UC Berkeley’s Haas R1 / Off-campus / Alum (March 27th, 2009)
Probably one of my best interviews till date, and everyone I spoke to confirmed that it sounded really good. The interview questions were ones that could have thrown me off-balance, but my interviewer was awesome - Smiling all the time, so I was so relaxed I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
I interviewed off-campus with an alum. I arrived about 1/2 hour early, and since my interviewer also walked in around the same time, we decided to start earlier. My interviewer was alum from the 2006 batch. I tried to find out some background info about him before the interview, but wasn’t able to.
So, atypically, the first question was about whether I would still go to business school if I won a lottery for a million dollars. In my opinion, its a perfect launch pad to establish why you want an MBA, and why it is more important than just to make money. The, it moved to aspects of if I actually had won that imaginary lottery, what would I choose to invest the money in. Since my focus in business school was technology (and since Haas is my fit!), I said that I would choose to invest in emerging technologies.
It moved on to - what in your opinion are 3 of the hottest emerging technologies today. I gave some smooth answers and I knew I had set a pretty good tone for the rest of my interview.
Rest of the questions included:
Could you spend 5 minutes taking me through your resume
Specific question around an emerging and innovative technology that I had worked upon
I’m from a rotational leadership program , so I was asked to describe my best and worst rotations
The one thing I missed out on during the Program
My role on my current project and organization
Why an MBA from Berkeley
If I could take a 1-month sabbatical from work, how would I choose to spend it (Choose to talk about my extracurricular here)
Which books are you reading now, and what would you recommend for me
After that, I had a chance to discuss at length, about my interviewers experience at Berkeley, specific advice for me, the best faculty, learning and innovation opportunities outside the classroom, how did he make his career choices and how did Berkeley help him in that aspect. |
