The London Business School 2011 Thread

I had my interview last week ... it was a casual meeting. My interviewer was very honest about the school and about what the opportunity meant to/offered him. I think that the alum interview is a tool used to see how well you would fit in with the school/study group versus an analysis of your competencies (bc those would hopefully be in your application).

If you know your own story and why you're going for an MBA you will be fine. Also, don't fret over the presentation - once you do it, you'll realize how silly it was to worry about it in the first place.

got my interviewer details last night as well...guess nadia was keeping an eye on gmatclub to see if students were fretting or nt!
need to have my interviewer submit his feedback by 30 nov..nw i need to start worrying when he'll respond..mebbe he follows the forum too? :p

I have my interview tomorrow.

I hope my interviewer is not as hard as the one that had the following applicant :

all the best rid82!! pls share your interview experience once done

Got the interviewer details a couple of hours back, e-mailed him and got a response as well..and i guess i am on track to do this within this week only

on hindsight, having a late scheduling with a responsive alum is so much better than some of the other ppl here - getting matched early with alums that haven't responded back so far.

As promised, here my "LBS interview debrief".

The interviewer was an Alumnus that works in an European Investment Bank.

The interview was at 6 PM. He welcomed me, offered me a glass of water and we went to a meeting room. He had printed my entire application. He was cordial but serious.

Once there, he explained me the interview structure: he would make me questions, then the 5 minutes impromptu presentation and finally he would talk about his career and answer to my questions. About the presentation, he said that he had chosen one topic among six proposed by the AdCom, that it was fine for him if I spoke less than 5 minutes, and that the goal was to see how I think and how I make presentations.

So he started asking me questions taking some notes as I spoke. Here some I remember and in this order:
- Explain me who you are
- Tell me when you have a conflict leading people (I was surprised with a hard question so early)
- Tell me when you led people and you resolved a conflict with someone else in your team
- Tell me what you learned in those situations
- What strengths and weaknesses the people you led would tell me about you?
- Why an MBA and why now
- Career goals
- Why your current career won't help you to achieve your goals and you prefer to do an MBA?
- I see you have applied to other schools, why would you choose LBS over them? Why did you apply to X? and Y? and Z?
- What do you like from LBS?
- How would you be involved in the LBS community?
- Tell me when you had a cultural shock problem and how did you solve it
- Why are you interested in X? (something specific about the school that I've put in my essays)
- What is happening in the world regarding the financial crisis?
- What are the problems Spain has? (I’m from Spain)
- What would you change in Spain regarding those problems?

Then he gave me a piece of paper, a pen and the topic of the presentation. He gave me about 3-5 minutes to prepare.It remembered me a lot to a TOEFL Speaking question. The difference was that the topic was harder but I had much more time to prepare. I think I spoke about 5 minutes but I'm not sure, maybe it was less.

The last 30 minutes were very interesting as he spoke a lot about his career, the MBA program, why I should do it, about things he liked, things he didn't, about the city of London, where to live, what clubs he liked, about the study groups, first and second year projects, internship, etc. I made him a lot of questions as we talked. It was a very interesting conversation and I think he was honest in all his opinions.

The whole think lasted about 1h20 minutes.

I hope this helps.

thanks for sharing your experience man! i m gettin a bit jumpy reading all these experiences...the grind at work has become worse of late, which means i have had zero time to prep...still to get a confirmed date from my interviewer..hopefully its nt too soon..

but mebbe being too soon might even b a blessing in disguise

I had my interview yesterday. Met after hours at my interviewer's office and the interview lasted for about 1h30min.

The impromptu presentation is designed to determine whether you can make a well structured argument and then defend it - it's not really a test of your speaking ability.

I did not receive any feedback on the interview but he did say that I did a great job on the impromptu prez. Time to cross those fingers and toes and wait for the final decision.

rid82 - Thanks for your interview summary. Good that your alumnus is from the same industry, so you shared sth in common. Your interviewer packed quite a few punches with his questions. Hope you will emerge victorious with an LBS offer. Have you had other interviews with your B-schools. Which one and Why
a) toughest
b) best rapport
c) where does LBS stand

Hey everyone,

Anyone know when we should expect to hear from LBS? for some reason I have "within 2 weeks after the interview" in my head but have no idea where I got that information....
Any thoughts?

I think that its Dec 15th

Posted from my mobile device

So we really have to wait until the 15th?
I don't think I can stand the torture any longer!

Join the club buddy..

I had my interview a few days back and I have listed some of the questions that I was asked (atleast the ones I remember!)
As I mentioned before, my interviewer was from the same industry as me; in fact the company she works for is a major client of ours!
The questions in random order are listed below..

- What would your team mates have to say about you?
- How do you handle pressure/ stress?
- What are some of your limitations/ weaknesses?
- Example of when you led a group of people to achieve a common objective
- What other schools you are applying to? Where does LBS stand?
- Why LBS?
- Why MBA now?
- Example of when you took a risk - both personal and professional
- Example of a setback/ failure and how you dealt with it
- What do you think is the best way for diverse strangers in a group to get to bond as quickly as possible?
- How would you contribute to a study group?
- Long term and short term goals
- What do you are some of the opportunities and challenges facing the industry in the near future?
- Do you think your company is well equipped to exploit these opportunities?
- What would you change about your company's strategy for the future?
- What distinguishes you from all other MBA applicants?
- Example of when somebody on your team frustrated me and how you dealt with it

There were probably a few more questions but I cant seem to remember them.
The questions were pretty standard and from the huge question bank reported by prior applicants on the forums. I dont think I can say I was particularly surprised or caught unawares by any question.

The presentation she had chosen for me seemed more on the lines of an analysis - I was given 2 pieces of information and asked to make a decision based on them.

After the presentation, we moved to my questions. Considering she had been out of school for a while, my questions were generally focused around how LBS had impacted her life etc. She answered the questions comprehensively along with her motivations for choosing LBS, how it had impacted her life at every step along her career etc.

She took notes through out the interview and didnt really offer any feedback beyond a courteous smile and nodding of the head.

Hope this is useful to anybody who is yet to go through the interview. Good luck to everybody!

I had my interview today over lunch hour with an alumnus who was working as a marketing manager for an MNC. She was very friendly and as we were taking the elevator up to the conference rooms, she told me a bit about her job scope and the business culture of the firm.

She had my application with her and had obviously read through my entire profile including the essays. So her questions were all directed at specific aspects of my resume and essays. Some of her questions were:
1. Why the transition from clinical practice to management? Will you miss clinical practice?
2. Tell me about the thought process you went through when deciding to do XX?
3. Some people say that doctors/dentists are the worst team players. What do you think?
4. Tell me about the leadership experience you mentioned in the essay.
5. Can you tell me why you applied to INSEAD? Why will you pick LBS over INSEAD?

The questions took about 40mins in total. Then she gave me a piece of paper with the presentation question and 5mins to ponder over it.
She picked a topic relating to business ethics; I wrote some thoughts down on the paper and presented my answer over 2-3mins.
She then asked me what my thought processes were when I approached the problem. I was really worried about the presentation part prior to the interview, now I realise that it is truly the easiest part of the interview (like what everyone else said). They are just looking at how you approach the question and not the content. I asked her a few questions after that about the school in general and we ended the interview. Took about 1.5 hours in total.

For those who haven't had their interviews yet, I hope this helps. Be sure to read your application essays again and again before your interview. That is really the most important aspect I think. Good luck everyone!

Finally I did my interview today with a LBS alumnus, which lasted about 1:30h. It was at his place which left me a bit uncomfortable in the beginning I must say, but then I got convinced that it was far better than sitting in any office. The interviewer was always very polite and explained the structure of the whole interview very well so that there were no hidden surprises. He started with the typical question of giving a brief overview of my career. Then he also asked particular questions about my professional life which I had written in my applications essays. He then moved to a set of more generic questions. Here are some which I still recall:

1) Why an MBA? Why LBS?
2) How will you balance your MBA with your family and personal life?
3) Tell me a about a failure in your professional life and what lesson did you learn?
4) What are the differences between the leadership of the past and the leadership of the present?
5) Which characteristics do you think a leader has to have?
6) Tell me something about yourself? (this was the last question)
7) How do other people see you (good traits and bad traits)?

We then moved to the presentation and I must say that it was very easy (unless I got it completely wrong). The case consisted on a chemical products company which was based in a country with very tight environmental laws. The manager of the company decided to do business in a country where the environmental were more loose so that he could take advantage of that fact and increase the company profits. As a worker of that company I was supposed to advise the manager of whether or not that would be a good option.

The interviewer then spent about 30-40 minutes talking about the school (he was really passionate about it) and answering some specific questions that I had about the program. Overall I think it was good but still need to wait until the 15th to know the outcome. Fingers crossed and good luck for all.

ant0ni0m,

IMHO posting the presentation question on this forum crosses a dangerous line. The last thing we need is for this forum to be blacklisted.

Moderators - your thoughts?

you should have read Wharton thread, in a few days people have revealed all interview questions of this year with their (ours) interview debriefs.

Wharton interviews are a disaster... I was one of the idiots who interviewed early and didn't know the questions