Rhyme's Totally Fallible Guide to Interviewing

Sorry I missed this question ....

hi rhyme
this is a very lame Q, but I have to ask.
What exactly does the interviewer mean by " tell me about a teamwork experience". Isn't that a very abstract questions? Most of the projects I do are in teams, so what do they want to hear specifically? Conflict management? Multicultural teams? Dealing with someone difficult?
what would make a good teamwork example?
thanks
WG

It's a vague question, but that's a good thing -- you can use it to tell almost any story that you want. I like to take questions like that and define teamwork at the forefront of my story so that we both know exactly what we are talking about. The risk of not doing so is that the person is expecting a story about X and I tell a story about Y -- which likely comes across as having no point at all to someone expecting X. On the other hand, if I tell them, "To me teamwork is really about Y" then the story makes sense.

So, with that in mind, feel free to define "Y" however you see fit.

Some ideas:

Y = "Teamwork is really about bringing together a disparate group of people to achieve a goal" (broad, but you can use it in just about any story)

Y = "Teamwork is about identifying individual strengths and weaknesses and ensuring everyone is properly aligned for success" (the one I tend to most like)

Y = "Teamwork is about influencing others to work together towards a common goal" (google Cialdini principles of persuasion or perhaps its principles of influence, I forget, but just google Cialdini)

I have to run to a meeting, hopefully that helps.

Thanks a lot rhyme. That really helps.
Wg

Posted from my mobile device

Hi wiseguyMBA, So how did it go? Do you think 2-3 days are enough to prepare? I got confused with dates and now I am in the same situation.

When your interviewer says "Walk me through your resume..", do you go choronologically - i.e. start with undergrad move on to first position then second etc... or go in the order of the resume - i.e. Here is where I am NOW but how I got here is ....

And do you work in the EC's/Personal interests into the Resume walk through? Or is it just an exercise in determining your professional history?

I also wanted to say thanks very much for posting this guide - I found it very useful.

Entirely up to you - whatever makes more sense in your storyline / whatever you prefer. In general, my experience has been that bottom up (chrono) flows slightly better only because you get to where you are now and then can jump to where you want to go post MBA (I did A, that lead to B, and now I want to get an MBA to do C). That tends to be a bit more of a natural progression than jumping to post MBA goals from your oldest job (I currently do B, used to do A, and now want to C)... but honestly there's no "right" answer, just do what you think makes more sense given your plans.

Gotta jet to meeting.

Thanks Rhyme. The flow is so much better when I begin at the beginning and end with where I am now. I think that is what I will do.

Hope the meeting went well!

What's your leadership style?

How should this Q be answered? description of a leadership experience or just a couple of sentences? Btw - are there any pre-defined Leadership Styles?

Any chance someone could shed some light on MBAgirl's questions?

I have my Sloan interview coming up and was wondering if I can reuse some stories?

I have a Sloan interview coming up as well

How about reusing examples in the cover letter? (only mentioned for a few sentences, not an entire essay)

bump

I guess I will answer my own question

I had my sloan interview on Friday and I was told not to reuse stories from my essays. I asked if I could use stories from the cover letter and my interviewer said yes.

I ended up not using any "stories" because I really wasn't asked any BEI type questions but rather many questions related to my application itself. No curve balls though

I have a quick qestion:

for interview question like : What is the primary weakness in your application.

What would be an appropriate ans?

while i can certainly bit*h around for things like gmat etc on my app but it is not that bad. my gmat is 700, gpa is 3.9 and age is 28, I have ok WE and ECs. I am having real hard time in contructing a good response to this question.

any suggestions?

Rhyme / All,

Stupid question:

How different is "How will you contribute to X school" from "Which Clubs you want to participate in?"

I have a good answer for the Clubs i wanna participate in but dont know how to articulate "how will you contribute to X school"

Any takers ???