Round 1 / Adcom / Off-Campus (Published February 5th, 2009)
December 2008.
30 minutes on the dot at one of their satellite interview locations in the US (e.g., Chicago, LA, Houston). It was clearly a borrowed office, no windows, quite drab, so we got down to business very quickly! Adcom introduced herself, gave a little context/what to expect, gave me a folder and pen, and then kicked off.
Questions:
How do you find the time to do all you do?
Explain your job/industry/job function like I was a 14-year-old?
What do you like about your particular company as opposed to its peers?
How would the people who know you best describe you?
What are people surprised to learn about you?
How did you become interested in [language of study]?
What do you think are qualities of a good leader?
An example of how I've leveraged those qualities in my own experience.
What do you do with your free time?
How do you want to impact HBS?
What drives/motivates you?
And then, is there anything you wanted to talk about but weren't able to? (I answered the question with a subject I wanted to talk about, but was not given time to explore that area)
No time for my questions.
I was surprised by how friendly my interviewer was, given things that I had heard about HBS's interview - no "gotcha questions" (e.g., Name an entrepreneur you admire). She did take a lot of notes, but made eye contact and engaged (though I did most of the talking). She walked me out of the office at the end.
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