The London Business School 2010 thread

Thank you bsd_lover and Evidence.
Again, very helpful.
Cheers to the spirit of community.

I have received the alumnus contact info, too.
The email is a hotmail account, hope he/she can read my email from tons of junks in hotmail...

I have my interviewer detail. Will be mailing soon for scheduling.

My interviewer's profile seems totally different from mine when compared with my current experiences or future interests. The only common thing is that he is an enterpreneuer, which is a long term goal for me, though in completely unrelated sectors.

How do others have wrt interviewers ?

Quite the opposite here. My interviewer has a VERY similar profile. Same undergrad, same post-MBA career, similar industry interests, he has been to a country exchange program which I'm very keen on! Since he is in my undergrad, I could facebook him. Seemed like a good thing at first, before I realized he could do the same. Meeting him middle of this week, but yet to finalize.

hi humblewinner, my case is similar to yours - my interviewer seems to have a completely different profile to mine, both in terms of my career to date and post-MBA goals. I was a little surprised as being based in London I thought they would easily find alumni in my sectors of interest. Seems like that is not necessarily a requirement then?

My interviewer is currently working in the same industry sector, but his nationality and education major are totally different from me. His several previous jobs are not in the same sector.

Got my interview invite as well - at least I reached the same point as last time I did this little dance. Best of luck to everyone.

Many congrats gnr - I am rooting for you. I remember last time you applied was the same time as I applied. Best of luck ...

Hello bsd_lover/prashok,

This is a question regarding the presentation. Is this part usually a monolgue speech by the interviewee or does it tend to go conversational. 5 mins of speech time is actually very longgg .

I am sure they won't be atleast timing it!!

Thank you

Not sure what the standard format is, but mine was very structured. My interviewer chose from his list of topics, then left me alone for five minutes so that I could prepare. After the preparation, my interviewer returned and I presented my answer for five minutes. There is some conversation, but for the five minutes it is mostly you speaking. However, during the preparation phase, you can also create tables/charts/etc. to reference as you present (this isn't necessary, though).

Five minutes may seem long, but I actually went over to the point where the interviewer had to stop me...

[quote="bsd_lover"]Many congrats gnr - I am rooting for you. I remember last time you applied was the same time as I applied. Best of luck ...[/quote]

Thanks bsd - appreciate it. Here's to hoping two more years of WE, a trip to the school, and better recs make a difference.

Just came back from my interview.

thanks bsd_lover for the tips. Also, if there is an argument would it make sense to make arguments for and against the issue (if it is possible) or would that be considered a sign of indecisiveness.

how was your experience !! good luck..

hard to read, and the interviewer told me he was not allowed to give any feedback.
even when I asked him how long I did for the presentation. But I totally understand.
But, he is a very nice guy. Just like all the other LBS students I have contacted.

zeayin82, thanks for this and good luck!

can you tell us a bit about how the interview actually went? length? type of questions? any surprises? tough questions? anything else might be helpful for us with interviews coming up?

thanks very much and good luck again!

I just got done with my interview last night as well. I could not get a read on the interviewer at all, so I'm really not sure how I did. I thought it was ok, but could have been better.

The interview time was 8pm. I offered to meet at his hotel lobby, as I figured I didn't want to be bound by the operating hours of a cafe. My interview ended up being 2 hours long, and I didn't even cover a key EC during this time! By no means is a longer interview a better interview, it's the quality. I think where I went wrong was whacking around the bush at the start and not being very concise in my answers. I figured, ah this is a long interview, I can take my time answering - don't do this!

The interviewer was nice and brought me to back on track a couple of times. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the interviewer and I had a lot in common - same undergrad, similar career goals and post-MBA location preference (Asia). He said he would be taking lots of notes, but I don't think he wrote as much as I thought he would. We had good eye contact. All in all, he was a very nice guy.

He did not ask me any difficult questions. I had prepared extensively for industry specific questions, but no questions on that front. He asked the usual, tell me about yourself, why do you intend to leave your current field, why Asia, why LBS, leadership story, leadership style, a time when you had to win the support of someone, weaknesses (come prepared with at least 2 that you can address because I was asked the weakness question twice in a different format). I talked at length about my current industry, why I wanted to leave (both push and pull factors) and where I want to go.

After about 1h20min, it was time for the impromptu presentation. I was very intimidated by this part of the interview process going in. I had prepared as much as I could by searching for questions asked in prior years online, and doing some mock presentations. I recommend you do the same, it will really help. The interviewer himself recommended that I do the following when I present my case (i) state your stand, (ii) define your structure, (iii) reflect how this affects you. I think I did an OK job with the presentation, not great.

One thing I was surprised to learn was the the interviewer has access to your entire application file, not just your essays and resume. My interviewer had even read the recommendations. I didn't think they had access to recommendations, not that it makes any difference to me at least.

After the presentation, he asked me if I had any questions. I could ask him really detailed questions because of our similar interests/background and got some great advice from him.

I sent him a thank you note and he was nice enough to reply to it - I never expect replies from my Thank-You notes!

I guess I'm done with the application process, everything is out of my hands now. All I can do is wait on the sidelines and pray that things go well.

Good luck to others who have their interviews coming up, I hope this short summary was useful.

Kudos stopper5 -- great debrief!

Don't worry too much about gauging the interview -- I thought I aced my interview at INSEAD and was mediocre for LBS, but I ended up getting waitlisted at INSEAD and in at LBS! Some interviewers can be very formal as well (i.e. won't give feedback, etc.) so that may not reflect your interview performance either.

Good luck!

I think most of the topics are designed to be one-sided, so it is hard to argue for both. However, it may be worth it to discuss the opposing arguments, but then try to refute them (to show that you acknowledge the opposition). As with the GMAT AWA, it is presumably better to pick one side than to try for both.

stopper5 - that was really useful! thanks so much for sharing your experience.

kudos.

must be a relief to be finally all done! best of luck!