However, many MBA applicants (particularly international or non-native English speakers) have difficulty addressing concisely standard interview topics like leadership, teamwork, failures and personal accomplishments. They often resort to word-for-word recitations of their essays, which are guaranteed to be too long and reflect poorly on their real-time communication skills. In journalistic terms, these applicants can’t “kill their babies”, i.e., they can’t imagine telling their beloved stories in a different way. I’m here to tell you that you have to be merciless in shortening your stories in order to have an effective interview. The following will hopefully give you some ideas for how to do so.

Journalists do it every day, when they write the first sentence in a breaking news story. Done well, that sentence should convey the importance and broad outline of an entire story, to be then filled in with supporting details. Transferring this technique to the world of MBA interviews, one-sentence stories can look like this:

“During a recent M&A transaction between two leading snack food companies, I successfully managed my overly-demanding client while fostering my subordinates’ growth by giving them unusual responsibilities, leading to a successful deal worth $100,000,000.”

“For ethical reasons, I gave up an enormous deal that could have been worth $1 Bln. because I knew the aircraft could not be delivered to the client on time.”

“After our merger, I had to rescue our technology integration talks through strong diplomacy, creative negotiations, and confident decision-making.”

“I had always been a lead rower on my college crew team, but after my injury I still wanted to contribute so I became a team manager, which taught me the difficulties and joys of playing a supporting role.”

These one-sentence stories should leave the interviewer hungry to know more, like a good movie preview. As an interviewee, you can have confidence that you’ve expressed your main points, before adding a few important details to round out your answer.

Even if you can’t squeeze an entire story into one sentence, the ability to pare it down to its key elements is an essential communication skill for the interview, in business, and in life. To find these essential elements, try asking yourself:

1) What is the heart of the story?

2) What actions did I take to solve the biggest problems?

3) What were the results?

The more you can master this technique, the more prepared you will be for all aspects of the interview. With some practice, you can even apply the one-sentence technique to your self-introduction and to your goals.

If you are interested in my interview training service, please see here for more details before contacting me.

While there is certainly overlap between the two and both leadership and teamwork examples should end in a “win”, the challenges of the former are often external (e.g., persuading a boss, client or partner to take a chance), while those of the latter are internal. By that, I mean the impediments to success in a teamwork example are often your own team – poor communication, lack of clear goals, leadership, or organization, selfishness or ego, personality clashes, wavering commitment, etc. (Interestingly, I’ve found that bad teams are uniquely bad, while good teams are usually good for the same reasons.)

So, one approach is to describe:

1)    How you fixed a broken team
2)    How you established a good team from the beginning

Hopefully you have such a story among your essays, but if not, a very simple outline might look like this:

1)    Explain the team project or situation
2)    Explain the internal problems the team was facing
3)    Explain in detail the steps you took to reduce or eliminate the problems, and how doing so contributed significantly to success
4)    Explain the universal teamwork lessons from the experience. For bonus points, explain how those lessons will make you a great team player at your MBA.

Some interview questions that might lead to this kind of example (remember, you should provide an example whenever possible):

1)    Describe your role on a team
2)    How do you contribute to your teams?
3)    Are you a better leader or team player?
4)    How would your teammates describe your leadership and/or teamwork ability?
5)    What’s the best/worst team you’ve ever been on? What role did you play on it?
6)    What is your secret for building a good team?
7)    Describe an impact you had on a team when you were not the leader.

Regarding 7) above, another approach would be to describe a supporting role you played on a team, something important to the successful outcome, but not necessarily the pivotal role that is usually part of a leadership example.

If you are interested in my interview training service, please see here for more details before contacting me.

I also like to think of questions as falling into 3 categories:

1) Questions about program content to see how well the MBA fits your needs

Example: “Regarding your international study trips, could you explain specifically how they help prepare students for doing business abroad?”

These kinds of questions are basic and necessary.

2) Questions designed to reveal your potential contributions

Example: “I understand you have a soccer club. I love soccer. Is it possible for me to arrange a tournament with another MBA program?”

I personally don’t like these kinds of questions. The answer will obviously be “yes” (MBA programs love this initiative), and the question itself is a transparent effort to reveal a potential contribution. If you feel you can make a contribution, just say so.

3) Questions designed to start a conversation

Example: “Why did you choose School X?” or “What was your best/worst experience at school X?” (if the interviewer is an alumnus)

Example: “Would you describe your program’s culture as more collaborative or more competitive?” or “Are you making any changes to the curriculum, especially in finance, in response to the current global recession? If so, what are they?” (if the interviewer is an adcom rep)

These are my favorite types of questions because they can break through the “question-answer-question-answer” mold that so many interviews take. They can also contribute to not just a good interview, but to a relationship between you and the interviewer that may be helpful later on; for example, if you are placed on a waiting list and need advice from an alum. One of my clients was able to get very helpful feedback from his interviewer after being denied admission because they established good rapport during the interview.

Additional interview tips:
1) Don’t ask questions you should know the answer to or that you can research by yourself. These are also known as “stupid questions.”

Example: “Do you offer consulting projects?”

2) Don’t over-explain your questions. Just ask them. The best questions are short and to-the-point.

3) Ask open-ended questions to get the most thoughtful responses. (An open-ended question cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no.”)

Example (closed-ended): “Are students allowed to assist in the admissions process?”

Example (open-ended): “In what ways can students assist in the admissions process?”

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A few thoughts about “Killer” questions:

In a recent interview training, a client told me she had been advised to ask “killer” questions during her upcoming interview. She didn’t know what constituted a killer question and, to be honest, neither did I, though I’ve heard this mantra many times before. If I had to guess, I would say that a killer question is designed to show how clever or provocative an applicant is, or even to put the interviewer on the defensive. The hope is to stand out in a crowded information session or interview.

With that definition, then, a “killer” question to an adcom rep might look like the following:

Example: “Your ranking fell last year. What did you do wrong?”

or

Example: “With your renowned financial curriculum and many alumni in the financial industry, do you feel responsible for the current global financial meltdown?”

These are certainly tough questions, and there are good points somewhere behind them. I would imagine that anyone asking them would stand out, but not necessarily in a positive way since the questions are calculated to provoke, not elicit helpful information. Ultimately, asking such a question might backfire.
Does this mean you have to lob baby questions in order to ingratiate yourself? Definitely not. An MBA is a life-changing experience that requires a huge investment of time and money, so you should be asking hard questions. My advice, however, is to begin by asking sincere questions respectfully about things you are truly interested in. Those are the real killer questions.

If you are interested in my interview training service, please see here for more details before contacting me.

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1 hour, alumni

Questions

Please walk me through your resume. Very brief. He interrupted me a lot to ask questions.
Career goals after MBA?/Why MBA?
Why Tuck?

My answers were clear and genuine. This part lasted 30 minutes. Then we had a very long conversation on the program and life in Hanover. The guy really loved his school. His eyes shone when he was speaking about his experience out there. He made a very strong impression. He was interested in 1) checking if I would be a good fit (Tuck has a very specific culture) 2) I would really go if accepted.

Advice: know the school/be clear why Tuck is a natural pick for you. Don’t be arrogant and do not appear like a young “metro sexual”/party guy. He told me that if I had told him that I was interested in having beers and going to the movies with friends every night, he would have told me to go to Columbia and not Tuck.

So I guess that for Tuck, it is really about knowing the school and displaying a genuine interest in the program and location. I would really recommend visiting the school before the interview if possible, but do the interview only after being invited because the interviewer knows you are good and will treat you like a potential student/alumnus and not like a “lambda” applicant.


1. force you to be proactive while also giving you lots of control
2. force you to be concise while also providing value-added information
3. allow you to expand your interview answer pool beyond what you’ve written in your essays
4. allow you to explain connections between different parts of your life, thereby showing self-awareness and giving you the chance to tell the bigger picture of who you are

However, this type of interview can be more difficult than a straightforward Q&A type exactly because of the freedom it provides. Therefore, I tell my clients to keep the following points in mind:

1. Obviously, make sure you have extra copies of your resume for both you and the interviewer to review. You never know what type of interview you’ll have.
2. Decide the starting point (e.g., current job, first job, education, even additional information if appropriate) and direction (chronological or reverse chronological) and stick to it. I think most people find chronological easier, starting with either their college education or their first job. There are always exceptions though.
3. Don’t skip around. Guide your interviewer. Tell them where you are in the resume so they don’t get lost.
4. Don’t just read each bullet point word for word. Your interviewer can do that for herself. Provide value-added context to each individual accomplishment (e.g., why it was important, or what was especially difficult), explain how accomplishments relate to each other, and what the accomplishments say about your strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, values, etc. You should also explain how different sections of your resume (i.e., educational, professional, personal) relate to each other. To do this effectively, it helps to have a strategy before the interview begins. If certain accomplishments relate directly to your goals, take the opportunity to introduce your goals. If it seems appropriate, you can go even further to include “Why MBA?”, “Why School X?”, etc.
5. Be concise. Aim for 1 to 2 minutes for each bullet point. If you need help developing your bullet points, see here.
6. If you have lots of similar accomplishments, just focus on the highlights.

Even if you are not asked to “walk me through your resume”, I encourage all my clients to know and be ready to speak about any item on their resumes, since it is often the only information an interviewer has about you. In addition, a resume represents a manageable amount of information to master, as opposed to trying to memorize answers to massive lists of questions found online, an approach that, in my experience, merely increases anxiety and decreases performance. Of course question lists can be helpful, but I recommend using them to test your ability to adapt and express the information you should already know well from your essays and resume.

If you are interested in my interview training service, please see here for more details before contacting me.

As I covered in my last post, a good strategy is vital because it allows you to approach the MBA interview pro-actively. If you know the topics you want to cover, you can look for or create opportunities to tell your best stories. Also, a checklist of “must-tell” stories serves as a “scorecard” to judge your performance and make improvements for future interviews.

Executing that strategy begins when you introduce yourself, which is often the first thing an interviewer will ask of you. Most applicants don’t take full advantage of the opportunity. They often give a bland recitation of some school, some work, and some hobby that goes little beyond what’s written on their resume. Your interviewers can read that for themselves. What interviewers need is a way to understand how all the bullet points match up and relate to each other. This is the value-added “verbal resume” you should be providing when you introduce yourself.

From that perspective, the self-introduction is a chance to create a framework for the entire interview, including your reasons for pursuing an MBA and the major accomplishments/strengths you want the interviewer to know about. Since I stress integration and consistency with my clients, many of them have strong themes that run throughout their essays. The self-introduction is a perfect time to introduce those as well. As one of my clients recently and beautifully expressed it, you need to “seed” the self-introduction as a way to move it in the direction you want it to go.

Here is what I consider a strong self-introduction, based on recent interview trainings I’ve conducted.

Me: “Please introduce yourself.”

Client: “Thank you. I would love to. The most important thing to understand about my background is how important international experience has been to both my personal and professional development. I’ve always known that I wanted to work internationally, which is why I enrolled at a university with a strong international focus and why I went overseas during college to conduct research for my thesis on manufacturing in the developing world. It was an amazing experience that led me to volunteer with an international NGO, something I would like to talk more about later.

After graduation, I joined my company where I started in an engineering role, developing hundreds of programs for my company’s leading software product. I also had the rare opportunity as a young staff to lead many software development teams, during which I was able to refine my interpersonal skills.

I experienced a big turning point when I was assigned to lead an implementation project overseas. I managed to solve the inter-cultural issues, as well as bridge the technology and business viewpoints that were necessary for success. After that, I knew I wanted to take a more front line position in my organization so I transferred to a sales department.

In the past few years I’ve become our top salesperson, responsible for 25% of our revenues for our leading product. Now my goals are to combine these experiences to help my organization expand sales internationally, which is a brand new challenge for us. This is actually my short-term goal and I’d be happy to provide more details.

Honestly speaking, however, I don’t feel ready yet to pursue my goals. I need to develop more team management skills since I often work alone as a salesperson, as well as deepen my international business experience and networks. These are the main reasons I applied to your MBA.”

I read this out loud and it comes in under two minutes. But in under two minutes, this person has shown himself to be thoughtful and intelligent, with a firm grasp of what he wants and why he wants it. He has shown himself to be both realistic and ambitious in his career goals, while identifying specifically how an MBA can help him clear the main hurdles he faces. He has also introduced both personal and professional topics that can be developed more fully throughout the interview. Strategically, he has set himself up perfectly to move in several different directions, including expanding on his goals and reasons for an MBA, which is often the next most natural thing for an interviewer to ask.

As with all the techniques I’ll cover, this ambitious approach might not be for everyone or might not fit all interview situations. But I do believe that all applicants can find some benefit from the principles behind it.

If you are interested in my interview training service, please see here for more details before contacting me.

It still surprises me how many people sweat and babble through their MBA interviews without a strategy. I consider them victims, at the mercy of the interviewer. However, strategic applicants, those who know their best stories and can deploy them to maximum effect, gain control over the content and direction of the interview. A good strategy is vital because it allows you to approach the MBA interview pro-actively. If you know the topics you want to cover, you can look for or create opportunities to tell your best stories. With a good strategy, you won’t be caught unprepared when an interviewer asks, “Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” Also, a checklist of “must-tell” stories serves as a “scorecard” to judge your performance and make improvements for future interviews.

A good strategy is based on good essays; if they are developed properly, then they should already provide a comprehensive profile of you that covers the typical interview questions. By “properly” I mean that individual essays are structured and detailed enough to withstand the probing of a dubious interviewer, and that your essays are consistent and integrated as a whole.

The first step to developing a strategy then is to review your essays, along with your resume and even your LOR (depending on your access), to identify the 10-15 most important topics you want to cover. I think a good list should include the following:
1) Self-introduction
2) Short-term goals
3) Long-term goals
4) Why MBA?
5) Why School X?
6) Accomplishments
7) Personal life
Strengths
9) Weaknesses
10) Contributions
11) Questions for the interviewer
12-15) Other topics that express your unique experiences/qualities

For most of my clients, these topics have been well developed by the time of the interview, so identifying them is easy. The difficulty is presenting a topic both individually and strategically. Doing that starts with Introducing Yourself, which I will cover in my next post.

ANSWER DIRECTLY & PROVIDE AN EXAMPLE

The importance of these points will become more clear later in this series, but for now keep in mind that you never know how long an interview will last, so the first words out of your mouth should be a direct answer to whatever question you were asked. By doing so, you will signal the interviewer that you heard and understood the question, which is especially important for international applicants or other non-native English speakers. After answering, you can give the necessary background information to understand the full import of your story. Many applicants take the opposite approach, i.e., they start with a long “wind up” of background information, risking the loss of the interviewer’s attention before they arrive at the all-important “pitch”. Get the answer out of the way first. It’s just better communication practice.

You should always be thinking about examples you can introduce to support your answers. Always, always, always. Nothing is more frustrating from an interviewer’s perspective than to have someone claim they are a great leader or team player without providing proof. This is an MBA interview. Everyone says they are a great leader and team player. Only your examples will distinguish you from the crowd. The imperative of providing examples is another reason you need to develop your strategy in advance. Expressing your examples clearly and concisely will be the subject of several future posts.

If you are interested in my interview training service, please see here for more details before contacting me.

He was tilting back in his chair with his feet on the table, next to a stack of files – my competitors. My file was on his stomach and he was glancing through my resume and clips when I walked in. No eye contact. No handshake. No joke.

Before I could even introduce myself, he said, tongue thick with boredom and frustration, “Tell me SOMETHING, ANYTHING interesting about yourself.”

So I did. I scooted my chair close and leaned into him, which made him look at me. Then I said: “I’m always polite, and I always get the story.” Pure gold for an editor.

He righted his chair and whipped off his glasses, and we proceeded to have a very real conversation about a reporter he recently disciplined for being an obnoxious interviewer. I left the room 20 minutes later with an internship offer.

I always share this story with my clients, because I want them to realize that an interview – any interview – is a human interaction. As such, it can be anything – serious, casual, hysterical, confrontational – and so of course it requires good preparation. At the same time, you can give yourself more control of the situation than you might think by developing a good strategy and executing it with strong communication ability.

Right now, I’m doing anywhere from 3 to 7 interview trainings daily, and I always discover new problems that interviewees face, no matter what specific school they are preparing for. I’ll try to tackle a new one each day. Some of them are repeats from last year, possibly with minor modifications. Others are brand new. Interpersonal communication is an endlessly fascinating subject for me, so I’m sure I won’t run out of topics anytime soon.

Things I plan to cover (not necessarily in order and subject to change) include:
1)    The Absolute Basics – Have a Strategy, Answer Directly, Provide an Example
2)    Introducing Yourself – The Verbal Resume
3)    Presenting a Bullet Proof “Why School X” Package
4)    One-Sentence Stories (Condensing complicated essay accomplishments into interview-sized answers)
5)    Leadership vs. Teamwork examples
6)    Directing the Interview
7)    Asking Good Questions to Expand the Conversation
8)    Walk Me Through Your Resume
9)    Good vs. Bad Preparation
10)  Handling unexpected questions

So, let’s get started at the beginning. In my next post, The Absolute Basics.

If you are interested in my interview training service, please see here for more details.

However, one of the biggest problems MBA applicants seem to have is addressing concisely standard interview topics like leadership, teamwork, failures and personal accomplishments. They often resort to word-for-word recitations of their essays, which are guaranteed to be too long and reflect poorly on their real-time communication skills. In journalistic terms, these applicants can’t “kill their babies”, i.e., they can’t imagine telling their beloved stories in a different way. I’m here to tell you that you have to be merciless in shortening your stories in order to have an effective interview.

Journalists do this every day, when they write the first sentence in a breaking news story. Done well, that sentence should convey the importance and broad outline of an entire story, to be then filled in with supporting details. Transferring this technique to the world of MBA interviews, one-sentence stories can look like this:

“During a recent M&A transaction between two leading snack food companies, I successfully managed my overly-demanding client while fostering my subordinates’ growth by giving them unusual responsibilities, leading to a successful deal worth $100,000,000.”

“For ethical reasons, I gave up an enormous deal that could have been worth $1 Bln. because I knew the aircraft could not be delivered to the client on time.”

“After our merger, I had to rescue our technology integration talks through strong diplomacy, creative negotiations, and confident decision-making.”

“I had always been a lead rower on my college crew team, but after my injury I still wanted to contribute so I became a team manager, which taught me the difficulties and joys of playing a supporting role.”

These one-sentence stories should leave the interviewer hungry to know more. As an interviewee, you can have confidence that you’ve expressed your main points, before adding a few important details to round out your answer. The more you can master this technique, the more prepared you will be for all aspects of the interview. With some practice, you can even apply the one-sentence technique to your self-introduction and to your goals. 

If you are interested in learning more or working with me on interview training, including developing your one-sentence stories and applying them to a variety of interview situations, please click here or e-mail me directly.

bryan@elite-essays.com