The B-School Interview
Our heart skips a beat and excitement peaks as you get that much awaited call to the final stage of the process of selection to a Business School – the personal interview! Reaching this stage has not been easy; tremendous effort and hard work went into your preparation for the written test and group discussion. And at this final stage you just cannot afford to falter.
So what does a personal interview at a B-School demand of you? Understanding yourself! The panelists have made their assessment of your quantitative and verbal skills and also your analytical abilities from your written test scores; through the group discussion, they have analysed your group behavioural patterns. Now it is time for you to have a tête-à-tête with those who are veterans in the industry and know what being a manager is all about.
Personal interview plays a critical role in the selection process of a B-School. Some of the areas you may be evaluated on in personal interviews are:
- Communication skills
- Reasoning ability
- Leadership skills
- Initiatives
- Assertiveness
- Flexibility
- Nurturing ability
- Creativity
- Ability to think on one’s feet
- Ability to receive and give constructive criticism
- Stress management
- Ability to take risks
- Ability to motivate oneself
- Time, resource and priority management skills
So what do you need to do to prepare for this interview? Have you done any soul-searching? If not then it is time you embarked on it right away. Build on your self-esteem and confidence. This includes listing your strengths and weaknesses, your accomplishments and achievements, reviewing your strong and your weak subjects, and recording some of the key decisions you have made in your life.
As if that wasn’t hard enough, you should also review your interests, the disappointments you’ve encountered, your work environment likes/dislikes, your business and personal values, your goals, needs, restrictions, and life style preferences.
Answer the questions given below to review all that you need to know about yourself before you go for the interview:
- Who are you?
- How well do you know yourself?
- What are your weaknesses, fears, innermost strengths and desires?
- What are you good at?
- Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
- Would you compromise your values for your career growth?
- What do others think about you?
Remember that the objective of the interviewer is to find out as much about you as he can. And you cannot expect to convince him unless you have a clear perception of yourself. Jot down all the answers to the above questions before you proceed to face an interview. The answers lie within you.
The broad areas that are discussed during a Personal Interview in a B-School are:
- Technical
- Job/Work Experience
- Hobbies
- General Awareness
- Career Goals
- Personality
Apart from the technical area, which would require you to go back to your books and brush up on certain facts and figures, and the discussion on general awareness, for which you need to read the newspapers everyday, the rest of the interview is all about yourself. The first step is to have an opinion about yourself! For an MBA you have to be introspective! Our opinion of ourselves critically influences everything that we do and everything that we are, right from our accomplishments in life to our relationship with others.
In case you are employed or were recently employed, you also need to have an in-depth understanding of not just the company where you worked but also the industry to which it belonged. Get an understanding of:
- Size of the industry
- Growth rate of the industry
- Other players of the industry
Make sure that your understanding of your company is not limited to your job profile but also to such areas as:
- Products and services
- Customers
- Competitors
- Philosophy
- History
- Recent News
- Financial information including salary and stock
It is important for you to keep in mind that you have the power to lead the interviewer. In an interview focus on areas you wish to discuss and ensure that you hit the nail on it in the early part of the discussion. For example, if you are a person who has some experience in an NGO or any other social enterprise, you must wrest the right opportunity and discuss it with the due amount of passion.
Never try to hide or pretend in order to impress your interviewer. Remember the story of the executive who put on a mask to impress his guest? A young executive who suffered from low self-esteem was sitting at his desk. There was a knock on the door. To show how important and busy he was, he picked up the phone and then asked the visitor to come in. As the man waited for the executive, the executive kept talking on the phone, nodding and saying, “No problem, I can handle that.” After a few minutes he hung up and asked the visitor what he could do for him. The man replied, “Sir, I’m here to connect your phone.” The panelists have been interviewing hundreds and thousands of candidates and they will easily see through you. Pretensions, lies, giving oneself a false sense of importance indicate poor self-esteem. Do not indulge in it during a personal interview.
Some of the Personal Interview questions you could be asked are:
- Tell me a joke.
- Why should we select you?
- What are your strongest abilities?
- How do your skills relate to our needs?
- What are you looking for?
- What would you like to know about our course/institute?
- Tell me something about yourself?
- What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses?
- Where do you want to be in 5 years?
- Which is your dream company?
- Where did you grow up?
- What does success mean to you?
- What does failure mean to you?
- What are your three major accomplishments?
- If I were your recruiter and told you that you’d work very hard, but recognition of your contributions would be nil?
- What have you disliked in your past jobs?
- What kinds of people do you enjoy working with?
- What kinds of people frustrate you?
- In the past year, what have you been dissatisfied about in your performance?
- What is your ideal job?
- What can you tell me about your past bosses?
- Which is more important to you: money or the type of job?
- What have you learned from your activities?
- Were your extracurricular activities worth the time you put into them?
- What qualities should a successful manager possess?
- Which two attributes are the most important in your life?
- What major problem have you encountered and how did you deal with it?
- What have you done that you consider creative?
- Who do you admire? Why?
- Why are you interested in our institute?
- What interests you about our institute?
- What do you get passionate about?
- What would you like to specialise in?
- Why did you choose this B-school over others?
- Have you ever managed a conflict? How?
- Describe to me a recent (marketing campaign / finance deal) you liked.
- What concerns you about our B-School?
- What are the most important attributes of a good manager?
- Do you have these attributes (of a good manager)?
- What stocks do you recommend? Why?
- Where are interest rates going in the next 3 months?
- How many new highs did the Sensex reach last year?
Just as in all other interviews, you may be given an opportunity to ask a question. Make sure that you use that opportunity, as asking questions suggests you have the curiosity to know more. Keep all such questions ready with you. Read in detail about the institute and the programme you are applying for. That not only enables you to articulate how your goals and qualifications match what the programme has to offer, but also helps you to ask important and intelligent questions. Make sure that your questions are short and do not appear to have been asked just for the sake of it.
To conclude, make a mental note of the following as things that are to be scrupulously avoided during your interview:
- Do not keep quiet if you are asked the oft - repeated “Would you like to ask us something?”
- Never show an inability to take criticism.
- Do not appear shabbily dressed.
- Do not show indecisiveness, cynicism or laziness.
- Do not appear to be an overbearing, aggressive, “know-it-all.”
- Never be late for an interview.
- Do not overemphasise money as your reason for doing an MBA.
Finally, always remember that an interviewer develops an impression of you in the first few minutes of your meeting and spends the rest of the interview confirming, not altering, their initial impression. So create a good first impression and live up to the image created.
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