Thanks for the replies everyone. Here's my interview Recap: Maybe a lot more detail than you would want, but I had to email a friend from K who helped me so I'm just cut/pasting it here.
My K interview Recap:
We met at a SBUX, and I reached 15 mins early, to scope out the scene. He came at 6, and he still sat down saying it’s cold inside. I said I would be glad to move outside, if he wanted to. So we out and sat down. While sitting down he said, “So you’re applying to Kellogg?”. I said yes. (Had no clue what else to say!!). So he said, “Nice”, and there was an awkward moment of silence ~ 1.5 seconds and he was looking at me. I thought I should start a conversation and told him how I had looked up his profile on LinkedIn and saw he graduated in 2001. I told him I looked him up to see if we had any common interests….I had no clue what to do in this awkward silence so I took this path to start a conversation…don’t know if it was the right thing to do.
So anyway he then went off on a soliloquy about his past, when he graduated, what he did after that, why he moved from one city to other etc. after that he gave me a preview of how the I’view would be like…the structure etc.
Questions are as follows.
1. Walk me thru your resume, more info about why you moved company A to B, what were the challenges etc. I explained how our company was acquired by a Taiwanese company, so he asked how tough that transition was..
He was a techie guy so he kinda understood what I was talking about in my job description, etc. that helped.
2. my most significant professional accomplishment ((- I screwed up here..I mentioned a strategy that i executed which saved my company possible costs per chip - the good part...but then i blabbered something about making the transition from working in a 350 member team in X city to a 35 member team in Y city with more responsibility....totally unnecessary...and he even asked me, so why do you consider that significant..i crapped somethin about being 2 levels down from VP and the VP knowing me by name...REALLY DUMB and unnecessary...) I should have stopped with the first accomplishment, cos he seemed to think that was impressive.
3. my goals, - he asked how I had charted out my career path, and I told him I had talked to X,Y,Z sources.
4. why Kellogg, - I mentioned an alum he also knew, so some smalltalk there.
5. teamwork example where there was conflict/disagreement, - Could have done better – look below.
6. an instance of me motivating a team member to perform better, particularly in a 1-to-1 interaction...again I could have done better...needed some prodding from him to get to the point. Stinker !!
7. my community activities, - and what activity I am involved with right now.. I said none cos my work responsibilities have grown a lot.
That’s about it, and he asked me if I have questions. At that point I (again, I had to open my mouth), confirmed if that was all he had to know from me. He said usually it takes 10 questions to get that information from me but I gave him all the info in these Qs. I asked him why he chose Kellogg, what he gained the most from Kellogg, and how he would advise me to prepare for a Kellogg mba in the next 8-10 months
During the interview I weaved in the fact that I am re-applying and I was WL’ed last time, so at the end he said “hopefully this time it’ll be a happy ending”.
And at the end I said have a good day, when the time was 7pm !!! UGGGGHHHH.
From my Tuesday morning Q’backing, I think the pros were that he was an awesome listener…he took 4 pages of notes, on every minor detail(scary, cos I might have forgotten minor details on something and guesstimated), he kept saying things like “awesome, perfect, good” as I was narrating, and if I was not clear somewhere he asked me specifically about such things, which prevented me from rambling like an ass.
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Negatives: .I could’ve avoided saying moving from a bigger team to a smaller team and rising up to the challenge was an achievement. Really unnecessary !!! Also the teamwork and conflict Question, as I was answering, a loud set of people came out of SBUX and were really noisy, so I think both of us were distracted, and I lost my train of thought. I blabbered, and this is where he had to cut in and ask me some specific Qs to get to the point. Again…Could have done better.. Hopefully it doesn’t affect anything. Overall I'd say a 6.5/10. In hindsight I shouldve done better than the 6 hrs of preparation in 9 days. Was too complacent.
I’m glad it’s off my chest now. Good luck to everyone waiting and interviewing.
10 Nov 2009, 08:54
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