Q) What are some good failure examples that you have coached for MBA admissions interviews?
Atul Jose (Admissions Consultant, F1GMAT): There are so many trivial examples that I have heard in F1GMAT’s Mock Interview Service where the client was initially unwilling to accept some of their mistakes. But after some persuasion, they were able to come up with some interesting examples.
I broadly categorize them into three kinds of examples:
1) Career Change
Right now, we are in one of the most exciting employment markets (regardless of the disruption from AI) where I have yet to see a client or reader who has not at least switched their career once – either from their undergraduate major to a different industry or function, or tried a function for 1-year and then received an opportunity to switch.
Now, an MBA is again considered a tool for a career change or rapidly enhancing one's career.
Many authentic answers around failure talk about wrong approaches while pursuing a career change.
The common ones are the unnecessary persistence with an industry or function where they were a poor fit.
If you can reflect and share a regret - not in a negative tone, but as a reflection on your fear that the transition would have been more challenging than what it really was, the answer will be authentic.
Case Study: Creative Applicant Who Pivoted from Technology to Marketing
An applicant with strong creativity was oriented to a Quant career in technology, where most of her daily responsibilities were in analyzing data, cleaning data, and designing an algorithm.
She had limited impact on the team or the organization in her first 6 months, before she pivoted to a startup.
The startup recognized her creativity and applied her skills in marketing, where her innate skills in branding helped the startup reach a new audience.
Her reflection on the first 6 months, her narrative on the struggles of recognizing one's true talent, made her a real person who wasn't afraid to show her vulnerability.
Vulnerable applicants are extremely confident in their skills. That is why they are open to sharing such moments.
You may reflect and share a regret - not in a negative tone, but as a reflection on your fear that the transition would have been more challenging than what it really was, the answer will be authentic.
F1GMAT's Mock Interview Service - Interview Prep with Atul Jose (Admissions Consultant, F1GMAT)
The first value you will receive with F1GMAT's Mock Interview Service is the ability to answer questions in 1 to 1 minute and 30 seconds.
The second value is the skills to bring emotions and authenticity to your answers.
The third value is scripting your answers and making sure they are not clichés.
For any questions about F1GMAT's Mock Interview service, email me, Atul Jose, at editor@f1gmat.com
Covered in the 3-hour MBA Admissions Mock Interview session:
1) Planning and practicing the answers for the standard interview questions
• How to answer the “Tell us about yourself” introductory question?
• How to answer Walk me through your resume?
• What is the greatest accomplishment in your professional career?
• What is your leadership style?
• How would you contribute to the School Community?
• What is the most difficult obstacle you overcame?
• Are you a Creative Person?
• How do you define Success?
• How to answer about Innovative Solutions?
• Answering Frequent Job Switch
• How did you Handle Conflict?
• How did you manage Change?
• Give an Example of an Ethical Dilemma you faced. How did you handle it?
• Answering Greatest Accomplishment
• How did you Handle a Difficult Boss?
• Tell me a time when you made a Mistake. What did you learn from it?
• How to summarize your Career?
• How to explain low grades?
• How to answer Scenario Questions?
• How to answer the Backup Plan Question
• How to discuss about Industry Experience & your Role?
• What Questions should you ask the AdCom after an MBA Admissions Interview?
• Tell me about yourself that is not covered in the application
• What are your post-MBA goals?
• What is your plan B if you can’t achieve your short-term goals?
• Why consulting/finance/marketing/general management (if you are a career switcher)
2) Follow-up Questions based on your resume
3) Follow-up Questions based on your essays
If you need help, subscribe to our $349 (3 hours) mock interview session, where I will offer immediate feedback after each question on improving:
1) The tone
2) The transitions
3) The style and
4) The narrative of your overall story, covering the broader achievements in your career and the choices in your life
I will ensure that your answers sound authentic.
Next Step
1. Purchase the service from F1GMAT's Store
2. Send an email to Atul Jose (Admissions Consultant)(editor@f1gmat.com) with your latest resume and the essays used for the application.
2) Leadership Mistakes
There are so many contexts around which we make leadership mistakes.
It could be on hiring or team building.
There are many examples of a lack of a backup plan where a critical team member couldn’t join, and it had a negative impact on the deliverable.
There are mistakes around setting clear guidelines or delegation or assumptions that led to missteps.
In all the good examples, the client owned up to the mistake and developed a framework or value not to repeat the same mistake.
Case Study: Leadership Lesson from Betting on the Wrong Person
Technology and thought leaders from Silicon Valley often reiterate the lesson that degrees don't matter.
Ivy League candidates have a strong sense of self that could hinder the team or the organization's growth. There are truths to such statements. But a larger reflection from these life lessons is the person's attitude towards work and learning.
Work ethics in our modern hustle culture are glorified or criticized, but without a strong work ethic, a candidate is unlikely to learn or grow.
Academic performance is a proxy for determining a person's work ethic. There are tricks to ace exams without learning anything, but with the right interviewing process, such outlier candidates can be eliminated.
One such interviewing mistake, where the candidate failed to look beyond the Ivy League credentials, was the basis for the leadership mistake the applicant made.
The applicant also had an interesting set of interviewing frameworks he shared in the lessons learnt part of his answer.
Any question that ends with actionable tips elevates a cliched narrative on failures.
3) Conflict Management
Use this example only if you are in Finance or in a high-stress, conflict-driven environment. These are not your typical work schedules.
There are aggressive deadlines, borderline unethical practices, and treatment of peers that lead to conflicts.
Case Study: Different Rules for Revenue Generators and Rest of the Team
An applicant from the Talent Management function shared examples of abuse and harassment where the 'superstar' performers were treated with lighter reprimand compared to candidates in lower revenue-generating roles.
The management was unwilling to risk any disruption.
The answer was a reflection of her lack of power to bring any real, meaningful change to the organization.
Another applicant, whose job was to flag high-risk trade, was met with discouragement after several of his trade-halting rules were ignored.
Eventually, the bank went bankrupt, and the firm was acquired by a competitor.
His reflection was also a realization of the limited power he had in influencing the culture despite all the systems and processes integrated to prevent such catastrophic risk-taking.
The problem with such examples is that there are no life lessons.
Use it only if you don’t have any leadership mistakes or career-change-related failures.
To script authentic cultural narratives around lack of power and how to fix it, and lessons on leadership & career change, Subscribe to F1GMAT’s Mock Interview Service