The mbaMission Podcast
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Ep 89 | Stanford GSB Interview Breakdown
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What makes the Stanford GSB interview so different from every other MBA interview?
In this episode of the mbaMission Podcast, Harold Simansky sits down with Senior Admissions Consultants Christine Patel and Julie-Anne Heafey to unpack Stanford’s structured behavioral interview. They discuss how GSB evaluates candidates, why authenticity matters so much, and how applicants can prepare without sounding rehearsed. Essential listening for anyone preparing for a Stanford MBA interview.
00:00 Why Stanford Interviews Are About Connection
00:53 Meet the Experts: Christine Patel & Julie-Anne Heafey
02:04 What Stanford Interviewers See and Behavioral Format
02:51 “Structured Behavioral Interview”: What That Means
08:23 Stanford Prep: Build Your Story Bank (Even Beyond the Resume)
13:30 Mock Interviews: How to Prep Without Sounding Robotic
22:34 How mbaMission Preps Candidates
24:11 Favorite Stanford Mock Question: “Why Stanford?”
25:28 Avoid the “Touchy-Feely Class” Trap in ‘Why Stanford’
26:51 Final Advice for Stanford GSB Interviewees
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A big part of the interview is this connection with the interviewer, especially at Stanford.
Harold Simansky:What I always think about with the Stanford application overall, it is very much on brand and aligned with Stanford in terms of being an introspective place, thinking about the big picture, but not being afraid to be very aspirational. Today on the MBA Mission Podcast, we are diving into one of the most distinctive and often most mysterious parts of the MBA journey, the interview. Specifically, the Stanford GSB interview. Stanford's approach is unlike that of most business schools. And understanding what they value, how they evaluate candidates, and what the experience really feels like can make a world of difference. To help unpack it all, I'm joined by two experienced MBA mission consultants, Julianne and Christine. Both have expertly guided GSB applicants through the process and both know firsthand how Stanford's unique behavioral interview style reveals what truly matters to the missions committee. In this episode, we'll talk about what makes the GSB interview so distinctive, how candidates can best prepare, what pitfalls to avoid, and how we at MBA Mission helps applicants show up as their most authentic selves. If you have a Stanford interview coming up, or simply want to understand why GSP interviews are known for being so personal, so probing, and so powerful, this conversation is one you will not want to miss. Let's get started. So I'll have clients do the Stanford application. Six or seven essays, really overwhelming, requires a lot of work. At the end of the day, though, when someone gets a Stanford interview, suddenly panic sets in. So, first of all, high stakes, certainly, but what is it that's unique about a Stanford interview rather than some other school? So let me start off with Christine, Christine who herself is a Stanford graduate.
Christine Patel:Yeah, so interestingly enough, Stanford has, you know, they take a look at your resume. Um, not all the interviewers will be looking at your whole applications. That's slightly different from other schools like HBS. Um, also it's a behavioral interview. Uh, so you know, focusing on, you know, your your past history, obviously your, you know, your career. Really, I think, you know, maybe having interviewers being alumni as well is a little bit different. It's not always from the adcom. Um Julianne, do you have anything else to add?
Julie-Anne Heafey:Yeah, I would say, you know, it's behavioral but amped up. You know, a lot of schools will ask behavioral interview questions, but you might get, you know, two or three in the course of it, and the rest of the questions will be, you know, pretty uh motivational or basic. Uh, whereas Stanford really interrogates the behavioral interview. They call it a structured behavioral interview. So they are really examining multiple angles.
Harold Simansky:Right. So let's take a step back here. Frequently we'll hear about behavioral interviews. What are they actually? What are they trying to find out? How are they different from just tell me about yourself?
Julie-Anne Heafey:So I would say a behavioral interview is, you know, you'll you'll recognize it when they say, tell me about a time or describe a time when. It's storytelling, right? And so I think um what it's trying to get at is probing beneath the accomplishments to the why and how you did something. And so you need to have a plan of attack for that kind of question that's a little bit less off the cuff and a little bit more organized than you would for other answers. You know, tell me about yourself. You usually have uh time to guide you, chronology. You start back in college and you move your way forward in your career. Tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision. You've got to come up with a way to wrap and explain that situation and to really take them through a story.
Harold Simansky:Okay, sounds very intimidating. And you really spoke to this need of maybe some sort of structure already there, already built in. So, what does that structure even look like?
Christine Patel:One common one we recommend is the star framework. So tell me about a challenge, for example, you might have had. And so you describe what the challenge could be, you know, with the ST situation and task. Then you just then describe, you know, in depth about what the action you took was with that challenge. Um, you know, maybe you missed a sales forecast that you, you know, realized there was an error that you had in your forecasting, go into details of the action that you took and and you know the challenge that it created for the rest of the financial team. And then the R is the result. Like, what did you do to mitigate and fix that problem and the challenge that you incurred? And so but I think the key here is not just having a star framework, but really going to depth, a little more depth than just an overview, high level of okay, I did this, I did that, and then as a result, this happened. I don't think that's enough for this interview question. Uh, you you want to go into a little more details.
Harold Simansky:Yeah. No, that makes sense.
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Harold Simansky:The star method situation, the kitchen needed to be painted, task paint the kitchen, action, you bought some paint brushes and got a friend, and result is you have a great-looking kitchen. Julianne, do you think that would be too superficial an answer?
Julie-Anne Heafey:Yes, I think that would probably be the the first step of your practice.
Harold Simansky:Right, right, right, right, right, right.
Julie-Anne Heafey:You know, you really need to get deeper than that, as Christine suggested, into the wise and hows. You know, why did you take that particular approach? Um, what were your other options at the time? You know, what were you thinking? Did things work out the way you planned? Were were there obstacles? How did you overcome them? And then in terms of results, you know, you don't want to just say, uh, I used X gallons of paint, right? And the kitchen is now yellow. You want to get into kind of like the impact of it or what you learned through that process.
Harold Simansky:Right, right, right, right, right. In fact, sometimes people are told to use the start L method, where the L being the learning right there.
Christine Patel:Exactly. Yeah. I think having that growth mindset to figure out, you know, a vulnerability or something that you learned on that, you know, challenge and actually admit that you were at fault, but then what did you do differently the next time around? I think that's really the key. Or how did it change your mindset when you viewed some you know new business opportunity or challenge that you have?
Harold Simansky:No, that makes sense. And are these the greatest experiences of your life in terms of must they be home runs when compared to somebody else, what they're saying? Or is it something that's far more like Stanford itself, far more introspective, far more thinking about okay, how were you changed?
Christine Patel:I mean, honestly, I think it's being authentic. It doesn't have to be like the, you know, a major home run per se, but something that's true to you, that you believe in, um, that you can explain in depth. But it doesn't have to be like the biggest deal you've ever had. I, you know, I think, I think just being yourself is really key. Yeah.
Julie-Anne Heafey:I think it can depend a little bit though. You know, I think you don't want to go into a Stanford business school interview only armed with personal stories from your extracurriculars and not talk about work at all. I think that would probably be the wrong way to go. So I do think you have to go into a plan with thinking about, you know, what you really do bring to the table, what you're excited about making an impact on, you know, what are the times that you've really been tested at work. But, you know, agreed, it can't just all be work. And it doesn't all have to be the most amazing thing you've done. You can have some stumbles. Um, but you want to make sure they get to know all of you, including the business here.
Christine Patel:I think a good point that Julianne made is actually going back to your application and seeing, you know, what you think stood out for you. Um, because they won't, these interviewers may not have read your whole application, they'll only see your resume. So going back through everything, maybe your brainstorming document you've put together for the school that you've, you know, prepared for, I think going through personal and career accomplishments are both important, I think, to highlight.
Harold Simansky:No, that makes sense. And going to a Stanford interview and you think about preparation, how many of these sorts of examples do you need to really feel comfortable? Loaded question there. I know there's no one answer, but at the end of the day, I would suspect more than one, less than 10.
Julie-Anne Heafey:I mean, I would do a minimum of eight, but um, you know, might be higher, might be 10. Uh, I think you don't know how long the interview is gonna go. With an alum, it's always a wild card. When you're getting an admissions committee interview, like at Harvard, you know it's a tight 30 minutes, they're not gonna vary from that at all. Um when it's a student on campus, they also have to do a number of slots. They're not really um free to ramble on a ton. But with anytime you're talking to an alum, all bets are off in terms of length.
Harold Simansky:That's right. Listen, the reality is that okay, tell me about yourself behavioral questions. How much of that, how much of the interview will be focused on that rather than something else?
Christine Patel:It's probably a good number of the questions, probably the majority of the questions will be behavioral. And then, you know, there'll be time for questions like maybe why Stanford, you know, later on, um, or having, if there is time, open questions for the interviewee too. But I think a lot of it will be behavioral.
Julie-Anne Heafey:I think the only, you know, the big difference that I see with my clients who get Stanford interviews is not just, you know, that they're getting uh only a few behavioral interview questions. Um it's just that some may get a lot of angles on different types of leadership. And then others will just go more in-depth, really long drawn-out explor explorations of situations in a McKinsey PEI style of interview where they're really just tunneling deep on maybe two experiences. So those are the two types that I usually hear. But at the end of the day, it's all behavioral.
Harold Simansky:Right, right, right. And listen, we know again, there's behavioral questions and there's behavioral questions in the sense of okay, behavioral question, tell me about a time when, at that point, then you respond, and that's sort of the end of it, and then you never to revisit that issue. But I know that is where Stanford is different in the sense of you they will drill down and they'll drill and they'll keep on drilling. And at some point they are drilling so deep, you're sort of out of story at that point. What happens then?
Julie-Anne Heafey:Well, I think they're trying to get you off script a little bit and really understand what makes you tick and and and and how you approach situations and what your awareness is of other people that you're working with. I mean, I think a lot of the degree is so introspective and so, you know, about building your own self-awareness and also your awareness of others and how they operate. It's a big part of influence and other skills that you're looking to build with the Stanford MBA, I would think. Wouldn't that be your experience?
Christine Patel:Yeah, no, I think so. I think a lot of it is based on, you know, dealing with others, interpersonal skills. Um, because leadership might look like different things to different people, could be teamwork-based. It's not necessarily just having a title per se. So showing different examples of challenges, working with different people, being able to collaborate, you know, I think these are all really good skills working with diverse stakeholders or different types of people, I think are really great, you know, examples as well.
Harold Simansky:Right. No, that no, that makes sense. There's gonna be a lot of tell me about yourself questions as part of a Stanford interview. But that's really not everything. Obviously, there are gonna be some other pieces to it. Julianne, what are some of the other pieces?
Julie-Anne Heafey:Well, uh, for examples of questions, I mean, we have um a guide on our website, the MBA mission website, uh, interview guides. If you if you click there, you'll find a Stanford GSP interview guide with some sample questions. But just to give you a taste, um, a couple of those might be um when is a time when you um when you identified an opportunity that others didn't or a threat that others didn't see. And you know, you want to dig into what that whole whole um process was about. Um, another one might be when were people heading in one direction, you know, the ship was going in in one direction and you steered it in a new one. So how how you got to turn things around into another um point of view or or result. And I think these things speak to not having just always top-down formal leadership roles, right? Like it's about how you were a leader within another position on the team. You don't always have to be the one in charge, the one with the big title to make a difference in what's going on in your world.
Harold Simansky:Christine, what we do at NBA Mission is a lot of mock interviewing, particularly in the context of Stanford, but uh but really everyone. Yeah. So how do you conduct a mock interview? You know, quite candidly, I've had a number of clients over the years who did not do great at a Stanford interview, and they had really prepped, and at the end of the day, they were almost robotic. And maybe that's the point that you said, Julian. It's it's they want to get to the person. That's the reason that I keep on drilling down. So how do you really navigate the fact that Star L also lends itself to a lot of preparation, but at the same point, you can't do too much preparation, otherwise you start sounding robotic.
Julie-Anne Heafey:Yeah, that's a really great question. I mean, I think it's just don't write it out and memorize it, you know, just really try to think about the main points and what that was like for you. I mean, it depends on the person, right? So I sometimes I work with people and they do need that practice. Yes, and other times I work with people who have got it down that I'm worried if they keep going, they're gonna lose all emotion and connection with the interviewer. And you know, a big part of the interview is this connection with the interviewer, especially at Stanford, because they're making a match when they match you. They're getting somebody that they're hoping that you're gonna have this connection with. So you don't want to like be so rehearsed that you um are just telling play, you know, planned stories. I I get people to practice honestly by talking about their day and things around them in that same way, like, you know, where they went to dinner and why they did that, or that's interesting.
Harold Simansky:Yeah.
Julie-Anne Heafey:Family experiences, you know, how they interacted with their mother-in-law and why they took that approach. I mean, I think that's a good way to sort of practice the method of the storytelling without getting so canned on your exact story.
Christine Patel:Sometimes you'll see the interviewer name in advance. And if that's the case, I definitely obviously recommend researching who that person is. Sometimes, if you know that person in advance, might have the same industry knowledge or same geo geographical location as you, that helps bring a bond. And so you can start off with have connect building a connection that way. Um then also just reading the body language of your interviewer. So if you're speaking for more than three or four minutes and suddenly you see the eyes glazing, um, I think you want to adjust. And you know, maybe it's time to, you know, close out your answer just because you can tell it's you know it's not going the way you'd want it to be. Um, maybe the answer is just too long and rambling and um not really directed enough. So just I think reading the cues from your interviewers is is key.
Harold Simansky:Yeah, yeah. Listen, what I always think about with the Stanford application overall, it is very much on brand and aligned with Stanford in terms of being an introspective place, thinking about the big picture, not being afraid to be very aspirational. And again, you're going to really be preparing for your interview, I think, when you do those, and it depends on you how you count them, those four, five, or six essays.
Christine Patel:Definitely. I mean, I actually just went to my GSB centennial reunion a few weeks ago. Some of my classmates are interviewers for the alumni. And, you know, their goal is to get in, to get help people to get in as many, you know, as many as possible who are amazing. And they're there to really, they're really excited to meet people. And I think um, you know, my one of my classmates focuses on biotech and gets a lot of non-traditional candidates like MD, PhD folks, and she's excited to vouch for these people. I I think in general, I would view them as on your side. They're really trying to, you know, engage with you. So use this as an opportunity to be put your best foot forward.
Julie-Anne Heafey:Oh, 100%. I mean, one of the things people get so scared, you know, about these interviews. That it's high stakes. They know that it's not everybody's gonna get in, right? It's the odds are they say one in two or one in three. Um, not everybody's gonna be accepted. But what I'm telling people is, hey, these people are in your general arena a lot of the time and they are super cool. It's like an opportunity for you to get to know somebody new who's like a leader in this industry. And, you know, putting aside obviously you want to have a connection with them and get along and have a great interview. Like this is a great opportunity to meet a mover and shaker in your world. So even if it doesn't work out or or uh, you know, you don't convert off of a wait list or whatever, you have just built a new person in your network. And so to treat it as that opportunity, and ironically, most of the time when people are treating it that way, they do get in.
Harold Simansky:No, no, that certainly makes sense. Let me ask you that, sort of touching on HBS, how does an interview with HBS compare to an interview with GSB? And which is more important? Which one you should you be more concerned about? Which one is really the one that you should really swallow hard when you get that interview?
Julie-Anne Heafey:Oh, they're both really different. I mean, the HBS one I mentioned earlier is is this tight 30 minutes. It's with the admissions committee, they've read your entire application, they've maybe done some light googling, you know, they're coming in and they're coming in with an agenda. It's almost like a case discussion in the room about your application. Your application is the case. Who better to discuss the Harold case than Harold? So um, you know, they're gonna delve immediately into all kinds of little nooks and crannies, and there's not gonna be a lot of prelude or, you know, open-ended questions. It'll be like, tell me about your experience on the XYZ deal or something like that, or why did you decide to go from here to there? It's really deeper into those decision points, for example. Um, whereas, you know, Stanford, you probably have a little bit more control. They'll ask a more open-ended question because your interviewer's an alum, it's a longer conversation, they haven't gotten the rest of it, they haven't read your essays. So I tell all my clients, read your essays because you can use those for material. All those impact essays are now behavioral interview questions.
Harold Simansky:Right, right, right, right. Absolutely. Christine, how was your interview? Do you remember it well? Are you still having nightmares about it?
Christine Patel:You know, interviewing never really phased me when it was applying. I don't know why. I actually don't even recall my interviews at all. All I know is that it was a positive experience because if it were negative, I'd obviously really remember that. Um, but I I think, I mean, honestly, I think I I've I treated it like a conversation, really.
Harold Simansky:Yeah, no, that makes sense. I'm gonna do another commercial here. A GSB application is quite honestly very hard. It may be the hardest of all the applications. It takes you all sorts of different places, being very introspective to very practical Y Stanford to Impact essays, to tell us about the your background. So if you really want to get into it, if you are thinking about a GSB application, then by all means give us a call, speak to Christine, Harold, Julianne, any one of our 25 or so consultants, we can really talk you through it, at least in a very preliminary way, to help you understand just what goes into a great GSB application. Because the reality is the acceptance rate is just so low. It sort of really is quite amazing to me as far as how low it is. So just to wrap up a little bit here, if you find a client, if a client calls you and says, Hey, I've got a Stanford interview, what's the first thing they do?
Christine Patel:Usually we celebrate, actually. Just getting the interview alone is a big deal. And so I usually give a high five, you know, virtually, and it's it's it's great, you know. Um, so I start with the positive there, and then I get into the nitty-gritty. We do that and we have to start preparing for it.
Harold Simansky:Right, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. And you just very quickly here, Stanford is also, I think, a little strange in terms of how it rolls out its interface.
Julie-Anne Heafey:Yeah, it's um, and it seems to be creeping earlier and earlier. I mean, it used to always be, you know, Harvard would do it four weeks after the deadline, and Stanford would start the night before. And now I find it creeping earlier and earlier. Now this year, you know, is a couple weeks earlier than the um, so the, you know, the the applications have been submitted for two or three weeks, and and already they're starting to um trickle out some invitations. But I I think that the trickling is the hardest part of the best part.
Harold Simansky:Right, right, right. Absolutely. Listen, I once had a client, a great client, who he found out he got to stand for an interview days before he was supposed to receive his final uh word or acceptance or rejection. And he was waitlisted and then was accepted. So so absolutely it was a happy story there. And what was also interesting, he was a guy who came from the forestry. Industry. And again, yes, there's some innovative pieces to it as well, but forestry one does not think innovation when one thinks forestry.
Julie-Anne Heafey:But that's that, you know, rubbing up of different types of people. I mean, you don't want everybody just to be uh working in VC. Like 100% of the class working in VC would not be very useful at all. You need to have people who are transforming even old industries or bringing in good ideas that nobody pays attention to because they're not the hot topic in 2020, whatever.
Harold Simansky:So right, right. No, no, no, absolutely.
Christine Patel:So I I usually prepare each client with actual interviews from the past. So we have a database of questions from every school for from our clients. And so actually I give them these examples so they know what's coming. And I also I recommend that if they're a package client, they can go to on-track or even if they have on-track on their own. On track is a video video module that we have. We can do on-demand learning. And so there's a whole section on interviewing, which is great, maybe three hours worth. And there's also then like specific school sections where you can record yourself and do a mock interview on your own, which I find very helpful by school. And so these schools, these modules are specific for each school, which is nice because every school has different questions. And then after going through that, going through the preparation, giving you know all this information, then we'll start doing a mock interview. Uh, depending on the school, uh, maybe it's 30 minutes, 45 minutes. Um, I also make sure that each interviewee has a list of questions ready to tell the interviewer what they might be, depending if they're alumni, students, faculty, that's actually really important. Some schools don't have time for extra questions at the end, but some do. So you want to be ready for that, have at least three, you know, answers or questions ready for the interviewer. Um, and then after the mock interview is done, then um I'll give feedback real time afterwards. I record the mock interview so they can actually see it um afterwards. After I give feedback, maybe we'll do another mock interview, depending on how they feel if they want more.
Harold Simansky:Um what are some of your favorite mock interview questions for Stanford?
Christine Patel:For me, because you know, I've actually I graduated from Stanford, I actually love the question why Stanford? Um, and the reason is because sometimes I feel like if you haven't done enough homework, it really shines through. And I think having if you can replace and substitute that school name with any other school name with your answer, you haven't done enough yet to prepare. So, you know, in these in this situation, I I say at least visit or do some admissions events, do a few one-on-one conversations with alumni, students, or faculty. Um, go beyond what's expected, basically. I think that it will you know you can tell when someone's really figured out the fit and the reason why they want to go to a certain school.
Harold Simansky:Right. And really for every school. Yeah. Really for every school. It's like you don't have to go to a particular school to learn accounting, for example. And and most schools are going to have some sort of entrepreneurial curriculum. So you always think to yourself, okay, how is the Stanford Innovation Curriculum going to be different from some other school? Or what is Stanford doing that other schools are actually not doing? What are sort of those margin or edge courses or focuses that Stanford has? And by all means, if you're applying to Stanford, and I say this as a non-Stord graduate who nevertheless does a lot of Stanford mock interviews, don't tell me about the touchy-feely class. At the end of the day, if I uh if I ask the mock question, hey, hey, why Stanford? 90% of the people say touchy-feely class. And at this point, I think it speaks to the fact you didn't quite do your homework, you really have to push down much deeper than that.
Julie-Anne Heafey:You know, I think it's just not naming a class that you're just gonna sit in, you know, like connect it to why you need that introspection for your goals. What are you missing? What are you trying to accomplish or do that that's going to help? So it's not just the analogy I always use is a swimming pool. You know, don't just describe Stanford's beautiful swimming pool. It might be the perfect temperature or whatever, but how are you gonna use it? What are you gonna do with that? Are you gonna test your swimsuit designs for your new line of eco-friendly swimwear? Right. Right, right. What are you gonna do with it? So if you do bring it up, you know, I agree we can get tired of hearing the same kinds of answers, and so can they. Um, but um, if you're telling me really thoughtfully how you're going to use it, then that can win me over.
Christine Patel:I think especially going, we know these interviewers don't read your essays. So go back to your essay number two that you'd written for the application and review what you said, why Stanford, and how will Stanford achieve your goals, you know, short-term, long-term. And I think once you go back to that, this answer becomes very easy to answer.
Harold Simansky:Well, thank you very much, Julianne. Thank you very much, Christine, telling us about not just interviewing at Stanford, but really how to approach Stanford, what the application looks like. And by all means, if you want to spend more time with Christine, Julianne, me, or one of our, like I said before, 20 or so different consultants, give us a call, spend 30 minutes on the phone with us, and we'd love to help you, we'd love to talk to you.
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