Do you know what will be the most recurring thing you’ll face during b-school admissions and after? Interviews. PIs. Yup! Be it b-school admission interviews, placement interviews or more job interviews in the future, you’re going to face personal interviews one way or the other all your life. But here’s the catch - your interviewers will be interviewing hundreds if not thousands of people at once. So how do you stand out? How do you make sure that you are noticed, and that for the right reasons? First step - prepare and fine-tune your interview questions with model answers. In order to help you prepare, here’s a compilation of likely interview questions and how you can best answer them. Best of luck!
Check out these questions, likely to pop up during personal interviews, with directions on how you can answer them.
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1. Tell me about yourself
Why this question: The interviewer wants to know if you are self-aware, confident and able to drive a conversation in a positive way. This question can also just be a way for the interviewer to ease into the discussion and gauge your sincerity, so that he or she can corroborate your CV information with real facts from you!
How to answer:
If your interview starts with this question, it’s a great start. Because this question literally allows you to lead the interview in the direction you want. You can drop hints about projects or committees you worked on, festivals you managed etc. If you have some work experience under your belt, you can start from there, highlighting your work-related achievements. If you’re a fresher, you can talk about entrepreneurial and innovative activities you worked at in college, your passions, or even your reason for doing an MBA. Mostly, this question literally allows you to take control of the interview. So let your answer be such that the next question is in your favour.
2. Walk me through your resume.
Why this question: Basically, the interviewer wants to back the briefly noted points on your resume with facts and data from you. He or she is also gauging your sincerity and checking if your claims on your resume are true and factual.
How to answer:
To answer this question, you need to, of course, walk the interviewer through your resume. You can mention the basic points that have been noted on your resume. Here too, you can drive the conversation to points you really want to highlight. For E.g.: If you have brought in sales of XXX amount through your efforts, you can discuss this. The interviewer will probably next ask you about why and how you made the sale. You can then share your strategy, demonstrating your vision and ability to think ahead at the same time. If you’re a fresher, talk about things you did in college, achievements, hobbies that you did really well at, etc.
3. Why MBA?
Why this question: This question lets the interviewer judge your sincerity. But it also gives him or her a glimpse into how much thought you’ve put into your own future. Keep in mind that for this question, you’ll be competing with a huge number of extremely meritorious and committed as well as hard-working students.
How to answer:
Your answer needs to be genuine. The fact is that a lot of students do not know why they’re choosing to study for an MBA. And many a time, your reason to study an MBA changes as you go through b-school. Most people want to accelerate their career growth, or get into a specific domain post studying their MBA. If this is the case with you, go ahead and share with the interviewer. If you wish to be an entrepreneur in the future, and see the MBA as a facilitator for your future career, you can mention that too. But only if you’re sure and if you have some solid entrepreneurial work to talk about should you go down this route.
Note: During your interviews, the panelists check if you're aware of the concepts of the domain that you wish to pursue your career in, post your MBA. To help you with that, here are a few important concepts across the four domains. Take a look!
4. Why MBA after engineering?
Why this question: There are many engineers who choose to study an MBA. The interviewer wants to know therefore that your decision to study an MBA is not just peer pressure. Once again, they want to know if you’ve put some thought into your career and future in a constructive way.
How to answer:
The best way to answer this question is to share the direction you want your career to take post doing an MBA. For e.g. you can mention that you aspire to be a product manager and hence wish to pursue an MBA. If you want to change your career stream, say you want to shift from a core engineering subject (instead of coding you want to get into marketing), you can highlight the fact. Finally, as a fresher, you can mention your future aspiration like wanting to get into data analytics or business analytics.
5. Why XYZ Stream after ABC stream (Ex: Why marketing after Electrical Engineering)
Why this question: The interviewer wants to know if you have the ability to make smart and timely decisions and act on those. He or she may also purely want to know why you chose to study a certain subject and what drives you.
How to answer:
This is where you tell the interviewer your logic of moving from one stream to another with proof. For e.g. you worked as a coder but felt that the pace was slow and growth was missing and hence chose to move your specialisation from just coding to marketing or sales.
6. Why MBA after experience in a non-related field, such as IT?
Why this question: Once again, the interviewer wishes to know if you will be able to follow through with your MBA decision. He or she probably wants to know if you’ll be able to keep up with subjects that you haven’t touched for a long time.
How to answer this question:
The best strategy to answer this question is to be sincere and honest. Tell the interviewer why you wish to pursue MBA after working in a non related domain. For e.g.: if you’re a doctor who is planning to pursue an MBA, you can share with the interviewer your experience working as a doctor and how there is a need for good management in medicine too!
Check Out Our Previous Guides On Answering The Difficult Personal Interview Questions: Part 1 | Part 2
7. Describe your family background.
Why this question: The interviewer wants to know where you come from and how prepared and driven you are to work hard and make the best of studying for an MBA. Whether you come from a low income, middle income or high-income background, can be judged by your family dynamics. The interviewer is trying to gauge if you deserve that coveted seat at a premium b-school or someone else more deserving.
How to answer:
Share your family background, what your parents or siblings do, and how you managed to reach the b-school interview. Don’t get too personal or emotional. Be sincere and share the qualities that you value.
8. Any hardships you’ve faced in your life.
Why this question: This question lets the interviewer know your overall attitude and how you deal with hardships. Another version of this question is - tell me about your weaknesses/ failures.
How to answer:
This question can once again help you drive the interview in a direction that paints you in a positive light. You can share how you dealt with struggles or hardships. You can highlight how you chose to be proactive and managed to overcome a tough situation or what you learnt after the hardship and how it made you a different (hopefully better) person.
9. Asking to describe any career gaps.
Why this question: The interviewer wants to know why you chose to or had to take a career gap.
How to answer:
Simply inform the interviewer about just why the career gap happened. If you took a career gap in order to study, share that with the interviewer. If you took a gap for any other reason, be sure to mention it. You can justify taking a gap by mentioning how you spent your time during the gap, and how it helped you towards your goal and career.
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