.




INTERVIEW PREPARATION
I recommend identifying key words and stories that you will use, but I don't necessarily recommend preparing any sort of script. A very simple outline like the following is all I really suggest:


Key Strength Word or Phrase:  Imaginative
Stories:  (1) Undergraduate Thesis prize (2) Recent work story about Project X.


Key Weakness Word or Phrase: Too cautious 
Stories: (1) Failed to see full benefits of using a more aggressive solution for Project X and (2) Too concerned with risk management issues on Project Z


That is the whole basic outline I would suggest you prepare.  The rest is performance.


If you are preparing for MIT or Wharton behavioral interviews, I would suggest making some simple STAR (Situation Task Action Result) outlines.  For example:


Team Story 1: Project X
S:  Harry was not cooperating with the rest of the team on Project X.
T: My job was get the team to work together because Project X really required everyone to participate. Harry was  important because of his technical skills.
A: In order to get Harry to cooperate I..  (ACTION 1) first talked with him privately to better understand his perspective.  Next (ACTION 2) I talked with the rest of team to try and make an adjustment so that Harry would feel more comfortable. Finally (ACTION 3) Established information sharing sessions so that everyone understood what needed to be done and how our work fit together.
R: Project X succeeded.


Now, when you actually practice the above for a behavioral interview, you would need to flesh out the story and provide more details.  If you have outlined a STAR story, you  have not practiced it yet.   The only reason to outline STAR stories is if you cannot systematically turn any spoken story into STAR automatically.  Actually once you start using STAR, chances are that you will not need any outlines.  STAR is actually a highly intuitive way to tell stories and useful for telling stories in any situation. 


THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY
Clients often want me to read their interview preparation notes. I usually refuse because I think it is a total waste of their money to have me do that.  I believe such outlines are useful for the person doing the preparation, but all I can really evaluate is their performance.  If I have a client with a TOEFL under 100, I might review their scripts because given that they may lack basic English vocabulary for effectively telling their stories. This is not case with the vast majority of my clients, even those with TOEFL scores at the 100 level. 
An outline is a map, but in the case of an interview it is really lousy map because an interview is all about performance, the territory. You can have the best stories in the world, but if you can't deliver them effectively, you are dead.


ACTUAL PRACTICE
Depending on your communication skills, available time, and comfort with interviews you may need days or weeks or months to be at your best. Whatever amount of practice you think you need, try to actually do more than that.  One of my clients who had already been admitted to two top schools, did 50 hours of practice on his own to get ready for HBS.  He was successful because he put in enough time actually speaking the answers  to many common questions that he could feel comfortable and confident.  He did just a couple of hours of interview practice with me and one of my colleagues. He was admitted to HBS. I wish all my clients followed this example of extensive self-practice.  While the exact ratio of counseling hours (strategy sessions focused on developing good answers and mock interviews) to self-study will vary, I think somewhere between a 1:5 and 1:20 ratio is ideal.  I am always depressed when a client only does interview practice during sessions with me and then does no practice by themselves because I know they are not maximizing their performance. 


Like a great musician or actor, you need to internalize your script/notes/outline to perform it effectively. I can best help a client by judging that performance.  Something could look great or horrible on paper, but very much the reverse when actually performed.  


How to practice:
1. Speak.  Doing it in your head is not enough.  Actually perform to the hardest audience you will ever encounter: yourself. 
2. Record yourself and listen and/or view the results. Note problems and practice more.
3. Speak in front of other people who can give you feedback.  Even if you are using a consultant try to practice in front of other people. This will help make you comfortable having an audience.
4. Have school specific mock sessions, either with a admissions consultant or someone who can at least ask you the questions. 


I know that what I am suggesting might be burdensome and time consuming, but so what?  The whole application is like that.  And at least with interview practice, you might actually become better at telling stories (Good for making friends!) and interviewing for jobs.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Happy 2011! Some thoughts on 2010

Happy New Year!

Now that 2010 is dead and buried, here are few thoughts from an admissions consultant taking a writing break from reading his clients stuff.

2010 Regrets:
1. Sorry I did not get a Chicago Essay post up.  My bad.  I just ran out of time.
2. Not as many posts on school selection as I would have liked.
3. Not as posts on MBA rankings.
4. The fact that I did nothing about making the blog look better.  I am lazy in this regard.
5. Not as many posts as I wanted to get up, but my clients just kept me too busy!

2010 Milestones:
1. GMAT Sentence Correction posts for Japanese readers by published author, Taichi Kono.
2. Webinar on Reapplication with the support of my long-time colleague, Vince Ricci.
3. I started writing about MBA recommendations this November.  It has been a topic that I had wanted to handle, but for a variety reasons had not. There will be more.
4.  I had more clients admitted into INSEAD, Stanford, and MIT than I ever have before.
5.  My client-base has come to fully reflect the diverse national origin of my blog's readership, which was a core goal I had established when I starting writing my blog in
2007. It has been a real pleasure working with a diverse and amazing individuals.

I want to personally thank each of my readers for taking the time to read my posts.
Cheers,
Adam

MIT SLOAN MBA APPLICATION INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

My colleague, Steve Green, has put together the following list of typical MIT Sloan MBA admission interview questions.  I suggest reading my overall analysis of MIT'S behavioral interviews, which provides detailed analysis of this unique approach to interviewing.  The behavioral interview questions on this list should also prove helpful to those preparing for Wharton interviews.

MIT SLOAN INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

• Walk me through your resume (FOLLOW UP)
• What do you do outside work?
• How do you have time for all the things that you do (referencing my resume);  
• Tell me about your job, have your responsibilities changed since your promotion

• Tell me about yourself, what have you been doing in the last two years.
• Tell me about something at work you have been proud of in the last year
• Do you have any recent accomplishments you want to share?
• What's a personal goal that you've set for yourself recently?
• Tell me about a time when you set a goal and moved towards achieving it.
• Why and MBA
• Why did you decide to apply to Sloan? Tell me your thought process.

• How did you manage to resolve a conflict situation and move the team forward?
• Tell me of a time when you took the risk and the outcome, what did you learn from it
• Tell me about a time when you had to persuade/convince others.
• Tell me about a time when you had to present something to someone who you did not like.
• Tell me about a time you had a challenging interaction with someone
• Tell me about a time you had to convince others to see your perspective
• Tell me about a time you had to ask for help
• Tell me about a time when your expectations were not met
• Tell me a time when you thought outside of the box

• Where do see your business heading?
• How would a friend describe you? A client?
• Tell me about a time when someone needed your help.
• Tell me about a time when you had to step out from your comfort zone.
• Tell me about something that you've encountered, at work or outside of work, that made you feel uncomfortable.

• Tell me about something you've done that you're proud of.
• Tell me about a time you failed.
• Tell me about a time you convinced others to follow your plan.

• Tell me a time when something unexpected happened to you
• Tell me when you did something innovative
• Tell me a time when you influenced someone
• Tell me how Sloan ranks against the other schools you applied to.

• Tell me about a time you led a team to a solution.
• Tell me about a time you had to sell an idea.
• Tell me about a time your idea was rejected.

• What exactly do you do? What have you been doing in your position recently?
• Tell me about a time when you mentored someone
• Tell me about a time when you butted heads with a co-worker/client/employee
• Tell me about a time when you were part of a team that had poor dynamics/didn't get along well.
• Tell me about a time when you had to deal with someone who wasn't pulling his/her weight
• Tell me about a time when you had to decide multiple options.

• CLOSING QUESTIONS
• I'm meeting a lot of people today, what is going to make me remember you?
• Any questions for me?
• What do you wish I had asked you?

If you are interested in my interview preparation or other graduate admission consulting services, please click here.

Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant."
-Adam Markus
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ENGLISH REQUIREMENTS AT CAMBRIDGE JUDGE AND OXFORD SAID

Following Oxford Said's introduction of severely high English requirements for 2010 entry, Cambridge Judge will be getting even more severe than Oxford for 2012 entry.

Oxford Said introduced new English level minimums for entry beginning in 2010:

	Minimum score
TOEFL - Internet	109
TOEFL - Computer	267
TOEFL - Paper	630
IELTS	7.5

In April, I commented as follows:

For applicants, especially those coming from countries where getting a 109 or higher is difficult (Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan being the ones that immediately come to my mind), this is good and bad news. It is clearly bad news for those with scores under 109 because clearly Oxford is no longer an option. For East Asians with TOEFL scores over 109,  suddenly the number of highly competitive applicants coming from their region is likely to drop significantly.

I think this is especially unfortunate for my clients in Japan, not only because it will eliminate many strong applicants from applying, but because it will likely damage the ability of Oxford to build a strong network here. Given the large percentage of company-sponsored applicants who don't have TOEFL 109 level English,  I think it is fair to say that Oxford will see a significantly reduced number of Japanese with strong professional backgrounds in the coming years.

In fact, the number of Japanese at Oxford has gone down and they are all, obviously very advanced English speakers.   Oxford is no longer a viable option for many candidates who would have considered it, but find all top US schools (except HBS), INSEAD, LBS, and IMD (GMAT score only) better options both in terms of rank and barrier to entry. 

Not to be outdone, Cambridge will be introducing new standards of required English ability for entry in 2012:

• Fluency in English
• IELTS - 7.5 with no element below 7.0
• TOEFL
  • Internet-based - 110 with a minimum of 25 in each section
  • Paper-based - 637 with 5.5 in the Test of Written English

110 TOEFL! Congratulations Cambridge, you are about to have the world's highest TOEFL requirement of any MBA program!  This is a bold experiment in exclusivity designed to radically reduce non-native English speakers without extensive international experience.    I know there is a Cambridge/Oxford rivalry, but.. 

By the way, for those applying for 2011 entry, the old Cambridge requirements-

• IELTS - 7.0 with a minimum of 6.0 in each band
• TOEFL
  • Internet-based - 100 with 25 in the writing section
  • Paper-based - 600 with 5.0 in the essay
  • Computer-based - 250 with 5.0 in the essay

-are still in place, but I bet they will be making it tougher than these numbers indicate. 

As far as UK schools go, London Business School, with its very flexible entry requirements and top rank, proves that exclusivity per se is not the best way to be recognized as a Top B-School.  For applicants who want to experience real diversity while getting the top B-school experience in the UK, I predict that LBS will be the only game in town.  For those who want to experience working with only fully bilingual/bi-cultural candidates,  Oxford and Cambridge should be your targets.  Each option has its advantages (real diversity versus fluency) and disadvantages (inefficiency versus experiencing the kind of diversity that is the part of working with those who really don't share your linguistic and/or cultural assumptions).

-Adam Markus

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