Jun 19, 2014

I had my interview with 2 admissions committee members.
1 was the interviewer and the other was noticing my movements and body language
The questions asked were straightforward:

1. Walk me through your resume

2. Why you opted for MBA?

3. What are your main strengths?

4. What are your main weaknesses?

5. What are your post-MBA plans?

6. Is there anything I forgot to ask?

7. Is there anything you want to ask?

Interview was well and lasted for around 40-45 minutes.

Overall it was a pleasant experience. I was surprised by how friendly the Adcom was.

May 23, 2014

My interview was conducted by two adcom members. One asked the questions, and one feverishly scribbled notes. The interview was exactly 30 minutes. Below are the questions I was asked:

• Tell me about yourself.

• What do you do in your job?

• When did you decide to get an MBA? Why?

• How did you form your opinion about Harvard and what is it?

• What questions do you have for me?

For me, I was nervous about all the random potential questions I could be asked. I prepared for a lot of them, but my interview was mostly (90%) resume-related topics.

Not in sequential order…

1. Why don’t you take 2 minutes to introduce yourself.

2. What was it like going through this highlighted situation on your resume? (lots of back and forth)

3. Challenge at current job.

4. What could you have done better at previous job?

5. How did you get these positions?

6. What is the biggest misperception people have about you when first meeting you?

7. Why MBA?

8. Anything else with these 2 minutes left you’d like to add? (time went by quickly, and I didn’t think I would actually get asked this)

9. What were your school / job options at different stages

Questions other people had:

10. Hobbies?

11. Do you read business news? What’s a story that interested you?

12. What’s a company outside your industry that you admire?

Overall, no matter my outcome, I have to give HBS props on the brevity of the whole process. Simple application, only 1 optional essay, and a relevant interview. Also, the whole day has events for candidates who have the time. The home base room seems rather crazy with batches going in and out for their interview slot, but they manage to handle it in an organized fashion. Food and drinks are also provided and everyone is cordial.

Mar 4, 2014

I had my HBS interview with Adcom members on campus last week. It felt super conversational, and they were smiling and laughing throughout with me, which was nice but unexpected. Hopefully they thought it went well too.

They asked a number of questions about my career choices. We talked a lot about my work in equity research and what I enjoy about it, how I got there, my background, etc. They had specific questions about the retail industry that I cover and asked me to pitch them a company, which I did.

We also talked about my long-term career goals and my leadership experiences both inside and outside of work.

After the interview there were activities throughout the day, which I enjoyed.

Feb 24, 2014

Pleasant experience that flew by!
Questions asked below:

Schooling-Related:
1- Tell me about your undergraduate college – why there? What did you like/dislike about it?
2- Grad school – why? What was your favorite class? What kind of job were you expecting after school? How did you find your job?

Most recent work experience related?
1- How did you start? What is your company trying to do? Explain your role and relationship to your founder/employer?
2 – What do you see yourself doing after HBS? [Gave my answer]. What if that doesn’t work out? What else will you consider?

Closing:
1- Anything about you that you want us to know?

As you can tell, the interview had a flow to it that was all about my experiences related to school and work. I think adcom was looking to understand why and how transitional decisions were made (school to school, school to work, etc.).

The experience is extremely pleasant. Be confident and know of all your cited experiences inside-out.

All the best!

Feb 24, 2014

My HBS Interview was very conversational. Only 1 interviewer – felt like the main objective was making sure that my story made sense and what I said on paper reflected who I was in real life. There was no time for questions at the end.

Questions

Have you every managed other individuals? Has that been difficult?

If I were to get all the junior people you work with in a room, what would they say about you? Strengths? Weaknesses?

Tell me more about the retail transaction that you wrote your essay about. What did you learn about the retail market?

Seems like you’ve co-founded a lot of things. Is that something you like to do? Why?

Why get an MBA?

What are your plans post-MBA?

Have you ever been to an HBS class? What class are you going to?

What’s the case?

Was moving to the United States hard? Did you experience a cultural shock?

Tell me some more about your siblings.

What do you like to do for fun?

Feb 17, 2014

I’ll keep this short and simple.

-There were two members of the Adcom in my interview: an interviewer and an observer.
-The interviewers cover a lot of ground in 30 minutes: ensure your answers are crisp.

Note: I did not receive an offer of admission.

(There were also some follow up questions that I omitted here, probing for more information here and there)

• Small talk about my travel plans.

• Pretend that we were sitting together on the flight over here. Tell me about yourself.

• Why did you choose to work at a consulting firm?

• What was your favorite case? Why was it so interesting?

• What is your startup?

• What do you do at this startup?

• How was the culture different between the consulting firm and the startup?

• What would you do differently as CEO?

• Why pursue an MBA now?

• A lot of Silicon Valley types don’t want to go to business school. Why do you want to go?

• What would be your ideal internship?

• Did you visit a class? What did you think?

• What’s your biggest strength?

• What’s your biggest weakness?

• Any other experiences you’d like to share with me?

• Ok we are just out of time – thank you.

Feb 13, 2014

Questions asked:

1. Walk me through your resume

2. Why MBA? (long discussion)

3. Why at this point in your career?

4. Something you want to change about yourself?

5. Something you’d never change about yourself?

6. Tell me about your undergraduate school.

7. Anything else you want to tell me?

8. Anything you want to ask me?

Overall it was a pleasant experience. I was surprised by how friendly the Adcom was.

Dec 17, 2013

The atmosphere was very neutral, a kind of perfect façade of pleasant interest that gives you little or no clue as to how you are doing, in terms of whether your answers are genius or utter rubbish. I was interviewed by one interviewer, who had a copy of my CV with her and took copious notes during the interview. She mentioned that she was familiar with my file and that I should use examples that were not already in my application.

To start with, there was a bit of light conversation about whether I had found it hard to get to the interview location. I received a pen and a note telling me what to expect after the interview and giving me some contact details (generic email address) if I had questions after the interview.

1. Tell me about your current job, what do you do at [COMPANY X]?

2. Follow up on whether you do all the [FUNCTION WORK] for [COMPANY X].

3. Asked about my role in [STRATEGIC PROJECT 1]. Did I work alone? How many people did I work with?

4. Asked about [MY OFFICE] and how it fits in [COMPANY X].

5. Going backwards, why [COLLEGE 1]?

6. Which other colleges might you have chosen?

7. How did you decide to transfer to [COLLEGE 2]?

8. How did you become interested in [INDUSTRY] and how did you find out about [COMPANY X]?

9. What would you like to mention that hasn’t been asked?

10. When did you become interested in MBA?

11. Tell me about something you’re interested in about outside of work.

12. Asked if it was difficult to find people with [INTEREST] at work.

13. Any closing remarks?

Nov 21, 2013

The atmosphere as I checked in was very friendly. When I got to the room in the Student Center where they had us meet, the ladies who welcomed me were smiling and affable and gave me a packet of info about the school, visiting, a map, and a note from Dee Leopold. Since I got there so early, I sat down with a few other interviewees and we discussed our backgrounds. Ten minutes before the interview time, an adcom member led us upstairs to another waiting room. Then one by one, an adcom member came out, called our name, and walked us to our interview room.

The person who walked me to the interview room, interviewer #1, was my main interviewer. Waiting in the room was a second woman, interviewer #2. They were both very friendly and put me at ease. #1 explained to me that she had read my application carefully and would be asking the questions, and #2 was there to observe for the most part. Each had a copy of my resume in front of them, but #1′s was marked up heavily.

#1 then launched into it, asking me questions about my college experience (which surprised me, since I was more than seven years out of college) – had I always known I was going to do ROTC there, why did I choose to go there, what did ROTC teach me, etc.

Then we discussed each of the parts of my military career, with the general focus being on “why” I did various things – why did I choose my branch, why did I get stationed in X, Y, and Z, how did my leadership change over time, what were my challenges at each place. It was a very fast paced interview, I felt like even 30 seconds for answers was a bit long. She had me retell one story from my application essay for the benefit of #2, though I don’t know if #2 had read it before, or if it was a test of an ability of mine. Towards the end, I got some business analysis questions about my current government job – what’s the model of employment like, why is it structured that way, how would I change it?

Then it was done. I got a minute at the end for my last question, “is there anything else you want to make sure we know about?” and then #2 walked me back down to the first waiting room, chit-chatting on the way about running.

Overall, a very pleasant experience. Definitely worth it to know your resume and application essay cold (as if anyone wouldn’t) and have stories ready for each bullet on your resume.

Apr 1, 2013

Interviewed in an off-campus hub with adcom. Interview was succinct, straight forward, and generally conversational. Overall, I don’t think I had any major points I didn’t get across and ultimately was admitted!

1) Let’s talk about (first company)- what do they do? What did you do there?

2) What’s your average day look like?

3) What’s the next big brand in your industry?

4) Let’s talk about (second company)- what do they do? Tell me about your job there?

5) What would you do differently if you were CEO?

6) What have you learned from your current manager?

7) What’s the biggest difference between first company and second company

8) Let’s talk about you- how’d you end up at (undergrad institution)?

9) Why that industry after college?

10) What’s your go-to strength?

11) And a weakness?

12) Lets talk about HBS- how have you gotten to know us?

13) What have you heard that you hope is true?

14) What have you heard that you hope is not true?

15) What books do you read?

16) What’s an issue in the news you always follow?

17) Anything you wished I asked?

18) Any questions for me?

Feb 28, 2013

The interview started with the question “which was the last book you read?” as the first of many personal questions they asked me. They asked then “Why did you decide to apply to this business school? “, “What makes you stand out among other candidates?”, “How do you plan to use your degree?”, “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”, “Can you give me an example of a time that you demonstrated leadership?”. Then the very feared “Can you walk me through your resume?”, and concluding with “With all of your experience, why do you need an MBA?”.

From my point of view, it was quite a demanding interview, but that’s normal, given that it is round 1. It is clear that they only accept the best applicants. I was not surprised of that, the level they were asking for.

As a conclusion, I would say it was a tough interview but in the end it’s going to be worth it, since Harvard is an excellent school and deserves all my effort.

Jan 29, 2013

I interviewed in November in a hub city. My interview was conducted by two Adcom members, although only one of them was an active speaker, the other one being an active listener. Both were quite active writers!

At first, I thought having to deal with two people would add some more stress to the whole process, but it was actually quite the opposite, as having almost continuous eye contact helped me build some confidence. After the usual greeting, I was told that the interview would last 30 min (which it did), that there would be no time left for my questions and that I might be interrupted from time to time (which actually never happened). The questions were generally to the point and based on my application, no real curve balls. Some of them induced follow-up questions.

. Why don’t you tell us about yourself?

. How did you end up at your current company?

. How have you navigated through your career since then?

. Tell us about something you still find difficult at your job.

. How do you react to feedback?

. Tell us more about your career plans.

. Explain something complicated you’re working on right now in simple words.

The interview was neither laid back nor too tense, rather very professional and enjoyable. I was somehow frustrated because there were several points I wish I had the opportunity to mention, but then again the most important thing is to answer THEIR questions. Also, I find that the newly added Post-Interview-Reflection helps a lot in getting that frustration off one’s chest. My advice to prospectives: know your application in and out, be ready to talk about the choices you have made and to justify the important transitions in your life in a structured and concise way.