During a telephonic interview, an admission staff and a faculty member lead the telephonic interview. Here are some pointers for your interview:
Read your Essays
The admission officers ask questions for three reasons – to measure your communication skill, to check whether the things you have written about yourselves truly represent you and to evaluate your motivation for doing an MBA. Your essay and the recommendation letters are the only points of references for the admission officers. Therefore, read your essays and be consistent with your answers
Prepare for the Standard Questions
The standard questions that an interviewer would ask are:
1) Tell me about yourselves
2) Why do you want to do an MBA?
3) What are your weaknesses?
4) What are your strengths?
5) Give one instance where you had a conflict and how you resolved it
Keep all your answers as close to the essay as possible. Be very careful not to contradict what you have written in your essays.
Passion
One trait that ranks highest in an MBA admission interview is passion. Admission officers want to see whether you are motivated enough to go through the rigorous training necessary for a management course. There are some tricks to measure your passion.
a) Record your answers
Answer one standard interview question – “Tell me about yourself”. Record your voice and play it. How does it sound?
b) Balanced Tone
You should not sound either too excited or too monotonous. However, in case you get nervous, remember that sounding excited is always better than sounding calm.
c) Does your answer sound rehearsed
Play your answer and see whether it sounds rehearsed. Have a clear idea on how you are going to answer the typical interview questions.
Questions for us
The interviewer would normally conclude the interview by asking whether you have any questions for them. This is where your research about the school would bear fruit. Any question that can be easily searched in the school’s portal is a bad question. So be prepared with a good one.
Thank the interviewers for the opportunity. An MBA admission interview can last anywhere between 15-45 minutes.
The above post is an Excerpt from MBA Admission Interview Guide
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Download MBA Admission Interview Guide
The Guide offers detailed examples and strategies to answer about yourself, career summary, innovation, frequent job switch, managing change, handling conflict, the greatest accomplishment, low grades, difficult boss, backup plan, industry, role and gives you tips on managing first impression, improve likeability and lists the questions that you should ask the MBA Admission interviewer.
The Guide includes commonly asked MBA Admission Interview Questions for:
1) Booth School of Business
2) Columbia Business School
3) Ivey Business School
4) Johnson Graduate School of Management
5) Insead
6) Kellogg School of Management
7) Stanford Graduate School of Business
8) London Business School
9) Harvard Business School
10) MIT Sloan School of Management
11) Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
