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8 months ago Mar 19, 2025 02:03
I had my interview with Belinda Marklew. She is an external admission and career consultant Warwick hires to help conduct the interview. The interview was pretty standard following the list of common questions you would typically get during the MBA interview. The interview lasted for about 40 minutes with 5 minutes for me to ask questions in the end. The total interview lasted for exactly 45 minutes as per the schedule.
1. Could you tell me more about your role, especially in the recent companies?
Follow up question:
1.1. What is the size and structure of the company?
1.2. Tell me more about your team - are you a manager, project leader or a solo contributor?
1.3. Tell me more about your KPI - how your company measure your success?
2. Tell me about your success story
Follow up:
2.1. Also, a time when you fail
3. Tell me more about your passion about FinTech and addressing the problem of financial product accessibility
Follow up:
3.1. where does the passion come from?
3.2. Is there any step that you take to make your dream happen? I answered that I also did social media content on my personal accounts to publish about my passion at work and also sent the link of my contents to Belinda.
3.3. Could you please send me a link of the social media content?
4. Why MBA?
Follow Up:
4.1. Your immediate post MBA plan
4.2. What is the job title of your role post MBA, where do you want to work and in which location?
4.3. Did you do some research or talk to your prospect employer during the application process?
4.4. In long term, how do you see yourself? in which role, which location?
3. Why Now?
4. Why Warwick?
5. Anything more you want to tell me?
6. If you were given a scholarship, what would you give back to Warwick?
7. Any questions?
Since she is not an ad comm or a faculty member, she might not be able to provide any additional details about the program but she made sure to send the questions to the ad comm. I received a follow up e-mail from the ad com about the questions I asked.
Regarding the decision, the result was exactly 1 week after the interview. Warwick doesn't have a separate scholarship application/interview. So, you should expect to get the offer with the scholarship decision all at once.
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9 months ago Feb 19, 2025 03:02
Relaxed, very conversational and friendly interview that lasted just under an hour.
General themes were:
1. Career history.
2. Approach to problem-solving.
3. What kind of leader would people say you are?
4. Time you convinced people to follow your approach.
5. Project/undertaking that failed.
6. What gaps will an MBA fill?
7. Understanding of your intended career trajectory.
8. Time you stepped out of your comfort zone.
2 years ago Nov 19, 2023 03:11
Interviewed with an Adcom member. The following questions were asked:
1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Short term goal
3. 10-year vision
4. What would you change in your profession?
5. How would you describe yourself as a leader?
6. If you were the CEO of your company, what changes would you like to bring about in your organisation?
7. Tell me about a time when you made a significant impact on one person or your organization?
8. Tell me about a time you failed?
9. How would you contribute to Warwick post-MBA?
10. Tell me about a time you stepped out of your comfort zone?
11. 2 significant accomplishments of your life?
12. Questions for me
Overall, it was a conversational interview and the interviewer was genuinely interested and patient in hearing all the stories and examples I had. There were follow ups on almost all questions so its good to be prepared in advance. Also, be sure to review your complete application package as the first few questions asked are based on your essays.
4 years ago Nov 19, 2021 03:11
I interviewed with Belinda Marklew who was an external coach hired by Warwick. The interview was extremely relaxed and you could see how every answer led to a follow up question which helped keep the conversation natural.
She started off by explaining the flow of my interview which would be work experience, future plans, and any questions I may have.
Questions and follow ups that were asked of me were:
1) Talk about your career history so far and what prompted you to make every major career decision and an achievement you are proud of basis each decision.
Follow up: I had some international work experience so she asked me some follow up questions on how it was working with people of different nationalities and how I adapted to it.
2) How many people report to me? What would my managers or my team say about me as a manager?
Follow up: I had recently increased my team so there were a lot of questions about how I did that and what steps went into tackling that as a problem and coming to a decision.
3) What is the structure of my current organization like and where do I fit in within that?
4) How does an MBA fit into my overall career plans?
Follow up: I had an entrepreneurship vision as part of long-term goal and her exact question was "paint me a picture of what that would look like."
5) Where am I currently in the application process and what other schools have I applied to?
Follow up: I told her I had also applied to Rotman and we spoke in detail about why I had picked these two schools and why I would prefer one to the other.
6) If I were given a scholarship, what would I give back to Warwick?
7) Any questions I had for the admissions committee.
Follow up: I had a few questions that she said she did not have an answer to since she said she didn't work for the university itself, but someone from the admissions team got back to me today with answers to the remaining questions.
Overall the interview was extremely conversational and the interviewer really helped me relax as it went along. She waited patiently for me to finish my answers (and I talk a lot!) before she asked follow up questions.
4 years ago Nov 19, 2021 03:11
Had a decent interview with Karen Barker (Director of Recruitment & Marketing). Interview lasted for around 1 hour 20 minutes. Usual questions:
1) My usual work in a language she can understand :) I work in Intellectual Property domain
2) My stories of influencing my stakeholders. Be prepared to recall your stories from your experiences
3) My long term/short term goals
4) Why MBA, Why now. How would a MBA help.
5) I had already told about my 10 year goal, so she asked about What would I tell her if I meet her 20 years from now. I think what they are looking for is if you've thought about your career progression
6) What's my leadership style
7) Why should we offer you a scholarship (top 3 differentiators)
8) What are my decision criteria for choosing the final school. I had mentioned that I have applied to Cass, ESMT and Copenhagen.
9) Finally, any questions that I have - I had interest in Warwick Ventures, so talked about that
Overall, very friendly interview. Mostly about my stories from my work experiences. She talked about the Tech tours and Consultancy Projects and Leadership courses. She mentioned to keep the communication channel open with them, in case I receive decision from other schools. The last bit was quite interesting though - She mentioned that I had made her decision very difficult, and I was definitely NOT in the "straightforward reject list". Was I in that list earlier? :| She did mention that the pool this year is very competitive, particularly from India.
So, keep your stories related to your experience in your memory, and recall as per the questions . Good luck. Hope this debrief helps.
4 years ago Nov 19, 2021 03:11
I interviewed with an external consultant - apparently WBS hires an external consultant to interview few of the candidates to get the 3rd person's view.
She started by first explaining the structure of the interview - About career history - My ambitions - Any questions I might have
1) Career History - Explain your reasoning on your career decisions and 1 achievement/contributions/takeaways from each. She asked few questions around my career to go into more details, especially in my entrepreneurship domain.
2) My ambitions - I wanted to be an entrepreneur and described the business idea in brief. She asked "How would you envision your business or what you want to achieve out of it beyond 10 years from now"
3) Why MBA and Why Warwick
4) How would others describe your leadership qualities since you have led teams in the past.
5) Any questions
Ended with her describing the next steps on what and when I can expect the decision.
Overall pretty conversational - always smiling and a chilled atmosphere.
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5 years ago Nov 19, 2020 03:11
Had a great interview - the interviewer was genuinely interested in me, polite, and clearly a knowledgeable and confident person. She asked me all the right questions and answered all of my questions extensively. I was asked about my CV, my career to date and why MBA and why now, so pretty standard but with some great comments and input while I was answering - I would say it was the best interview I had to date! Also she made me very excited about the range of electives and opportunities - and I have learnt more about the mentoring programme. This is the lesson how to conduct inverviews as well as a way to really get people even more exciting about WBS!
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5 years ago Nov 19, 2020 03:11
Regarding the interview experience, it was more of a conversation about goals, what I expect from the course etc. It was very nice knowing about school, more casual and good chat with the professor. Again, everyone's interview will be different so please prepare about the usual questions of why you need an MBA, why Warwick etc.
6 years ago Nov 19, 2019 03:11
I recently had my interviews with WBS and it was a truly enjoyable experience. It was detailed, it was deeper, it was insightful and it was an exploration. Questions were based on the context of the discussion, you can very clearly see some purpose of the questions, you see the logical flows and you feel comfortable that you are in good hands. After the interviews, you feel like time well spent and you have learned few new things. Thanks WBS team.
6 years ago Nov 19, 2019 03:11
The interview would be very chilled out and the questions would be asked on your leadership skills and some scenarios related to this skill, then they would ask about your current company and the work profile and of course why WBS and Why MBA. The interviewer would be someone outside of the admission team, so you can use your essays in your interviews.