EssaySnark's Strategies for
Your MBA Admissions Interview
A SnarkStrategies Guide
by EssaySnark
Snarkolicious Press
SMASHWORDS EDITION
version 1.01a
March 10, 2012
This SnarkStrategies Guide is copyright 2012 EssaySnark.
Cover image copyright Eric Isselée, used under license from Fotolia.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage system, without permission from the publisher.
This publication is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied. The author and Snarkolicious Press assume no liability for errors or omissions in this publication or other documents which are referenced or linked to this publication. While we certainly hope that you will be successful in your quest for admission to an MBA program, we cannot offer any promises that you will be. In no event shall Snarkolicious Press or its authors, principals, subsidiaries, partners, or owners, be liable for any special, incidental, indirect or consequential damages of any kind, or any damages whatsoever, arising out of or in conjunction with the use or performance of this information. Applicants to any graduate program or university should verify the school's policies, application requirements, processes, procedures, and other criteria. This publication could include technical or other inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are periodically added to the information herein; these changes will be incorporated into new editions of this publication. Thus, different versions or formats of this publication may include different information.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Look for other SnarkStrategies Guides at Smashwords:
Berkeley-Haas School of Business
SnarkStrategies Guides for other schools are also available in digital and e-reader editions at your favorite bookseller or from the EssaySnark blog at essaysnark.com
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
William Shakespeare
Table of Contents
Two Primary Philosophies: Interview-Everyone, and Invitation-Only
The Lay of the Land: The Wide Variety of MBA Interviews
The Logistics of Your Interview: Where, When and How
The Mechanics of Your Interview: Who and What
Getting Ready for Your Interview: Your Material & the Delivery
Sample MBA Interview Questions
Preparing for an Open Interview
Your Questions for the Interviewer
How Exciting!!
You've been invited to interview at your very most favoritist bschool! Or, you've applied to a school that interviews everyone – no matter! It's an equally important part of the process, regardless of how you got there. This SnarkStrategies Guide will help you prepare.
Regardless of how it
may be phrased on a school's website,
an interview will almost
definitely be required before they will accept you.
These days, all top MBA programs require an interview before admission; even if they say that they don't require interviews, as a practical matter, you can bet that almost every student sitting in an MBA classroom went through an interview before being offered a spot – at INSEAD you will be interviewed twice! So the interview is taking on increasing importance at some schools. This is both because the quality of the candidate pool is going up, and because episodes of ethical lapses and generally poor behavior in the business world seem to be on the rise. The admissions committee needs to get a first-hand experience with a candidate – or, at least, a second-hand report of such an experience from an alum – in order to have another data point for use in evaluating, and in weeding out, the good from the bad.
What's most important?
We often get asked “how important” the interview is. To some degree, this depends on the school, but for all schools the interview weighs heavily in the overall decision-making. A poor showing in the interview can most definitely keep you out of bschool! The interview is a forum for some adcoms to judge whether the candidate that they experienced on paper, through reading your essays, is the same person who sits before them – in some cases, essays are over-worked and over-polished, especially with the omnipresence of admissions consultants in the mix. Someone could get his essays doctored to the degree that they don't properly represent him anymore. Adcoms are on the lookout for this. Nobody can fake it in person.