Hey everyone!
Here goes my interview experience for HEC.
I had submitted my application on 1st January and got a mail that I had been shortlisted for the interviews on 22nd January. My first interview was a face-to-face interview in New Delhi(which was my first preference) and the second one was a skype interview.
Interview #1On 23rd January, I received the contact details of my first interviewer, who is an alumnus of the school. I contacted him immediately and we finalized the date and time of our rendezvous. The interview was more like a regular conversation where you could discuss your plans and goals with the interviewer.
The main things discussed in this interview were:
1. Why HEC? Why not any other school?
(You will have to differentiate how HEC suits you better. Be prepared to answer why not INSEAD or LBS.)
2. Why MBA? And why now?
3. Mention 3 of your strengths which, in your opinion, no other HEC applicant would have.
4. How do you plan to finance your MBA?
5. Do you know anyone from HEC who is working on something similar to what you plan to do?
6. What will you do if you don't get selected this year?
7. How will you contribute to the program as a student and as an alumnus?
8. Which other schools have you applied to? Which one will you join if you get admitted to all of them?
(I told him about all the schools. Then I mentioned that my first preference was HEC.)
9. Give me three good reasons why you would choose HEC over these schools.
10. What in your current job has led you to pursue this goal?
11. Why do you think HEC can best help you achieve this? Can't you do this in ABC XYZ school too?
Although the interview was supposed to start with the presentation, we decided to keep it for later. So in the end, I gave my presentation which was about an upcoming technology in power generation. The main questions asked in the presentation were:
1. The most obvious one.... Why did you choose this topic?
2. Why do you believe this technology has a bright future?
3. Are there any countries/governments in support of this technology?
4. Some more questions related to costs involved and impact of this technology on the environment.
After the presentation I was given a chance to ask some questions to the interviewer. I cleared some doubts regarding the program and alumni network and wrapped up the interview on a good note.
Interview #2I received the details of my second interviewer on January 26th and got in touch with him immediately to schedule the date and time for the skype interview. After confirming the appointment, I also took the interviewer's skype ID and informed him that I will be initiating the call.
About an hour before initiating the call, I called up one of my friends and walked him through the presentation on skype to warm up for the interview. Then finally I made the call to the interviewer at the decided time.
After we both introduced each other, the interview started with the presentation. As it was a skype interview, I had already mailed the presentation slides to the interviewer. We opened the presentation on our laptops and then I took him through the entire presentation very smoothly. This interviewer was an expert on energy and power generation and asked me a lot of questions about how this technology would be better as compared to other upcoming technologies. We had a healthy discussion and the questions were not too technical. The interviewer took a lot of interest in the presentation as it was related to his field of work.
After the presentation we moved on to the next part of the interview process. The questions asked were similar to the ones asked in the first interview. The only new questions asked were:
1. Which student clubs do you plan to join and why?
2. Are you comfortable working with a cross cultural team?
3. At HEC you will be assigned to a team having people from various different nationalities and there will be people in your group who will not cooperate or do something that ticks you off. How will you handle such a situation?
The rest of the questions were quite similar to the first interview. This interview went very well as I was already prepared for all kinds of questions after my first interview.
This was my first ever interview on skype and I was a bit confused initially about how to prepare for it. However, I was able to nail it.
Also, I found this thread on skype etiquettes to be very helpful:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/skype-etiquette-125953.html