MIT MBA Round 2 / Outside consultant / On-campus (April 5th, 2010)
The interview went fairly smoothly today. It was all too fast before I realized the time was up! Anyway, I hope I left a good impression on the interviewer. It is not in m hands anymore...
Here is the interview format:
A very brief greeting, maybe 2-3min, just talked about the incredible weather and how I got to the place by taking the cab (instead of walking),
She then sat me down and asked for the transcripts.
She then made a one-min introduction of herself. It turned out that she was an outside consultant hired by Sloan to do the interview. From what I heard, there should be very little difference of interviewing with admission officer vs. outside consultant. But try to find out about the interviewer could be helpful
She then directly went to the behavioral questions.
The first question she posed was: how did you manage to resolve a conflict situation and move the team forward?
Tell me of a time when you set up a goal and moved towards achieving it;
Tell me of a time when you took the risk and the outcome, what did you learn from it
I used the innovation and initiative story for the first question, where I talked about how I convinced the team to pursue my new idea and so forth. She was probing how I persuaded the team and whether there was any push-backs from the team members. So just make sure that you are prepared to address those details.
I used the ballroom story for the second question. I think this one went really well, and we shared lots of laughs about dancing. No significant issues here.
I then used the grant writing story to talk about how I took the risk by focusing on the grant writing rather than the other errands. She then asked me whether I was willing to submit the grant, knowing that even if it was not perfect. I told her yes, that I have learned to strike a balance between quality and quantity.
She then asked me for any questions. I posed two questions to her: mentorship and the students at E&I track. It was a nice conversation, as I made an effort to weave in my fit and my career goals into this conversation.
That is it. Then she walked me out of her office, I shook hands with her, and ...
I then rushed to the bookstore and signed a Thankyou card and mailed it right away
General tips:
Relax, people are nice, so just focus on being positive and being in control. Even if you knew the answers to some of the questions (especially behavioral), try not to start answering right away, because that may sound a bit scripted. Instead, ask to take a moment, and (pretend to) think about it, and then start talking. Use every chance to establish a connection with her. For example, when I talked about my dance story, I mentioned a dance movie and we started chatting about the movie, |
