piquant777 wrote:
I have also been invited to interview, R2. I checked back to R1 in the thread but didn't really see interview advice...the ClearAdmit Wiki has been helpful though in looking at past questions.
One question I had was about the standard "Walk me through your resume." Is that seriously all they ask, and then leave it to you to answer however you like? Are you supposed to just pick 3-4 things that stand out in your experience and highlight them for the interviewer? Or are they going to ask you about certain items on the resume themselves? In other words, how much control do you usually get over this section?
Thanks!
My interview started with the "walk me through" along with the note that they're most interested in
transitions, why you made the choices you did, etc. In essence, they want to hear about the white space in between each position on your resume. Rather than a recitation of your resume like "at company X I achieved Y in Z, which boosted A by B percent," they're looking more for "After working at Company X for a couple of years, I found myself getting really interested in Y, so I began to look for opportunities to orient my career toward Z."
After that part, which had a couple minor follow-up questions but was mainly me telling the story, I got the "why MBA" question and the "what have you done to prepare for an MBA" question (that one is legit because I come from a Humanities undergrad). Though it's a blind interview, the interviewer had clearly been given some areas to zoom in on. For example, I currently work in a family business in a somewhat niche industry. Post-MBA I'd like to come back to that industry in a different capacity at a different level. My interviewer probed a bit further on "Why MBA" than she would have in most cases because it's a good question: my industry isn't one where an MBA is compulsory, so can't I just basically network my way up? Why an MBA, and specifically why a
Yale MBA? Solid question, and it gave me a chance to tag some of my "why Yale" bases (SOM happens to be exceedingly well-suited to my niche industry). She also asked me for an anecdote involving teamwork, since there's a lot of leadership and personal drive stuff on my resume but fewer examples highlighting how I work in a group. All this indicates to me that she had some notes in front of her written by someone who had been through my file, even if she hadn't read it herself.
Also, I don't think my interviewer timed me, or if she did she was very discreet about it. I do remember noticing that we ran a bit long (35 or 40 minutes, when everything I had read was that on-campus interviews are 30 minutes on the dot), though we did spend at least 5 minutes at the end chit-chatting about life in New Haven.