Alright guys, got an interview with Kellogg tomorrow. Any last minute advice is more than welcomed.
Don’t fvck up.
^ Got that right.
This is the type of thing you probably should have asked several days or weeks ago, but I trust that you’ve done the requisite interview preparations on your own. It’s a competitive market out there so there’s no such thing as preparing too early for this type of stuff. But anyway, that was the past; now, let’s take a look at your present and your future. Kellogg was one of several business schools I interviewed with. The interview was pretty laid-back and straightforward; questions you should be prepared to answer are: - Walk me through your resume / tell your “story.” - Why MBA? Why now? - Why Kellogg? - What are your career aspirations/goals? - How do you hope to contribute to the Kellogg community? - Discuss leadership/teamwork situations - Any questions for your interviewer, etc. Those are the generic questions. Now, that will cover about 30-40 minutes of your interviewer. The interview may then have a few minutes to ask a question that you may not be as prepared for. One distinctive question I was asked was, “If you could take a year off from work to do what you *really* wanted to do, what would it be and why?” I took a few seconds to think about how to handle that, but ended up coming up with an answer that was related to my true passion and philanthropic aspirations and actually *not* talking about anything that was finance-related. Overall, I thought the Kellogg interview was a pretty straightforward interview, and one that’s not too different from most front-office finance positions. They really want to just see that you know your story well enough and you have compelling reasons for going to Kellogg and pursuing an MBA. A good interview can help you slightly but a bad interview will probably raise a flag. In any case, I found that most business school interviews were fairly conventional except for Harvard, where the interviewer sees your application ahead of time and can ask some pretty detailed/incisive questions. I don’t believe the Kellogg interviewer sees anything besides your resume. Just be personable, professional and polite and try to treat it as a normal conversation. Good luck!
Good advice as always, Numi! I don’t want to come off as too rehearsed so I only put block ideas and notes in my head. I’m afraid I may get flustered and stumble on the delivery. On the leadership question, it is so broad I’m not very clear on the best way to approach it. Will have to think about it.
numi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Kellogg was one of several business schools I > interviewed with. And where have you decided to go? (a bit out of topic, I know!)
Interview deferred til next week. What a bummer!
phBOOM Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Interview deferred til next week. What a bummer! They are checking to see if you are assertive… Call their Bluff
Well, at least now you have more time to prepare your “leadership” anecdotes
phBOOM Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Interview deferred til next week. What a bummer! Good, now you have enough time to hire numi. He could throw a 5-day course special offer.
The trickiest question I ever got was “if you could instantly acquire one attribute/quality that you don’t have, what would it be and why?” After I answered the question, the guy goes, “ok, what is your second choice?” Then, “what is your third choice?” Basically it was a roundabout way of asking what your weaknesses were since you were telling him what kind of skills you lacked. And basically he got me to tell him 3 weaknesses.
Flight. Super strength. Invincibility. Oh, not what you were looking for? Let me try again…
SMIRK Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The trickiest question I ever got was “if you > could instantly acquire one attribute/quality that > you don’t have, what would it be and why?” After I > answered the question, the guy goes, “ok, what is > your second choice?” Then, “what is your third > choice?” Basically it was a roundabout way of > asking what your weaknesses were since you were > telling him what kind of skills you lacked. And > basically he got me to tell him 3 weaknesses. I’ve heard that if you get numi’s preparation services, the interviewer ends up telling his weaknesses to you, and two business days later you get a job/admission offer.
CzarHC Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Flight. Super strength. Invincibility. > > Oh, not what you were looking for? Let me try > again… Lol!
Part-time Crook Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’ve heard that if you get numi’s preparation > services, the interviewer ends up telling his > weaknesses to you, and two business days later you > get a job/admission offer. ^ true story
Numi, do you have any insight on how Stanford does its interviews?
^First answer is free, that one is gonna cost you…
I’ll take the freebie
Well, from personal experience and what I’ve heard from others, it’s pretty conversational and relatively similar to Kellogg. Stanford only interviews a small proportion of people so it’s a great sign if you get an interview there. However, I’ve also heard the interview doesn’t count much there; mostly it’s just to validate who they think you are on your application and also alumni tend to like to pitch the school quite a bit. In other words, it’s another situation where I think the upside of a good interview is fairly marginal but if you bomb the interview (i.e. nervous, lack of preparation, say stuff that’s inconsistent with what you said on your essays, etc.), that would be a bad sign. My sense with Stanford is that your essays and recommendations are very important, as well as personal connections/pedigrees. A respectable number of spots in the Stanford MBA classes are taken by people that were sponsored by their consulting firms or PE shops.
^ Thanks! I think the interview is blind so I should prepare on getting my stories straight without worrying too much about linking them back to my essays.