Latest INSEAD interview questions compilation
The detailed interview debriefs can found at this link https://gmatclub.com/forum/insead-201/i ... brief.htmlINSEAD Masters in Management(MiM)interview questions are here https://gmatclub.com/forum/compilation- ... l#p2744881
Interview questions
1. Walk me through your resume
2. Questions about the current role - Stakeholders, team size, work I do, KPIs I handle
3. Why switch from people manager to individual contributor
4. What would you do differently if you are now a people manager
5. What do you like about data (since I was a data scientist) - I think this could have led to MS vs MBA question had I not answered well 6. Why Product management and why an MBA
7. How was it working in a culturally diverse team. Any insights to share?
8. What would you do during your time at INSEAD?
9. How would you prioritize coping up with so many offerings at INSEAD?
10. Any other colleges you are applying to?
For QnA, I asked her about her INSEAD experience and her motivation for joining INSEAD. Overall a conversational interview with couple of probing questions.
The second interviewer works in a similar role I aspire to be post MBA, albeit in a very different industry. He was also slightly senior to me (about 17 years work ex). Again a cafe conversation. Even he had read my application. Questions as follows:
1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Why MBA and why INSEAD?
3. Which courses at INSEAD appeal to you?
4. What would you do if MBA does not work out (Natural career progression as well as what would you like to do)?
5. Why not directly venture into your long-term goal of starting your own venture immediately post MBA. Why wait?
6.. 1 year vs 2 year MBA
7. Tell me about your interests outside work?
8. How do you apply your learnings outside work in professional life?
9. Any geography in mind for a post-MBA job? Which company post your MBA?
10. Why not return to the old company again?
11. How is your leadership style?
12. Tell me about a time when there was a disagreement between you and your team. How did you handle it?
13. At the INSEAD MBA class group, what role do you foresee playing among your peer working group?
-Introduce myself
-Why MBA?
-Why INSEAD?
-Why Singapore?
-Which other school have you applied to?
-Goals?
-How do you deal with difficult situations?
She was very honest with her answers to my questions and I learned a few things about the period in the UAE.
At the end of the interview, I thought that I hadn’t done too well because my interviewer didn’t seem so much into what I was saying (not from the same industry at all) and didn’t smile so much. But I think that was down to cultural differences because when I asked for feedback, she was positive and said she enjoyed our conversation.
So don’t let your interviewer perceived reaction fool you and a good lesson to learn for a future at INSEAD, the business school of the world.
To prepare for the second interview, I had a chat with INSEAD alumni from my industry who gave me some tips to draw my interviewer into why my specific branch of the industry matters.
The second interview was with a more recent graduate from my industry, although a completely different branch and background. The interview was scheduled for 1h with 45minutes for the interview and 15minutes of Q&A.
-Walk me through your resume (many interruptions to ask why this choice, why this country, why this industry)
-Why MBA?
-Why now?
-Why INSEAD?
-Have you applied to other schools?
-Why to this specific school?
-What will INSEAD bring you?
-What will you bring to INSEAD?
-Which association do you want to join?
-Goals?
-Why your goals?
-Why stay within your industry?
-An example of leadership
-An example of dealing with a difficult decision
-What is your definition of diversity?
-How has your background influenced a decision you’ve made?
The first interview was very conversational. Questions included tell me about yourself, why an MBA, why now, why INSEAD, 3 strengths, and 3 weaknesses, long term goals, one cultural like and dislike based on my experience, tell me a time you faced a problem at work, about a time you showed leadership, greatest accomplishment, how you will balance school and social life at INSEAD. She seemed genuinely interested in my background and motivations and answered my questions about her experience very thoroughly.
The second interview even more casual. The interviewer shared the questions on the sheet that the interviewers have to fill out about candidates including questions like has this person shown growth and accelerated in their career, leadership capability, international motivations, how would this person handle the rigorous academics at INSEAD, would they make a good fit socially, etc. I answered his questions while he typed notes. He said he would go back and fill it all in later and his philosophy is that he shouldn’t stand in the way of people getting into the program so he would recommend me. We then spent the rest of the interview answering my questions and talking about his experience which was very candid about the pros and cons. I think we genuinely connected and he was helpful with discussing larger MBA and career considerations and said to let him know how the decision goes.
1) Did you experience any culture shock when you studied in the U.S.?
2) Why do you think an MBA will help you achieve your goal?
3) Why INSEAD?
4) Biggest failure?
5) Tell me more about your experience as a mentor in the internship programs of the investment banks
6) Tell me more about your involvement in volunteering work
7) Tell me what you love and hate about Investment Banking / Finance
8) Did you apply to any other schools?
The first interviewer is in the same field as me currently. We had a bit of a problem nailing the interview time due to her busy schedule. It started with some chit-chatting about the working-from-home arrangements for both of us. Then I spent the next 20 minutes telling my story from birth to where I am today, touching various aspects of life. She then asked me the standard questions:
- Which other schools have I applied to?
- Why only INSEAD?
- What if I didn't get in?
- How would I prepare myself and deal with the high-paced life in INSEAD?
We were left with only a couple of minutes for Q&A so I asked about her post-MBA career choice and how she has grown in INSEAD.
The second interviewer is from the industry that I want to go to post-MBA. We started more unstructured but we still cover the basic questions:
- Why MBA?
- Why INSEAD?
- Why now?
-about all of my transitions in my resume
-why business from engineering?
-why INSEAD? which campus?
-what is your day-to-day job?
-how do you differentiate your service from your competitor at your current company?
-how do you segment your customers?
-asked about my post-MBA goal
-what schools did you apply to and why?
-in a team setting what is your tendency? e.g. a leader, follower, etc
-if you don't get admitted what would you do this year?
-why do you want to leave your company given your current position? Why your manager would let you go?
In the end, I asked him a few questions and when I was done he mentioned that he would recommend me to the Adcom but that would be only his feedback and doesn't guarantee my admission.
My second interview was with female alumni, extremely casual, fun, and friendly. She only asked me one question and that was: tell me about yourself. While I was talking about my post mba goal and my extracurricular activities, we connected on one subject and the rest of the interview was about that subject. She wasn't even taking notes and it felt like a friendly chat. I truly enjoyed that conversation, I had a chance to ask all of my questions about insead, the culture, and everything. This one took about 45 minutes.
1. Walk me through your resume
2. Why did you launch your start-up after under-grad?
3. Why did you left your start-up after working for five years and moved to the United States?
4. Why Masters in Supply Chain?
5. Tell me some of the challenging aspects of your job?
6. What motivates me to go to my job every-day?
7. Walk me through your career progression in your current job?
8. Why do you want to leave your current job since you're progressing rapidly?
9. Tell me about a situation where I led or worked on a team in a cross-cultural setting?
10. What are your short-term and long-term goals?
11. Why can't you achieve them now without MBA?
12. Why INSEAD?
13. Why Singapore?
14. What would you do if you don't get selected?
15. How can you contribute to the class?
16. What would you do if you aren't selected?
17. What do you like to do outside of work?
Vietnamese national, live in France since 2009, 5 years of work experience in Hospitality and Tourisme
1st interview: French alum graduated >10 years, worked in Consulting after graduation than an entrepreneur in the Wine business.
After my contact email, he quickly replied in a very (too) casual tone, which was quite unexpected. The interview was on Zoom and went pretty well. We discussed it in French though.
We first talked a lot about the Covid crisis and how it had been impacting our respective activities/industries. Despite the casual and friendly tone, he weaved all the questions about my current job in the discussion.
In the "second" part of the interview, he told me about his journey before and after INSEAD, giving me some tips about financing and student life. And I've asked a lot of questions about his experience.
Only after that, we talked about me, mostly around the "Why MBA" question. Although the interview went well, I sensed that he wasn't convinced about my "Why MBA" answers and arguments.
I wrote him an email later that day with some more factual details on the arguments I had put forward but he replied only the following day saying that he acknowledged my email too late, and the "interview report" was sent to the school. He did tell me in the email that he really appreciated our discussion.
2nd interview: French alumna graduated about 10 years ago, located near my town so we had a 121 interview at a bar/coffee-shop near my house. Her career path after MBA was quite unusual... The interview was in English. She spent one hour only convincing me that the MBA is not a suitable choice for me and I should look into cheaper and shorter training from INSEAD (i.e executive classes) !!! After the interview, she even texted me and sent me a link to executive classes! I didn't know how to evaluate the interview afterward.
The first alumnus worked in a different industry than me. First, he made me comfortable and we had a casual chat for a few mins. He was based out of Singapore, so told me about the situation there and asked me about the same in India. He had gone through my application and resume, and so asked me to clarify a few things mentioned there.
Major Questions:
How have you grown in your workplace?
Elaborate on your international experience?
How do you demonstrate leadership?
What are your short-term and long-term goals?
Why MBA? Why INSEAD?
Why 1-yr vs traditional 2-yr (Since I am on the young side with 3 yrs exp)?
Singy or Fonty?
We talked about his career (he had dual MBA - i.e. one in India and then in INSEAD), career advice, industry trends and etc. It lasted around 60 minutes.
************************************************************************
My second interview with an alumna was again very casual. She had a sort of a checklist.
First was a long conversation on my resume (about 15 mins). She asked me about almost each and every position/work I had done in detail.
Then she spent about 15 mins asking me about my story. Basically connecting the dots from undergrad, pre-MBA, MBA-school, and then post-MBA.
How it all made sense?
How have you evolved?
Your realizations?
Major Questions:
Why MBA? Why INSEAD?
What other schools are you applying to?
Give me an example of Leadership?
Give me an example of Conflict?
Singy or Fonty?
Long-term/Short-term goals?
Drilled downed a bit on my short-term goals.
Questions included --
How will you manage conflicts with others?
How confident are you to speak for yourself in international settings? (English is my second language)
How do you demonstrate leadership?
Long-term goal.
Why MBA now?
Singy or Fonty?
We talked about his school life, career advice, industry trends and etc. It lasted around 100 minutes.
***
My second interview with an alumna was more formal. I could feel she had a checklist to go through. After some chats, she then jumped in questions.
Questions included --
Tell me about yourself.
Why MBA.
Why INSEAD? What other schools are you applying to?
Give me an example of teamwork.
How can you contribute?
Singy or Fonty?
1st interviewer is a female and she is a start-up founder
My session lasted around 40~50 minutes before we talk about her INSEAD experience.
We warmed up with basic questions, such as:
- Self-introduction
- Why MBA?
- Why INSEAD?
- Long term and short term goal
- I also talked about my extra-professional activities in the introduction; therefore, this lady raised some more questions about my extra-professional activities, such as: What do I do, How often, Why did I choose such activities, How many hours a week I spend for each?
- Challenges I faced when working with team members locating in different countries. I guess she had this question because most of my international WE is to work with a team whose members scatter around the globe.
- The last question was about my long-term career goal and it was the hardest one. I think it is only for me so don't worry too much.
I think that all of us should think about our career goal carefully, not only what the goal is but also how to make it come true, how it can serve the society, what will you say/work/recommend then. The alumni can raise a lot of questions about that to understand how INSEAD can support us.
I didn't ask for her feedback as a lot of alumni said the interviewer will try to be neutral. That's why I spent my time to chit chat with this lady because I am interested in start-ups.
2nd interviewer is a male and he is the Head of Sales of a French company.
Question list:
- Self-introduction
- Go through my resume and what did I do in each position?
- My learning point when I worked with client ABC (a very specific question) and what I enjoyed the most?
- Any challenge that I can foresee when I am in an INSEAD study group and what will I do to solve it?
- My plan between Fonty campus and Singy campus
- What is my contribution to INSEAD?
Although the number of questions is less than the 1st interviewer's, he went into details and linked back to my application form. I guess he spent the time going through my application before the interview. It took me also ~40 mins to finish before we discussed INSEAD life.
Luckily, my interviewer gave me his feedback about how suitable I am with INSEAD at the end of the session. I don't know how often it happens but maybe you guys can try with your interviewer
. Of course, he managed my expectation that he can't decide my result but he will give the Committee his positive feedback. Yayyy. I regretted that I did not ask my 1st interviewer
. Anyway, I can't do much now.
First was with a younger alumnus who graduated just a few years back.
After a short introduction from his side and small talk, these were the interview points:
- Give me a comprehensive story of who you are, including professional life, personal life, interests, goals, etc. (I gave the cv walkthrough from high school to date, tied my interests with what I said in the essays, talked a bit about what I like to do to relax (nothing extraordinary, just don't say that you play videogames 7 hours per day or something like that)).
- A challenging moment of your life (not necessarily professional life) and how did that change you, what did you learn.
- Some more insight about something I wrote in my essays.
- What kind of leader are you.
- How do you handle conflict.
- Was there a situation when you had to bring together different points of view without upsetting anybody, how did you manage the situation.
- Why X campus, why do you want to do X post MBA, long-term plan.
- Why Insead, what other schools did you apply for and how is the application going.
- Why do you think you would fit into Insead culture.
- Tell me a travel story (I put travel as one of my interests on the app).
- Other random chat about what I said.
- Questions from my side about him and about the school.
All very friendly, we had some laughs, shared some stories from our lives.
The second interview with a senior alumnus who graduated 10+ years back.
Also very friendly and open, gave me an intro about who he is, his professional life story, his time at Insead.
- Walk me through your cv.
- A time you failed in your profession, how did you solve the problem, what did you learn, how did your boss react, how did your relationship with him change after that event.
- Why Insead, why X campus, why you want to do X after the MBA.
- Other applications?
- Situation when you had to manage a conflict in your job.
- Situation when you had to convince someone with a different opinion to agree with your proposition.
- Questions from my side about him and his time at Insead.
My first interview was yesterday and it lasted for about 30 min.
The interviewer was from the class of 2003, so I think he has experience doing these interviews and he knew exactly what he was going to ask.
I sent my application and my CV to him early, but it was a good thing that I brought a printed version for the interview. He used both in the conversation and asked me to keep the printouts.
We chatted a little bit about how loudly the place was and then we got down to business.
He asked me to walk him through my CV from college to my current job. He stopped me several times to understand all my experiences in more detail.
Then he asked a couple of questions:
• Why I decide on the major I did?
• Tell me about an important project that you did since you started working in the US? (I’m Brazilian and I was transferred to the US in 2018)
• What do you want to do after business school? – (I also used this space to answer why INSEAD).
The first interview was two weeks ago and was incredibly chilled out and conversational. We started by me talking about my current job and from there we kind of backtracked to what got me where I am today. The interviewer also really dug into how I think I will fit into the INSEAD culture and what will I focus on while there. Really, it felt like a conversation with an acquaintance. He continually followed up with questions to get a better understanding of why I want to do this. We concluded with him telling me about his own experience at INSEAD. Overall, a very positive experience. It lasted 1.5 hours.]
The second interview felt more formal. It started with a "tell me about yourself starting from your childhood", followed by Why MBA, Why INSEAD, how will I manage my time at INSEAD, etc. It was also conversational but felt less casual than the first one. It lasted about an hour. I couldn't judge if the interviewer liked chatting with me or not, but I tried my best to answer all their questions.
My second interview was with a 2002 alumni. He was super friendly and at all times it felt like a casual conversation more than an interview.
He asked about my work, and what I did, sounding more interested and curious rather than "testing me". He asked why MBA, why now, where do you see yourself 5 years after the MBA, what is your plan if you don't get in. I think it was smooth and friendly. it lasted an hour
My first interview was pretty relaxed in a Starbucks. I guess there are not many alumni in my country so we didn't share any kind of background.
The interviewer was serious at first - she had read my resume and application so she had specific questions about my stories, mainly asking me to add more details to things that had caught her attention. She asked about my job experience, my goal, a challenging story, and my failure.
She asked me why an MBA, why INSEAD. She asked me how I pictured myself in the first 5 years after INSEAD and given all countries, I traveled to and lived in, what could I contribute to INSEAD's diversity.
We then had a chat in English (my resume said I have learned French by myself so she asked me more details about that) and then it was my turn to ask questions. We ended up chatting for a while afterward and she gave me some tips for the program. It lasted around 75 minutes.
Just had my first alumni interview with an alum from 2004, and was quite tonally different from other school interviews. He definitely grilled me on all my answers and seemed like he really wanted to understand my reasoning rather than just accept the answers I had. It was a great learning experience for sure. It was quite conversational, with questions building on my previous answers, but the rough topics covered were:
He'd also really done his research on my background so lots of questions were company-specific.
1. Tell me about yourself/run me through your resume
2. Why MBA, why now
3. What drew you to INSEAD
4. Explain your day to day -> it was a bit muddled but he basically covered:
- teamwork
- leadership - how do you normally take charge, what are some examples. went back to college days and asked about teamwork from the engineering perspective.
- conflict resolution (do you get pushback when you take charge, vertically or laterally in the company) followed by do you think this is the best way to resolve conflicts
5. What are the pros and cons of working in a small company (I work in a company of 14 people)?
6. if the MBA doesn't work out, then what? Why do you feel like you need an MBA when marketing consultancy or other jobs dont require them.
7. Why not a US 2 year program?
8. Why Fonty over Singapore?
close
17 Mar 2021, 06:32
