By Adam Hoff, Amerasia Consulting Group
Time for another edition of Monday MBA Resource, where we share the things we are reading, watching, and listening to that might be helpful to people in the MBA community. Some are more focused on applicants, others are better for students, some for both - but all of them offer great insights that are worth soaking up.
First, we broke down the Knowledge @Wharton podcast and people seem to really be enjoying it. Then we analyzed one of my favorite articles in years: "Happy Ambition: Striving for Success, Avoiding Status Cocaine, and Prioritizing Happiness" by Ben Casnocha. Most recently, we addressed the The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox. Let's hope we can keep it up with this next entry, which is this blog post:
How to Prepare for and Rock a Behavioral Job Interview by Brett and Kate McKay.
WHO WROTE IT:
Brett and Kate McKay started the "Art of Manliness" blog back in 2008, which has turned into a full-scale industry with over 6 million hits a month on their website, a popular podcast, and more. They created the site as a response to what they felt was a lack of information about how to "grow up" and become a well-rounded person. The site may feel aimed at men (given the title), but there is great advice all over the place and I would recommend at least giving the podcast a listen.
Article about Brett and Kate McKay.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT:
This particular post is about a "behavioral interview" in the job space. Brett talks about the first time he faced down such a task and how different it was from the usual fluff interviews. He talks about why companies use them, the myriad questions you might face (his piece includes a link to over 100 behavioral questions), and how to structure a response. A lot of what he suggests mirrors the exact advice I give my MBA clients to prep them for their own behavioral interviews and I somehow found this more interesting and helpful because it was about job interviews (where the stakes usually feel even higher because there is often just one position), rather than the same tired info about MBA interviews that I see out there.
WHO IT BENEFITS:
Anyone doing a behavioral interview, obviously. As for the MBA crowd, it is going to be especially helpful to people going through their b-school interviews right now. Specifically:
- MIT Sloan candidates - MIT famously uses a behavioral approach to interviewing and this blog post is probably the best prep you could do for it.
- Other b-school candidates - Even schools that don't focus on behavioral will almost always get a few questions into the mix. Some do it on purpose, for the theoretical reasons covered in the post and some do it on accident, just seeing that those are "good interview questions." Either way, you are sure to see a few of these as you embark upon the MBA interview circuit.
If you are looking help with your applications, please email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com. We have seen what the competition is doing and we can say without a doubt that we go deeper, more strategic, and generate better results with our methods. Line up a call and find out for yourself.
