Rhyme's Totally Fallible Guide to Interviewing

A Complete Guide for Business School Interviews

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A few things to remember before we get into it...

• Interviews are mostly about fit. That is to say, they are not about assessing whether or not your goal to be in banking makes sense for you. They aren't looking to see whether or not your quant skills are up to par for your intended job. They are assessing, in effect, three things:
  
  • Do you have a well thought out idea of what you want to do and why?
  • Do you know why you want to come to school X?
  • Are you a normal personable individual who could "carry" the schools name?
• Second, most school interviews are blind. That is, at most, the individual interviewing you will have a copy of your resume. They may or may not have read it. Be prepared for the question "So tell me about yourself"...

With that in mind, there are a few key things you must know, and you must know COLD.

1. What are your short and long term goals and why?

Important here is to sound interested and excited. Focus less on the details of what and more on the why. The interviewer is going to be more interested in hearing about why you want to be a banker than what a banker does day to day: Think introspection, think self-aware, think passionate. Explain more than you think you should - remember the interviewer does not know you worked at company X for 3 years in role Y and role Z, and you loved role Z but not role Y. Tell them. Remember, they are not mind readers. The more cohesive, clear and passionate your story is, the better. Super bonus points if you can also describe why you need an MBA now in your career, rather than say, in a year or two. The easiest way to do this is to find something that is going on now in your target industry, and then just talk about how you want to be a part of this change, and to do so, you really need to get your MBA now. For instance, you might talk about you want to deepen turnaround management and finance experience with distressed firms, and that, given the current credit crunch, getting your MBA now is essential to capitalize on the growing opportunities in this area. You can probably come up with something better than that but you get the idea.

2. Why do you want to come here?

You had better have lots of reasons. Avoid website mental dumps. Excellent faculty and diverse student body are weak and meaningless points. Talk about your experiences visiting the school. If you haven't visited, talk about what you've heard, but don't spend time explaining why you havent been unless asked. If you are asked, just keep it short and sweet. Talk about specific clubs, activities or features of the school that are truly unique. Try to avoid cliches. Kellogg is not all about teamwork and friendliness. Chicago is not all about finance and quant. Stanford is not all about entrepreneurship and VC. Comments of the sort are weak and often make you appear poorly prepared. Rather, talk about what you truly believe - if theres a professor you love, mention him or her by name. If theres a class you are dying to take, mention it. If you can't wait to take part in some activity - say a random walk at Chicago or a round of golf with friends near Darden - then just say it. Better to sound honest and interested than contrived and pandering. The best answers are ones that sound true, contain very specific details and ideas that go beyond meerly the website (thus demonstrating a deep understanding) and tie directly into question 1. For instance, replying "I also hope to do a quarter abroad in Australia at School Y, which provides me with exposure to the cultures of my primary target market, when I launch my shark shaped surfboard, which I know I can here at school Y through your program X which I heard about from XYZ. " demonstrates interest, research and dedication to your goals.


Advice for the Interview Itself.

First, whenever you hear a question, restate it in your own words. You want to be sure you've understood. Spending 5 minutes answering something you thought was asked but wasn't, wastes an awful lot of precious air time. Second, get accustomed to and be OK with silence. Don't be afraid to collect your thoughts for a moment before answering. Remember, what feels like 30 seconds of dead air was probably 3.


Finally, and this is the most important..

Practice this a million times if you can... Transition. Transition. Transition. You cannot prepare for every single question they might ask you - there's just no way. Instead, prepare different answers for questions that you are likely to get, and practice RECASTING the question you receive into one you have thought about. Come up with a handful of stories you can tell, and practice redefining a question so that the story fits. This doesn't mean that if they ask you for a story on leadership you talk about your stamp collecting hobby. There has to be a link - but the more you practice it, the better you will get at it. For instance, if they asked you something like "Tell me about what drives you" - you might reply "You know, that's a good question. I'm motivated by a lot of things, obviously, or else I wouldn't be here today, but I think the thing that motivates me most is seeing those around me succeed. I get a lot of joy from that. For example.... BIG TEAMWORK STORY". Suddenly, instead of coming up with something entirely new right there on the spot, you've taken an existing teamwork story and recast it to fit the question.

So, what stories do you need?

You absolutely need: leadership, teamwork, biggest weakness (that you continue to address), cultural story, outside of work story, analytic ability story, ethics story. Come up with your best leadership story and your best teamwork story...

This brings me to my next tip. You will have a pad of paper with you in all likelyhood. Have cues on the pad.

For instance, I might write:

"L: X story. Antici prob w/ ABC, picked 2 prs, exec ask me to lead, did X, did Y,.... "

The idea would be that I could glance down at the page, and if I'm drawing a blank, I could quickly remember what my leadership story was... "Oh yea, its the X story, the one where I anticipated that problem with ABC, picked those 2 people the execs had asked me to lead ..."

Odds are you wont have to look at the page, and if you are prepared, you won't have to. But... better to have it, and take 2 or 5 seconds to glance at it than to just start talking when you cant remember your points.

So, I had a one line description at the top of my pad of paper for Leadership, teamwork, analytics, ethical, cultural etc...I also had a few tidbits on why school X. For instance, for kellogg I had "WHY K: GIM, JV, balanced approach"... This was to remind me to talk about the GIM program, the Joint Ventures program, etc. Its easy to forget these details, and having one or two word reminders is helpful.

Of course, don't rely on the pad unless you have to. It's best to know your stories cold. Don't be afraid to write down questions you have for the interviewer either.

Finally, a good way to practice if you have a long commute.... tape the questions into an mp3 format and slap them in your mobile phone on the way to work. Practice answering them on your way there and back and you'll do well. If you really really want to test yourself, record your own answers, and listen to yourself. Its painful, but can help. Consider timing yourself as well. A ten minute answer to "Tell me about yourself" is too long.


Most Common Interview Questions:

1. Why the MBA? Why now?
2. What do you want to do (in regard to business function, industry, location)?
3. Why does this school appeal to you?
4. What are your long- and short-term goals? Why?
5. Walk me through your Resume
6. Discuss your career progression
7. Give examples of how you have demonstrated leadership inside and outside the work environment
8. What accomplishment are you most proud of?
9. Have you worked in a team environment? What were your contributions to the effort?
10. What would you do if a team member wasn't pulling his own weight?