The mbaMission Podcast

Ep 24 | MBA Interview Tips

mbaMission Season 1 Episode 24

In this episode of the mbaMission Podcast, Harold Simansky and Rachel Beck discuss effective strategies for MBA interviews. They emphasize the importance of authenticity, preparation, and understanding common interview questions. Rachel shares her insights from her experience as a journalist and alumni interviewer, providing practical tips for candidates to present themselves confidently and effectively. The conversation covers various aspects of the interview process, including attire, common questions, and how to navigate behavioral questions. The episode concludes with final advice for candidates to be themselves and articulate their goals clearly.  

Takeaways 

  • Interviews are primarily about fit, not just qualifications.
  • Being too rehearsed can lead to poor interview outcomes.
  • Reading your application essays is crucial for preparation.
  • Understanding the type of interview (blind vs. comprehensive) is important.
  • Dress professionally, even in virtual interviews.
  • Prepare for common questions like 'Tell me about yourself.'
  • Articulate your short-term and long-term goals clearly.
  • Know why you are applying to each specific school.
  • Behavioral questions require structured responses using the STAR method.
  • Always leave the interviewer with a positive impression.

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Harold Simansky (00:10)
Hi everyone, welcome to the mbaMission Podcast. I'm Harold Simansky And today I'm here with my colleague, Rachel Beck. Hi Rachel. Rachel, you've been with us before and we have some of the most popular podcasts are with you, which yeah, very exciting. And today we're gonna be talking about interviewing. And the reason I wanna speak to you in particular is because you used to be a journalist where you were interviewing people all the time. You used to be an alumni interviewer. So I would love just your general thoughts

Rachel (00:17)
Hello.

Great!

Harold Simansky (00:40)
for those clients who maybe have not interviewed anywhere at any point, just how should they approach it? What are some of your thoughts on it? And sort of how does everything come together from the admissions committee stand?

Rachel (00:52)
Absolutely. I love the interviewing stage of the application process because I think it lets you tell your story out loud. And where I think a lot of people fall down in this process is they become too rehearsed. And I never want my clients to be rehearsed. I've seen bad outcomes from people who are too rehearsed. And I think it's really important to be natural and understand that this is for the most part a fit interview.

Yes, some schools will ask you more pointed questions, but they're just kind of listening and getting a feel for you. So if you just go into the interview process, thinking that way, a lot of your anxieties will start to fade away. think being prepared for an interview is important, just not over-prepared. So when I sit down with my clients and say, okay, we're gonna practice, or actually ahead of sitting down with them,

before the actual practice, I give them a few important tips. Number one, read the essays of the school that you're interviewing at. Newsflash, a lot of the information is right there. And for the most part, interviewees or the interviewers, excuse me, the interviewers have not read your application. So everything that they're coming upon is somewhat new. They'll have your resume, but otherwise they won't see what you've written. That's called the blind interview.

There are comprehensive interviews where they admissions officers or notable alumni have read your application. That's a little bit different, but for the most part, most schools we see their blind interviews.

Harold Simansky (02:27)
right. just very, Rachel, just very quickly here, the most well-known comprehensive interviews are Harvard Business School, someone notorious. MIT Sloan is, think, more fun because it's a comprehensive interview. And I think NYU is also a comprehensive.

Rachel (02:41)
Correct, correct. I would say of all of those, Harvard is the hardest because they ask a lot of follow-up questions to your answers. So just note that. But for the most part, people are going in for blind interviews. Read your essays and your application because you put all this time in there, especially for schools that ask you why this school? You have the homework done, so read that. So that's number one thing I have to do. Number two.

Harold Simansky (03:02)
Yes.

Rachel (03:08)
If they worked with mbaMission or worked on their own, chances are they put together some documents before they started working on their application. We call it a brainstorm document. And what I tell people all the time is you put all this effort in kind of telling your story in one place, why don't you read it over? That might jog your memory of some leadership stories or setbacks that you had. Read that over.

Harold Simansky (03:14)
Yes.

Rachel (03:31)
And then I have them do an exercise, which I think is very, very helpful in just reminding yourself of your good stories and also challenging stories. Print out your resume and go over every bullet on your resume out loud. Read the bullet point. Ask yourself, what, what was the accomplishment that I had here? What was the role I had on this team? Was I a leader? Was I a support person on this team? Was there a setback before I reached this accomplishment?

What was the hardest part of this accomplishment? If you just do that exercise and nothing else, you'll be prepared for your interview.

Harold Simansky (04:07)
What I'll always tell my clients, somewhat joking but not really, probably about 50 % of those interview will get in. Then I turn it around and say, okay, so who doesn't get in? Very quickly you recognize that two particular groups don't get in. If A, they don't speak English, and B, if they're weird. Define weird however you want, but I think most people know what I'm talking about here. So assuming that you in fact speak English, that you are, I'll say, present yourself well.

and also that there seems to be some correlation between the application and your resume and who you are, then I certainly like your chances.

Rachel (04:42)
which I'm gonna kind of get to, I'm gonna touch on that weird part because when I was talking about being somebody who is over-prepared or rehearsed, you come off as sounding very stilted when you do that. And as a result, the interviewer is taken aback by it. And I use this example a lot because when I first started working at mbaMission, I had a really wonderful client who was granted interviews at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia.

Harold Simansky (04:50)
Yep. Yes.

Rachel (05:10)
Wharton and Insead. I mean, that's a pretty much home run in terms of, I thought I was, my goodness, greatest thing ever. And back then we did a lot more interview swaps. So I prepared him for one of the first interviews and I said, did you write out all your answers? And he said, of course I did. And I said, please, you're memorizing everything. One of my colleagues did a prep with him and said,

Harold Simansky (05:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel (05:36)
He cannot do this. It's so bad. He wrote out all of his answers. could tell. Another colleague prepped with him. He can't answer questions that he hasn't prepared for. So the end result is he got rejected at the four US schools and he ended up getting into NCI, which is no slouchy thing, right? It's incredible. But I think my point here is that here was somebody who had a good application. It was really noted by these schools.

and he could not execute in the interview.

Harold Simansky (06:06)
That's right. And this really speaks to what's happening in the business school classroom. At the end of the day, these are very dynamic classrooms. Conversations really move very, very quickly. And yes, you may have all the knowledge somewhere on the page, in a notebook. But if you're really not be able to articulate your opinion, articulate it in real time, then you're not going to actually be the ideal classmate, participant that they're looking for.

Rachel (06:30)
Exactly. I always say the person interviewing you is thinking about the following things. If it was a student, would I have wanted to sit next to this person in class? If it was an alumni, would I wanted to be part of an alumni group with this person? If it was an admissions officer, what does this person bring to our community? If you can't answer the questions, you're bringing nothing.

Harold Simansky (06:49)
Yeah, no, that makes sense. Rachel, let's go over a few basics here in terms of what do you wear What questions do you absolutely know that is coming your way? Just really, again, the demeanor. What happens depended on who or what does one learn from who interviews you or where they interview you? Really any of these things that maybe you'll have a good sense even going in some of the things you should be doing.

Rachel (06:59)
Yes.

So first of all, what do you wear? We live in this Zoom age, so a lot of interviews are now being done virtually, but from here up, you wanna look professional. You're interviewing for this school, they're gonna expect that you're a professional. Some will be specific and say business casual, others won't say anything. And I think for women, you could wear a blouse or a blazer with a blouse under it or a shirt under it and look fine. You wanna be presentable, you wanna check your view behind you and everything before.

I mean, Harold and I do so many mock interviews and I'll be like, I hope you're not interviewing with your unmade bed in the background. It's shocker the dirty dishes. You're lying on it. Yes, I've had one time I had somebody who was shirtless lying in bed. I'm like, I'm not gonna do this. We need to get up. It's really uncomfortable. So you should be prepared. Men might wear a dress shirt like you're wearing with a blazer over it. You could wear a dress shirt and a tie.

Harold Simansky (07:50)
it's exactly or lying on it.

Yeah, exactly. That's right.

Rachel (08:12)
You just want to look like you showed up for it. So that's.

Harold Simansky (08:14)
That's right. And I have to tell everyone, men out there, honestly, this is not such a hard thing to think about. It's like, what do you wear? Go for the tie. It's easy. It's very, very easy. And then you're done. Go for the tie. Or if you're incredibly uncomfortable in a tie, then listen, just a nice Oxford shirt. You're done. No reason to think about it.

Rachel (08:25)
Yes.

I know. By the way, everyone has a closet full of nice clothes that they haven't worn in four and a half years. Just pull something out. You've got it in your closet. So you should definitely wear that. Remind me of your next question. I felt like.

Harold Simansky (08:38)
Thank

Yeah, so I guess really it is, is what may be the first question you get?

Rachel (08:52)
Yes, yes. So I typically will prepare my clients for one of two first questions. And I say they're equal. I look at them equally. That would be tell me about yourself or walk me through your resume. Now, a lot of people will get walk me through your resume. And the reason I prepare my clients with tell me about yourself and walk me through your resume at the same time is I would never want to interview somebody and have them say, you know, I went

I went, Rachel Beck, went to Lehigh University and then I became a journalist and like it's leaving out a lot of context of who I am. So I always want my clients to tell a little bit more about themselves, especially when they have some interesting things from kind of where they were raised, maybe something important about where they went to college, why they chose that school. Then they can start talking about how they got into their career. And I think that's important. So.

Harold Simansky (09:36)
Yes.

Rachel (09:49)
getting away from the idea of walk me through your resume is just literally walking through the resume and thinking of it more as this is my opportunity to tell my story a bit. Now a tactic I use for that is something I think is really important. I actually do this in my interview prep. What happens a lot when people get asked these questions is their tendency after they talk about their career path is they want to jump ahead in the interview and start answering why they think they want an MBA.

But you don't want to jump ahead because you want to save that question so you can answer it fully. And my years of doing this, my analysis is what happens when people jump ahead 30 seconds into giving that jump ahead answer. They realize, am I talking too long? So they actually cut the answer off. And so they don't fully answer it. But the interviewer thinks, they answered it. But when they go back to

Harold Simansky (10:38)
Yes.

Rachel (10:48)
write up their notes about the person being interviewed, they realize, that really wasn't a full answer. So you kind of get dinged on something that you were prepared for, but you trickled over. I also think if you don't...

Harold Simansky (11:00)
Yeah. Rachel, just very quickly here, you touched on time a little bit. And I guess my question for you is, long, walk me through your resume, how long would you expect that answer to take? And I'm going to sort of jump ahead here is, whatever time Rachel says, pull out your stopwatch, pull out your phone and time yourself as you practice it.

Rachel (11:22)
To be honest, I'm not a firm, like you can only do this long, but I typically will tell my clients, you want this answer to be somewhere between three and a half to four and a half minutes max. You don't wanna go over that. But I also don't want you to not tell some of your story. You just don't wanna go on and on. I also, when prepping my clients, because it always feels awkward at the end of, and this is what I'm doing for work,

Harold Simansky (11:33)
Yes.

Yeah.

Rachel (11:49)
And what happens is you kind of don't know how to end that. And it literally will sound like this. I know this is going to sound crazy to listeners, but when people are kind of finishing their career story and they don't know where to go in the conversation next, it will sound like, and that's what I do. You know, like this at the end. So what I have my clients do in their preparation and it works and they, talk to me about it is then say outside of work.

Harold Simansky (12:07)
Yeah.

Rachel (12:17)
You know, I'm part of a New York City running club and I love hosting dinner parties for my analyst class. You know, every other Sunday night we have a potluck dinner. Well, you're even leaving this, this answer really on this high note. You're getting to talk about something that maybe you would never talk about otherwise during the interview. And you're not stuck in this weird, like, I'm not sure what I should finish with.

Harold Simansky (12:39)
No, no, that absolutely makes sense. also tell my clients if they ask the question walk me through your resume Frequently, I'll have them take you, know Walk them through your resume up until their current career and then say and just as a little bit of background I was born in New Jersey at that point I went to maybe at that point you mentioned your college or you in a little bit more detail and here's what I do now, so

Rachel (13:01)
Right. There's no right, there's no right or wrong way to approach it. I, in all the years I've been doing that, I feel like anytime I try to switch things up, people feel like they almost are more comfortable chronologically. I also talk to my clients a lot about bullet points in their head. So it's easier for you to answer these kinds of questions, which is like, this is where I grew up bullet point one. This is where I went to college bullet point two, bullet point three is my career bullet point four is this is what I do outside of work. Great.

That's fine. You're not saying bullet point. You're just keeping your thoughts organized.

Harold Simansky (13:34)
That makes sense. And again, this really speaks to the notion here. This is an informal conversation. It is supposed to be conversational. If they wanted bullet points, you could put it the optional essay, right? At the end of the day, this is human interaction. So Rachel, we know almost certainly there's going to be walk me through your resume or tell me about yourself. And we probably have a good sense that the next question is probably along the lines of short-term, long-term goals, maybe.

Rachel (13:46)
Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly, exactly. You need to be able to talk about your goals. That's it. You cannot successfully be admitted to a MBA program without being able to explain to them, this is what I do want to do next in the short term, in the long term. And I'll add another point to that. I will have my clients talk about why they need an MBA to get them there broadly, not a specific school.

Question, but like if you were out to coffee this I use this terminology if you were to coffee with your friends and your friend was like Why do you need an MBA to get this? You know make this career transition You would say I really need to build my foundational business skills and sharpen my management and leadership Understanding and that's why I need an MBA and they would be like, that sounds great, right? So you're basically appeasing

the interviewer, like, really understand what I want to get out of the MBA without saying, I want a Columbia MBA here. It's just more general, but really being able to not just lay out your goals, but in some ways have a bridge sentence that says, you know, in the past, I I've had these experiences and this is how it kind of leads me to what I want to do next. And I think by holding the hand of the interviewer, they believe you more that these goals are

possible.

Harold Simansky (15:23)
No, that certainly makes sense. You did allude to the fact that there is one. First of all, your goals are in your application. If they're not in the application for the school, they are in one of your other applications. It's in your brainstorm. It's somewhere. You should really have those at your fingertips. Yeah, that should be. And similarly, what can be found in the application is also the answer to a very frequent question. Why our school? Why Columbia? Why Yale? Why Harvard? Whatever.

Rachel (15:36)
Correct.

Correct. This is, again, one of the most important questions that the interviewer will want to make sure that you really know. And there's no getting around it. You can't just say, like, I really want to take the core curriculum, and I want to be in the strategy pathway, and I love the opportunity to be part of the investment banking club. That doesn't tell me anything. You want this answer to be a story of why the school is the right fit for you, that you've really

dug in and thought about what you're going to gain. Know the name of a professor to know the name of classes that you want to take, clubs you want to be part of, extracurriculars that are notable to you. It can be community focused. If it's in a particular city, like if you're applying to NYU or Columbia, you bet you got to talk about being in New York City. Or if it's in, or Chicago, maybe you're from Chicago. You want to return to Chicago or LA or San Francisco.

or something's really attractive to you, you love Duke because it's a college campus and you want that immersive MBA experience. Tell that part of the story.

Harold Simansky (16:57)
Absolutely. And that's also the place where you can talk about maybe some of the people you've met. I had the opportunity to talk to Bob Smith during my last visit here and he got me excited about the IT club or whatever it might be.

Rachel (17:08)
Exactly. Or I got to do a campus visit and I sat in on this class with professor so-and-so and not only was the class dynamic, but then after I went up and talked to him and he gave me an extra 10 minutes of his time talking about student experience. Wow, that was great. I want that relationship with my professors.

Harold Simansky (17:29)
Right. That makes sense. Frequently, Rachel, the question that comes hand in hand with this, which is very scary for many people, is what other schools are you applying to?

Rachel (17:39)
That is a very scary question, but it shouldn't be because if you're applying to other schools, you know what those other schools also offer. So the way we like to approach that question is, now there's a few strategies here. Let's say you're applying to the Ross school of business and you're also applying to Harvard, Stanford and Wharton. I'm not sure that's a great comparison. Like, I'm not sure you want to be completely like forthcoming, like

I'm applying to the, know, quote unquote top three ranked programs and your program, even though, by the way, I love Ross so much, but my point is here, you have to be a little bit tactical in what schools that you include. Nobody's checking up on you. So you have to understand that. But for the most part, let's say I was interviewing a Columbia business school and they asked me what other schools I was applying to. And I said, I'm applying, I'm also applying to Wharton, NYU and Booth.

All of them have very strong finance programs, which is interesting to me, but I'm really drawn to Columbia. My eventual goal is to go into my family business. And so after I get that initial finance experience, I'm really excited to be part of their family business program where I'm going to, you know, learn X, Y, and Z. They also have this club that really stands out to me. You want to bring it back and make a really strong 30 second elevator pitch for the school that you're.

interviewing at

Harold Simansky (19:08)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I know that really the narrative arc ends with, but you're the greatest school and you're my top choice.

Rachel (19:15)
You're, this is why I'm here. I love you. I wanna be part of you. Yes.

Harold Simansky (19:19)
Yeah, absolutely. I always think about a bake-off in the sense of the interviewer is probably sitting across the table and asking themselves, if this person gets into Columbia and NYU, are we confident that they would go to Columbia? So I try to have people find a school that is ranked roughly the same, but you have very specific reasons for why you'd go there rather than the other school.

Rachel (19:40)
Well, and I think what a lot of people don't understand, a lot of applicants don't understand in this admissions process for MBAs, it's about yield management. So they think you're going to go somewhere else. you give any indication of that, even during the interview, it's hard for you then to reach success in the decision process.

Harold Simansky (19:51)
Yes.

In fact, so we were able to get, I guess it was last year, maybe two years ago, the actual review form that interviewers submitted to the Columbia Business School Admissions Committee. And one of the questions was specifically, if accepted, do you think this person would go there? So at that point, everyone, keep in mind that you have to have the argument and you have to be ready to really commit to the fact, at least for that moment in time, the 30 seconds that that question has been asked, that you will absolutely go.

to wherever, Columbia, wherever.

Rachel (20:34)
Exactly, exactly. That's your pitch right there. Even if you've already answered the question in, you know, why this school, they're going to ask you that. But then all of sudden you're like, wait, I just answered that question. It's okay. Bring it back again.

Harold Simansky (20:49)
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So yes, being asked the question, what other schools are you considering is sort of scary, but actually not that hard. Other questions that can be actually quite hard, or at least can really get you thinking, are those behavioral questions. Tell me about a time when. Tell me about a time when I was challenged, I was in a team, I was in leadership position, someone wasn't performing. How do you think, as an interviewee, how should we think about this question?

Rachel (21:16)
First of all, remember the exercise that I told you to do with your resume, where you're literally just going through every bullet point on your resume and you're basically looking at it through all those accomplishments, all those bullets through different angles, that will help you. I always tell my clients, you're gonna create this bench of stories from your life and you want that to just be kind of living in your brain right here during an interview so you can pull things out.

So that's where your preparation really comes into play. You don't know what questions are going to be asked, but you want to have this bench of stories that you can pull from. The most important part of a behavioral question is laying out. And we tell our clients all the time about the star method, which I'm sure many people here have heard of. And that is situation, task at hand, the action you took, and most importantly, that good old R result.

what a lot of interviewees do is they forget to get to the result. They're like, kind of tell this big story. I did this and I did this. And then you're like, and then what happened? You want to hear the result. So when you're thinking on your feet of telling this behavioral story, you want to make sure that you have a story that has some impact to it, an accomplishment to it with a real, you know, this is where I got to.

Harold Simansky (22:35)
No, absolutely. I always tell people, listen, you end on a high note. It doesn't matter what the story is. If they ask you about your weakness, no matter what that weakness was, now you're the best ever at it. There's no doubt about it. Absolutely. So any other questions for me? And I say that in the context of me being an interviewer, and that also is a very intimidating point. so how do you advise your clients when they receive the question? Do you have any questions for

Rachel (22:46)
The best. The best.

So that is always a very daunting question, right? Where you're like, what am I supposed to ask? And I was just preparing the other day with a client who came up with these questions. And I was like, no interviewer is going to want to answer any of those questions. Because you want them to leave feeling happy about the interview. So I typically will say, if you're interviewing with a second year student, which happens at a lot of programs or an alumni,

Harold Simansky (23:23)
Yes.

Rachel (23:30)
your goal is to make them reflect on their MBA experience in the most positive way. And yes, some of these questions could be a bit of softballs, but you're trying to glean information out of them too. Like what's something that you thought was really valuable when you prepared for your MBA? Obviously you wouldn't ask this of an alumni who graduated 25 years ago, but we tend to see alumni who are, you know, one year to five or six years out. So.

You can ask about that. You could ask what's something now that you've been back in the workforce that you wish you had done in an MBA program, or what was one thing that you did do that was so fantastic that you're so happy you took part in that? A question you could ask all these people, alumni, second year student, or an admissions officer, is what is your favorite part of this community? What does this community do really well?

So I think those kinds of questions where you're just, getting them to talk about their experience, the five minutes that they've set aside for these questions, they are going to use up the time because they want to tell these dynamic stories.

Harold Simansky (24:36)
No, Listen, one question that I always love and suggest my clients ask is, what has surprised you the most about the program? And part of it is you get them thinking, and surprise is generally a pleasant surprise. So like you said, you leave it on a high note. Yeah.

Rachel (24:43)
Yes.

Yes, yes. And you need to think about those questions ahead of time because if you don't, then you're like, yes. I want to point out two things that I don't want to forget to highlight. A question that can come at the end doesn't always, but it can is the interviewer can ask, what's something that you wish I asked about? So this, this requires the interviewee to do a pretty quick.

Harold Simansky (25:12)
Right, yes.

Rachel (25:17)
rewind what did I talk about and is there an accomplishment here that I didn't get to talk about whether it's in my career or something relating to you know an extracurricular or community service activity that you think is really noteworthy you can you can highlight it here so I think that a lot of people panic at that question but this is your opportunity to say you know what I really didn't get a chance to talk about my work with this non-profit food pantry

down on the Lower East Side. And I go there twice a month and it's been so rewarding. And I would love the opportunity to bring some of my Columbia classmates down there and make this part of our rotation during our MBA program. What I find so meaningful is every time I go, I know I'm making a difference in someone's life. Great. You would be leaving that conversation on a very, very high note. Another thing that I wanted to point out here that I think is really important is that we live in this Zoom age.

So everybody can see things on their computer, right? And even though I yell at my clients, not write out your answers, do not. Some of them will have like, I can see them, you know, moving around their head, trying to read things off their computer during mock interviews. And I also can see when they're looking at posted notes that they have taped on their computer, bad idea, don't do it. Pretend you're in Starbucks with this person, face to face.

Harold Simansky (26:37)
Yes.

Right, right. Yeah, and in fact, that really speaks to this idea of if you are someone who has to prepare a lot to have a simple conversation, you simply won't perform in the classroom. There's no question about it. There's no question about it. Yeah, but just to leave on a highlight high note ourselves, Rachel, what's two good pieces of advice that you give to your clients right

Rachel (26:58)
Exactly. Exactly.

Harold Simansky (27:09)
the interview, hours before the interview?

Rachel (27:11)
So Columbia in that feedback form that they asked their interviewers to fill out, they list a few different strong traits, articulate, professional, poised, mature, things like that. And I say to my clients all the time, you are all those things. So just be yourself. We are talking all the time, just be you. And I really hit that home.

that if you're just you, you're going to do fine in this interview, number one. Number two, know your goals and speak about them with confidence that this plan is going to work. This is my plan and it's going to work and I have confidence in this plan. Because if you are kind of dancing around with your goals, which you shouldn't be because you wrote about them and you got to the interview, you need to be able to articulate them very clearly to the interviewer.

Some of these schools very specifically will ask their interviewers to say are the goals ambitious yet realistic?

Harold Simansky (28:18)
Right, right, right. That's an important yes. was ambitious and achievable. I think that's right. I think that's right. Great that. Rachel, this has been really terrific. And for those of you listening, if you want to continue having a conversation one-on-one with Rachel or with me, sign up for an mbaMission consult. It's 30 minutes, absolutely free. And we'd love to speak to you. Go on our website, look at all our different offerings, including our new virtual offering called OnTrack, which has a very robust

Rachel (28:23)
Yes. Yes.

Great.

Harold Simansky (28:48)
bus set of exercises to help

prepare for your interview. Absolutely. Rachel, great talking with you today and we'll do it again.

Rachel (28:51)
Great, great interview prep.

Great, thank you.