Complete set of Full-time MBA Interview Questions

Question

Undergrad 1. Why did you choose your undergraduate major?
2. Why course X at college Y?
3. Why did you choose to attend  ?
4. Tell me the key highlights of your undergraduate time.
5. Tell me about a standout academic experience.
6. What was your favourite class in college?
7. Which subjects did you find most challenging and which ones did you find most difficult?

Career Progression 1. Why did you take your first job?
2. Discuss your career progression
3. Walk me through your professional career. 
4. Significant accomplishments in your career
5. Tell me an important thing that you learned from your work and school experiences.
6. How did you choose your job after college?
7. Tell me a decision you made in your career you wish you could have done differently.
8. What challenges do you think you will face as you move through this career path?
9. What would be your dream job (if you had no considerations for money etc.)?
10. Explain your career path to date; why did you choose the jobs you have had?

Current Job / Work Experience  1. Explain what your company does in plain language
2. Tell me what you do in your daily job
3. What kinds of issues do you deal with day-to-day?
4. Tell me about your job. How is your most recent project going?
5. What is your legacy at your job going to be?
6. Who is your mentor at work?
7. How do you work with people from different cultures?
8. Cultural awareness and questions about working in different cultures?
9. How many people have worked for you (juniors), in what capacity and how did you manage them?
10. Why are you good at your job? Why aren’t you?
11. What do you do at work?
12. What do you/don’t you like regarding your job?
13. What exactly do you do at your current job, how is the group structured, do you have any direct reports?
14. Tell me a time you made/influenced a change to an organization / business / team.
15. What would your global experience add to  ?
16. Take me through an interesting project you have worked on recently.
17. What do you like about your job? What do you NOT like about your job?
18. Describe a time that you disagreed with your boss 
19. If I promoted you today at your job, what change would you implement? 
20. Take me through an interesting project you have worked on recently.
21. What would you do to improve your company (pretend you've been promoted)?
22. Describe a typical work day
23. What is most frustrating at work?
24. Walk me through your resume
25. Tell me about a situation from a professional career where you have worked with a diverse set of people. What are the challenges and learnings?
26. Why did you decide to change your job?
27. Which three words your colleague may use to describe you?

Why MBA?  1. Why are you applying to business school?
2. Do you think you could achieve what you want without an MBA?
3. What brought you here? (applying for business school)
4. Why the MBA? Why now?
5. Why an MBA even though you majored in business for undergrad?
6. Backup plan if I don’t get in
7. What are some weaknesses in your skills you’d like to strengthen with an MBA?
8. Concrete skills I'm looking to get out of an MBA
9. What is your ideal position after MBA?
10. For an entrepreneur: Why do you want to leave your business (even though it’s a profitable venture) and Why come to  ?
11. Plan B if I do not get recruited in the company I want? 
12. Why are you interested in a general MBA program?
13. What specific skills do you want to get out of this program?
14. With all of your experience, why do you need an MBA?
15. When did you realize that you wanted to go to business school, and why?
16. Why do I want to leave my current company(in other words, why an MBA now)

Why School?  1. Why does this school appeal to you?
2. What criteria do you have for selecting B schools? (Give me 3 points) 
3. What if you get selected to all the schools in which you have applied?
4. What does   mean to you?
5. How has your past experiences or qualities prepared you for  ?
6. Have you thought of other schools?
7. Where else have you applied and what was the result?
8. How many schools are you applying?
9. Why not just stay in India and do a one year MBA from ISB? Won’t that be easier? (This was asked to an Indian applicant applying to a 2-year full time MBA program in US)
10. What activities do you plan on being involved with at  ?
11. Which clubs are you interested in  ?
12. What classes do you plan to take?
13. How will you contribute to  ?
14. Which other MBA programs you had applied to? (Why are you not applying to school X)?
15. Do you have any particular classes or professors in mind? 
16. Are there any professors you know of at  ?
17. Have I spoken to alumni and / or current students and who are they? (He didn’t care about names rather how do I know them, etc.)
18. What would be your legacy be at  
19. What do you think of  ]?
20. How do you select a B-school?

Other MBA Topics 1. Has the application process helped you reflect?
2. If you wanted the admissions committee to know one thing that you didn’t feel like you could convey in your application, what would you want me to tell them?
3. What’s changed since you submitted your application, or tell me about something you’re proud of.
4. You are one of a large pool of applicants. What differentiates you?
5. What do you think should be the criteria of selection for the MBA class? 
6. Why do you want to be in senior executive role?
7. Would you have any regrets if the market tanked next year and you were unable to get a premier job?
8. What part of the MBA program will you struggle with most?
9. Activities at SCHOOL you would participate in. What you can bring to them?
10. What do you think will be your biggest challenge at SCHOOL?
11. What will be the biggest challenge for you in adjusting to life at SCHOOL? 
12. What do you see yourself doing for your summer internship after your first year?
13. What do you specifically have to bring to the classroom versus the many others who have done XXX career?
14. What would you uniquely add to the class? 
15. What do you think the risks are for SCHOOL if we admit you? 
16. What would you do if not accepted?
17. The 60-second elevator pitch

Personal Characteristics  1. Tell me who you are.
2. Discuss yourself
3. Tell me about a time when you made an improvement.
4. Example of time when you felt effective.
5. Describe a time in which you had to adapt.
6. Describe your learning style
7. What do you look for in a classmate?
8. What is it that drives you?
9. How did I prioritize when I have to do or choose among many things?
10. What is an activity you are involved in? Why is it important to you?
11. What are some strengths you have that will help your future endeavors?
12. What are your weaknesses?
13. Tell me something surprising about yourself
14. Name three words or phrases to describe yourself to others
15. What contributions would you make to a group?
16. What do you do to relieve stress?
17. It's two years after graduation, what three words would your team members use to describe you?
18. How would co-workers describe you? / 3 words that your boss/colleague/juniors describe you
19. What are some positive things your coworkers would say about you?
20. What are some negative things your coworkers could possibly say about you?
21. After your first semester at  , what would your study group teammates say about you? (One positive and one negative)
22. A book I'd recommend that I've read recently.
23. Name three qualities that do NOT describe you
24. What distinguishes you from others?
25. What are people most surprised to learn about you?
26. How comfortable are you speaking up in front of large groups of people?
27. Why do you think you are successful at what you do?
28. Misconception about you/first impressions 
29. If you could write a book on anything what would it be on?
30. What kind of books do you like to read?
31. What are your extracurricular interests?
32. What makes you unique? 
33. On a scale of to 1 to 10, compared to your peers, rank yourself in analytical ability. In drive? In confidence? In being better than people?
34. How do you think you are as a contributor to the community?
35. What do you like to do in your free time outside of work?
36. What is a compliment you’ve heard about yourself in a work setting that you are particularly proud of?
37. If you had one superpower, what would it be?
38. Tell me about a Quality that people misjudge about you. How did you feel when you got to know about it? What did you do to address it?
39. How have you prioritized multiple projects when you were pressed for time?

Career Aspirations  1. What do you want to do (in regard to business function, industry, and location)?
2. What excites you about the field you are interested in?
3. Describe your career aspirations 
4. What are the career steps you see after  ?”
5. Do you know what consulting companies look for while hiring candidates? (Had mentioned consulting as post-MBA goal) 
6. What are your long- and short-term goals? Why?
7. What goals have you been working toward either personally or professionally in the past 1-2 years?
8. Talk about experiences you have had at work.
9. Discuss any experience you have had abroad.
10. How were your experiences in  ?
11. What challenges do you think you will face as you move through this career path?
12. How you will accomplish your career goals?
13. What is your goal in 3, 5 years time?
14. What strategic issues would you want to tackle if you were running a company in your chosen field?
15. What do you NOT want to do?

General Leadership  1. How do you define success?
2. How are you a leader in your job
3. What is your leadership style? 
4. How do you show leadership at work? 
5. Is Leadership and Management the same?
6. How would you describe your leadership style; collaborative or direct?
7. What are the pros/cons of your style? 
8. What leader in history do you admire most?
9. What makes someone a leader?
10. What are the qualifications of a good leader?
11. How do you motivate someone?
12. What are your strengths and weaknesses as a leader?

Leadership Stories  1. Tell me about a time you helped someone else succeed.
2. Tell me about a time you helped someone else develop
3. An inspiring leader and why?
4. Give examples of how you have demonstrated leadership inside and outside the work environment
5. Time when you've been challenged as a leader and what you learned from it.
6. Give an example of leadership that you didn't discuss in your essays 
7. Tell me about a specific situation in your professional career where you solved an important problem.
8. Tell me about a time when you exhibited leadership.
9. How had your leadership style evolved from Position X through today?
10. Give a leadership example outside of work, after college.
11. Tell me about a leadership experience that you did not mention in your essays.
12. Since submitting your application, how have you continued to take leadership roles? 
13. What would your colleagues say are your strengths and weaknesses as a leader?
14. Give me your leadership resume, starting when you feel is appropriate and demonstrating your growth as a leader.
15. Give an example of when you took the initiative.
16. Give another example of a situation in which you showed leadership in the face of adversity.
17. Tell me about a decision you have faced, not that you necessarily regret but I am more interested in the decision point.
18. If you had a Zoom call line for an hour with any leader, who would you choose and what would you discuss with them?
19. Tell me about a time where you were not given leadership by choice but had to assume ?

Lessons Learned 1. What did you learn from experience XYZ (that was discussed in my essays) 
2. Tell me about a time you had to deal with conflict in the workplace 
3. Time when you've been challenged as a leader and what you learned from it.

Team Environment  1. Have you worked in a team environment? What were your contributions to the effort?
2. How would you begin working with a new team?
3. What would you do if a team member wasn't pulling his own weight?
4. How do you work in teams?
5. Can you tell me about a time someone disagreed with you or you didn’t get along with a team member?
6. What are the top 5 things you look for in a team?
7. What would your colleagues miss least about you? 
8. What would be the greatest strength/weakness that you would bring to a group (i.e. learning team)?
9. What role do you usually take in a team setting?
10. When did you lead a team? What is the hardest part of leading a team
11. Tell me about how you manage teams
12. How do you create accountability and create a strong team?
13. Tell me about a leadership experience where you had to depend upon another person/other people for success
14. Give an example of when you had to lead people?
15. Tell me about an incident where you did something innovative or were a catalyst of change. How did you get others on board?

Challenging Situation  1. Tell me about a time you’ve received criticism. 
2. Tell me about a time you saw an opportunity someone else didn’t? Sometime you had to get buy-in from someone for your idea? when others weren’t accepting your idea?
3. Tell me about a time you had to deal with two conflicting parties.
4. How do you typically communicate bad news?
5. Tell me about a time you felt blocked from achieving a goal and how you reacted.
6. Tell me about a time you had to change someone’s mind?
7. Describe a situation where you brought an idea forward, and it failed.
8. Talk about a time you encountered a problem you had to overcome.
9. Time when a leader fell short and you had to step up and lead.
10. Time when you wanted to give up and how you motivated yourself to keep going.
11. Tell me about a time when you had to interact with people in a difficult situation.
12. Tell me about a time when you were challenged at work.
13. Time when you wanted to give up and how you motivated yourself to keep going.
14. Tell me about an instance where you had to negotiate something on the job. How did you convince your counterparts?
15. Tell me about an experience when you were unsure of the outcome and how you managed it?

Failure  1. Biggest failure? Second largest, third largest failure
2. Tell me about the time when you let your team down. 
3. Describe a situation when something went totally awry
4. What do you consider your biggest fault is at work, why do you think you have it and what are you doing about it? 
5. Have you planned something that did not go through?
6. Tell me a decision you made in your career you wish you could have done differently.
7. Tell me about a time where you failed at your first job

Ethical Decision  1. Talk about a time when your values were challenged and you had to consult your moral compass.
2. When was your belief challenged?
3. What part did you play in the ethical concern you mentioned in your essay? How did the higher ups react to this situation?

Difficult People 1. Tell me about a time when you developed a person / dealt with a difficult person at work. What did you do?
2. Tell me about a time you faced conflict at work- either between you and another person or between two co-workers and how did you deal with it.
3. Tell me about a time when you had a bad leader.
4. Give me an instance where you handled a difficult subordinate at work

Other  1. How was growing up in a country like yours? Tell me about it.
2. What is your typical day like?
3. Tell me about your monthly Astronomy meet-ups.
4. Summarize and talk about your non-profit exposure.
5. Extracurricular activities, the reason for those particular activities and how do you plan to continue involving yourself in the community during MBA at  . 
6. What is the best piece of constructive feedback that you have received and how are you working on it? 
7. Describe another situation where you applied the learning from the above feedback.
8. One thing you regretted.
9. Tell me about how your transition from country X to country Y. What was it like?
10. A latest dilemma I had between good options. 
11. Tell me about a time when you saw the solution before someone else?
12. Do you have any decisions you regret? 
13. Why did you pick your recommenders?
14. What do you think your recommenders said about your strengths & weaknesses?
15. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
16. What would your colleagues say is your strengths and weaknesses as a leader?
17. What accomplishment are you most proud of?
18. What do you like to do for fun?
19. How did you get here? (I had a pretty long journey to the interview)

Caught off guard  1. How is Canada different economically than the U.S.? (Applicant was Canadian)
2. Tell us something about your country that we wouldn't know? 
3. My views about the role of media in the news.
4. Which other schools have you applied to?
5. What is the weakest part of your application?
6. Tell us one reason why we should not take you?
7. How will you finance MBA?

Closing  1. Is there anything you would like to ask me/us?
2. What questions do you have for me?
3. Anything you wished I had asked?
4. Tell me one thing about you that is not on your resume.

Questions Asked to Interviewer 1. Asked my interviewer about what would she do if doing MBA again. 
2. How best can I utilize my time from now to start of MBA?

Basim2016 · Answer

Dear Nikhil, 
Good day, 
Thanks for the above list of questions. Can you guide how to handle FAILURE questions. 
Best Regards

Posted from my mobile device

bb · Answer

A lot of people are very sensitive to questions about weaknesses and failures. Do you feel that if admissions team finds out that they’re not perfect, they will get denied. That’s not actually true. Talking about a weakness or a feeler gives in opportunity to demonstrate your humanity, humbleness, and resilience. This also shows that you’re able to learn from your mistakes and that you acknowledge your mistakes. You don’t necessarily need it to be an amazing turnaround story. A failure can be a failure. However, you want to steer clear of controversial issues such as being negligent or grossly irresponsible.

For example, maybe one of your failures was losing a client at work. By the way, you probably don’t want to talk about the time when you were seven or some thing from childhood. Anyway, you could talk about how you didn’t consider their concerns and your competition and you thought everything was going great and then suddenly you lost the account. You can talk about the consequences of it and how you felt and what it meant to you and your boss and how you had to work hard after that and how that changed your approach, etc. I would be careful about giving yourself any compliments. You can say that ever since you’re always calling your clients and always checking in with them and always doing certain things. You can talk about how it was a blessing in disguise but you don’t wanna make it very shallow and say some thing along the lines of and that is why I am ready to get an MBA and I am much stronger now. Stick to fact. Let the story tell your story.

Basim2016 · Answer

Dear Bb,
Good afternoon, 
Thanks for your comprehensive response. 
Regards.

Posted from my mobile device

gmatlover1010 · Answer

Extremely useful post! Didn't think a Kudos was sufficient to express the gratitude!

MBAbot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club MBAbot: 

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

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