Q) How should I shortlist the most relevant achievement for the greatest achievement or the biggest challenge MBA admissions interview question
When I am taking mock interviews, I am often surprised that this concept is not understood at an intuitive level.
You don't have to make up stories just to fit this rule, but these are the weightage by which you should shortlist achievements.
1) Changing Culture
Any achievement that required changing an organization's culture – making it more inclusive, efficient, socially conscious, sustainable, and focused on the long-term vision should be the number one example for your biggest challenge or achievement question.
2) Creating Systems
The second priority should be examples where you created systems that integrated a function or made onboarding smooth for the customers or the internal team, or it could be about systems that helped meet regulatory guidelines if you were working in Finance or systems that improved the security of the operation if you were working with data-sensitive industries like Finance, Technology or Healthcare.
3) Introducing Processes
This is an important deliverable for management consultants. The introduction of a process is not just about brainstorming or interviewing stakeholders. It could involve measuring the impact of the process either through simulation or testing in beta. And whether it is wise to introduce the process this quarter or a financial year, after considering all the constraints of the clients. So you must convey the complexity of introducing a process for the client or your organization.
4) Projects
This is a tricky narrative. Most applicants work on projects, or at least they are trained not to see the larger IMPACT of their project - great for a job appraisal but could negatively impact your admission chances. So whenever you create a narrative around a project or a solution, think about how it impacted the team, the departments, the company, the client, and the larger industry. This doesn't come naturally for many of you. I can help you think in that direction. You can Sign up for F1GMAT's Mock Interview service
5) Tasks
The worst examples in Interviews – all have narratives around tasks.; the first hint for an interviewer that you are not what you have positioned yourself to be. So avoid any narrative where you limit yourself to a task.
If you need help preparing for your interview, Start the conversation with me, Atul Jose