myice

- Why LBS ? Why an MBA ?

- Business Issues: The interviewer and I discussed several business isssues ranging from M&A, my industry's evolution, and the vision of my company. Be prepared to talk strategically about your company

He gave me some scenarios and asked me what I would do.  The strangest one I remember is "You are the professor in a Strategy class, what would you present to the class as "What Worked" or "What Did Not Work"  based upon your industry/work experience".

Another question was "what is the biggest problem facing my industry and what would I do to improve it?"

Tell me about a business person you admire.

myice

What do you want your obituary to say?

however, he threw out the most unexpected question.  The U.S. Federal Reserve Board had raised interest rates that morning (this, obviously, was a while ago) and he asked me not only what I thought of that decision, but also what I thought regarding the timing of it.

then he wanted 2 know more about the process i went through in writing the essays and why i chose the answers i did.

and he ended with some questions about the way i handle and manage my team, the way i solve problems and the way i make my people follow me.

Then he picked up on my age (currently 25) and questioned if i was too young.

He also questioned my internationalism

The interviewer was also interested in what else schools have I applied for.

I was asked certain mgmt. type questions - along the lines of 'What is the most important factor for managerial success'.

Basically, from what I understand, they have certain characteristics that they are meant to look for, such as obvious things like interpersonal skills, to more business specific items such as 'ability to understand strategic concepts' (for that I was asked about the overall strategy of my company and where I saw it going' ).

what would you look for if you were recruiting your own team?

what are your strengths and weaknesses?

myice

what benefits have you gained from working with people from other countries?

what are your long-term aims?

what is your company's strategy, and how could you improve it?

what would you do if you never got an MBA?

how do you resolve conflict situations?

what position do you normally take up in teams?

what could you bring to an MBA?

what would you think is different about business leadership now vs. 20-25 years ago?

what kinda communication skills you use when interacting with peers/customers/bosses etc?

why this career choice?
company's greatest opportunity and threat?

Greatest challenge you have solved?

Do you work more frequently on your own or as part of a team?

Have you ever failed at anything?

myice

What's your favorite book?  Who is the author?

1. Provide an example of a situation where I had to choose a team and why I choose who I did? If was any problems with the team members, how did you deal with that situation

3. Describe yourself as a person?

1- Do you enjoy your current job? Why? What do you most enjoy? What do you like the least? (why?)

2- What do you want to do with your life? What are your long term plans?

7- Why do you really need an MBA? You don't really need an MBA - are you sure you want an MBA (huge emphasis on questions 5-7) (another variant - why do you need an MBA to achieve your long-term plans)

myice

17. Round 2 / Alum / Off-Campus (Published March 30th, 2010)

I interviewed at my interviewers office for 75 minutes. My interviewer was a recent graduate. The questions I was asked were:

Can you walk me through your resume?
What do you currently do?
Career Goals? Short term / Long term?
You already have great finance experience to achieve your goals. Why do you need an MBA?
Why LBS? How LBS differentiates from the other school you applied to?
Do you have any back up plan in case your goals are not achievable?
Could you describe your extracurriculars?
How will you contribute to the school?
I was then asked questions on part of my essays which clearly showed my interviewer had throroughly read my application.

I then had to do a small presentation. My interviewer had the choice between several questions and asked me to prepare how I would handle a specific corporate predicament. I had 2 minutes to prepare and 3-5 minutes to present it. There is no need to prepare for that part of the interview. Just make sure your presentation is well structured and that you convey your message with confidence.

We chatted for the rest of the time. He presented his background. I asked him specific questions about the school and his career choices.

myice

16. Round 2 / Alumnus / Off-campus (Published March 9th, 2010)

I had an interview in March 2010 and it took 3 hours, out of which 30-40 minutes were devoted to my questions.

The questions I was asked are as follows (as far as I remember):

Related to school, career:

Why LBS?
Why MBA?
Imagine world without an MBA. What would you do? (I understood as what I would do to achieve my professional goals?) If you can achieve your goals without an MBA why do you want to get an MBA?
How would you contribute to your study group at LBS from professional point of view?
What will be your personal development after arriving at LBS?
Imagine that some people in your study group are not contributing enough and your talk to them didn't help. What would you do next? How would you handle it? How would you feel?
Walk me through your resume
What would you do after an MBA? Location, company, industry, position.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Related to leadership, achievement, behavior:

Are you a leader? Why so?
What is the difference between a born leader and a manager? Who do you admire as a leader?
What characteristics should a successful business leader have?
Leadership experience. Resolving conflicting situation. 2 examples.
What is your most significant achievement?
What is the toughest decision you made in your life?
What are your strong points?
What are your weaknesses from the point of your friend? Do you agree with him/her? What other weaknesses do you have?
What are the key things for success? Or what is success for you?
What do you think are the development areas in your communication skills? How do you plan to improve them? (This was asked after a 5-minute presentation)
General questions:

What would you do if you had $10 million?
What would you do if you had unlimited money?
What is going wrong in the world today? Why? What should be done about it?
How financial crisis happened?

myice

15. Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-campus (Published February 22nd, 2010)

I interviewed with a very senior alum of London Business School in India (Round 1, Nov 2009). The interview was at his office.

Questions were as follows, and it lasted for 45 mins

Tell me about yourself including about your family
Whats your goal after MBA
Why MBA at this juncture?
What other schools you are applying to, and reasoning behind it?
Example of multi-culturalism, leadership
Case: individual/ shared leadership
Why not consulting post-MBA career?
Why again entrepreneurship? How will you finance your MBA?
What does your company do?
Why is X company so successful but not your company?
One of your recommenders has wrote you take 'slow decisions', why would he have written like that ?
Whats one weakness of your as described by your colleagues ?
How will your colleagues describe you ?

myice

14. Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-campus (Published November 30th, 2009)

I had my interview at my interviewer's office. The interviewer was friendly but at the same time extremely professional (Actually I also gained a very valuable insight on the job market during the last part). Interview was divided into 3 parts: questions about me ( both my career path and myself as a person) / 5 min. presentation/ questions I had about the program. Lasted about 1.5 hours. the interviewer focused A LOT on my current business, not only related to my skills, but a lot also on business awareness. Eg. why is it a profitable business, what are the main challenges, how is it technically feasible, how is the company organized, do you think communication is good and why. Secondly, I was asked many "general" questions such as:

Are you a creative person?
What are the main characteristics of a leader?
Tell me about your leadership experiences.
How do you manage your team?
Give me an example of something that really disappointed you (a failure, a major disappointment)
Teamwork skills
My hobbies
What are you most proud of?
Why LBS?
Are you applying elsewhere?
Walk me through your CV
Presentation was a very general topic and really nothing to worry about. Actually it was fun doing it.

I'm still waiting for the results, finger crossed!

myice

13. Round 2 / Alumnus / Off-campus (March 5th, 2009)

I had my interview in March 2009 in the office of my interviewer. The Alumnus graduated in 2005 and works in a multinational company specialized in M&A. LBS interviews are non-blind interviews, therefore the alumnus has carefully read my application. Hence, when we started, he told me not to repeat what I had already written in my essays. It is important to be prepared with alternative and interesting stories!

He focused on my background and work experience (heavily quant) and why I wanted to pursue an MBA vs. a PhD or a MSc in Finance. Then, he asked if I could fit well at LBS and how I could contribute to the study group. After more than one hour talking it was the part of the impromptu presentation (now compulsory in every interview), it was something related to the current crisis, and therefore not too difficult to handle.

Last 30 mins were devoted to my questions. I asked him a lot about his experience inside/outside the classroom, how the MBA helped him in his work experience, which clubs he joined.

myice

12. Round 2 / Alumni / Off-campus (Published March 4th, 2009)

This was a Round 2 interview. I live in the United States and had to drive ~3hours to get to the interviewer's office location (that's pretty close considering distances in the US).

The interview itself was semi-formal. It was clear that my interviewer had gone through my application in detail and had some specific questions that he wanted to ask:

Why are you doing an MBA?
Are you applying elsewhere?
Give me an example of a leadership experience
Give me an example of when you took risk
Give me an example of when you initiated change and how did that pan out?
Walk me through a typical day at work for you
Teamwork is very important at LBS. Have you worked in teams and what have your roles been?
Give me an example of a difficult team member you've had to work with
In what ways do you lead the team that you manage at work?
And then there were the general feeler questions:

What do you think about LBS' interview setup of using alumni?
What did you think the cultural differences are between the places you've lived in (I've lived in the Northeastern US, South and Southeast)...This led to a brief discussion about American politics.
My interviewer then indicated that the presentation was a 'formal' part of the interview and asked me to prepare for 5 minutes for a 5-minute presentation. Topic: Who do you think are the 5 most powerful people in the world and why?

After the 5-minute presentation, we basically chatted for ~30 minutes about the school, his experiences there and what he thought the strengths/weaknesses of the program were. Towards the end, I asked for his feedback and he indicated that he thought I would be a good fit for the program.

Overall, he was friendly and candid in his insights into the program.

All said, I spent about 1 hr and 45 mins at the interview.

Good luck to all!