BSeasoned
Huh..done with the video essay.. but i couldn't understand what kind of skills they are evaluating through this part of the application.. Even the instructions don't talk anything about looking for certain skills.. I dont think a great business leader or a community leader necessarily needs to give 20 second replies...all the decisions and statements in the business world are always well prepared and properly thought through.
I disagree. Business leaders need to be able to come up with responses on the fly all the time. Imagine you're Tim Cook and you're attending various interviews, investor calls, meetings, etc. There's absolutely no way you could be prepared for every single potential question. A lot of the questions will catch you by surprise and you need to be able to answer them and represent your brand / company on the spot.
This is not just a Tim Cook level skill, but a skill that is important for all levels of managers and leaders.
True. But situations you are talking about come with properly set context. Besides, real in-person interviews replicate such situations anyway. Interviewer can always ask unexpected random questions and check your ability to respond even without having 20 seconds for preparation. My only point is I didn't understand what ADDITIONAL skills the video round evaluates. The ability to give impromptu response is something that gets checked anyway in the real interviews. The only possible reason i see as indicated in one of the responses above is that adcoms want to see us in person. but if thats the only reason, they could have asked us to just introduce ourselves in a minute or something.