MBA interview with Michigan 上周五与UMBS(University of Michigan Business School)进行了校友面试，过程如下： 6:45准时到达面试地点，进入会议室。非常巧的是，这位Michigan校友是90级清华EE毕业生，所以开始用中文谈论了一下清华现状，顺便我恭维了一下面试官的年轻有为。过了一会，我问“我们不使用英语吗？”，面试官回答“别紧张，先放松一下”。 然后面试正式开始，面试官用及其流利的英语作自我介绍以及面试流程介绍。他95年毕业于清华，现在HP作sales,然后去big 5作consulting,99年被UMBS MBA program录取，2001年毕业，然后进入某NASDAQ上市公司的Director of Corporate Marketing and Strategic Planning. 以下是问题和我的回答。 Interviewer: introduce yourself briefly.
Me: First briefly introduced my work experience and education background; then described my short-term career goal and long-term career goal, and explained why I chose UMBS and why I applied for it at present; and last explained my unique background would make a contribution to the diversity of b-school. Interviewer: describe a failure or setback you have experienced. First, briefly describe the situation; then tell what you have learned from this experience; and last explain why it is important for you.
Me: I described a failure I experienced during start-up. Actually I had well prepared for this question, so it was easy for me to answer it. Interviewer: now, let’s begin to talk with people. How do you communicate with people and motivate them, especially engineers and sales.
Me: I first talked about how to motivate engineers, because I have a great deal of experience in this. Then I told the interviewer that I had less experience in motivating sales. Interviewer: then you mean you didn’t communicate with sales.
Me: No, actually I spend a lot of communicating with sales, because there are often conflicts between sales and other departments. Interviewer: then tell me how you deal with such conflicts?
Me: I found sales were apt to conflict with R&D. there are mainly two reasons. First, R&D don’t really understand market requirements, and design software which can not meet customers’ requirements. Second, sales sometimes don’t well understand our products, and spend no time studying our product manual. For the first case, I’ll use my personal setback in the past to persuade R&D to respect customers; for the second case, I’ll try to promote the collaboration between sales and R&D. R&D will give sales training about our products, also they sometimes will compose product manual collectively. Interviewer: why don’t you want to work for two more years before applying for MBA? Why you need an MBA program now? Why UMBS is your first choice?
Me: I chose UMBS for three reasons: first, I want to broaden my skills and knowledge comprehensively, including corporate finance, corporate strategy, corporate accounting, and operation management. UMBS ranks above top10 in all these fields; second, I like the climate of Ann Arbor; third, Ann Arbor is the national performance art center of USA, and I like its yearly classical music performance and film festival. Interviewer: how many shares do you have in your start-up company?
Me: y%. Actually we experienced two rounds of raising funding. My shares were diluted from the original x% to current y%. I raised both rounds of funding from the same China’s traditional investor XXX. I think my experience in dealing with China’s traditional investors and my lessons in raising funding will definitely be colorful cases in the school’s discussion classes. Interviewer: If you leave you company to study abroad, will you lose your shares in the company?
Me: It’s an interesting question and also a hard question for me to answer.(tacitly agreed) Interviewer: Then why do you want to give up your shares to pursue an MBA program?
Me: compared with my long-term career goal, the shares mean nothing. First, if I stick to the company, over which I have lost control, I won’t have any opportunity to develop it into huge size, because large shareholder is too conservative in raising funding; second, I urgently need advanced management skills and specialty knowledge of corporate finance, corporate strategy and
corporate accounting, I can systematically learn all these only in b-school; third, in terms of my long-term career goal, I can easily start up another IT business and develop it into huge size if I graduate from top b-schools of America. Interviewer: ok, I have finished my questions. Do you have any question to ask about UMBS?
Me: I have prepared two questions. The first, I know XXX institute provides a lot of electives, as well as IMAP project for MBA students. I wonder if it provides or will provide any opportunity for MBA students to take part in specific research, especially those updated, cutting-edge researches? Interviewer: definitely. …..
Me: I read from your brochure that Berlin Philharmonic will come to Ann Arbor every year. I wonder if it will really come there and give performance every year. Because I like classical music and Berlin Philharmonic is the orchestra I like most; besides, I want to know how long the Ann Arbor Film Festival will last each year. Because I also like movie very much. Interviewer: ….
Me: thanks a lot for your detailed information about my questions.
面试到此结束，然后面试官将我送至电梯口，同时用中文问我，现在你还住学校吧，博士课程是不是很忙？ 我想可能这又是一个问题，因为我的full time work experience和PhD education 重叠。我说虽然有宿舍，但是我已经在北京成家了，所以不回去。另外，你知道，清华的研究生课程其实不需要花费太多时间，特别是我们计算机系比你们电子工程科研任务还要宽松很多。我这么回答是要打消他对于我full time WE 的疑问。其实这是我最担心的问题，在最后临走时，终于说出来了。后来回来给面试官写了一封感谢信，着重解释了一下my lack of experience in dealing with sales 和the raising funding of the start-up. 他回信说：you did well in the interview. And the questions are to test your skills to deal with conflicts. 前半句是套话，不过看了后半句我还是挺高兴，因为在回答how to deal with conflicts between sales and R&D时，我自我感觉回答还可以。这个问题我没有准备，完全是现场根据以前的经历回答的。 我仔细回忆面试官整个过程中没有specially care about something in my resume. 想想好歹是清华校友，也许有些照顾吧。反正面试效果还不错，准备认真申请UMBS了。
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