Five Hacks To Ace Your MBA Interviews | MBA Admissions 2022

Personal interviews generally carry the highest weightage up-to 50% in the entire MBA admissions process. They are the last and the most crucial step in your journey to get into your dream college. Even if you’re a 90 percentile and aced your WAT, you can still not convert to a top IIM if you mess up your personal interview. Just like you had a solid CAT preparation plan you need an interview preparation plan. From mocks to catching up on current affairs, the process is intensive but ultimately worth it. As it’ll define the college you get and the start your career gets.So let’s break it down and see how you can ace the personal interview round.

---

Personal Interview Process

Personal interview is the most crucial round in the MBA admissions process. As the name suggests it’s an interview round where a group of panelists will decide if a student is the right fit for their college or not. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Time limit: 15-30 minutes
2. Sequence: After WAT or GD round
3. Panelist: 2-3
4. Weightage: 30-50%
5. Scoring parameters: body language, structured thinking, communication skills, problem solving, people orientation etc.

Scoring parameters for different colleges could be different.

---

Types of Personal Interviews

There are different types of interviews. Some candidates get grilled, some get to have a fun conversation with the panelists. It depends on panelist to panelist how they would conduct the interview. Here are some common types:

1. Stress Interview: In this type of interview, the interviewers ask tough questions to build up pressure on the candidate to see how well they handle stress. 
2. Conversational: Interviewers generally have a normal conversation with candidates and ask questions.
3. Application/Resume based: The interview is mainly focused on the resume/application and the questions are around the same.
4. Others: Any other type of interview style would be clubbed under others.

---

Personal Interview Preparation Tips

Here are some general interview preparation tips for your admission process:

1. Mock Interviews: Give as many mock interviews as possible to prepare. Make sure you take mocks from different people so that you experience different interview styles.
2. Current Affairs: Make sure you’re well read on current affairs as questions around the same can be asked.
3. Double Check: Familiarise yourself with your resume/application. So that in case you get questions from your resume/application you’re better prepared to answer.
4. Personalised Prep: In case you’re going for a specialised MBA like International Business or PGDM in Marketing, make sure you prep accordingly. You should be well versed with the basics and current trends of your chosen specialisation.
5. College Research: It’s better to read up about the college you’re interviewing for. You should know their history, faculty, programs, top alumni, recent events, what are they famous for etc. This can give you an edge in your interviews as you can use this information tactically in your answers.

Hope you liked the interview tips.

---

Interview Best Practises

Here are some of the best practises you should keep in mind:

1.  Body Language: Even though you might be giving an interview over zoom, you have to maintain a good body language.
2. Setup and lighting: In case of remote interviews make sure you have proper lighting as well as a good webcam.
3. Listening: This is where I have seen a lot of candidates making mistakes. Remember there is no rush, always listen to each question carefully before answering. Do not interject while the interviewer is asking you any question.
4. Communication: Your communication game should be on-point. There is no shame in asking for time to think before you answer. Similarly your answers should be articulated very well and have a logical structure.

---

Top Interview Questions

Here’s a quick list of some of the most common interview questions.

1. Tell me about yourself
2. Tell me something about yourself which is not in your application/resume
3. Why MBA?
4. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
5. What are your life goals?
6. What are some of the biggest challenges you faced in your life?

---

Bonus Hack | Admissions Prep Bootcamp

1.  MBA Admissions Bootcamp: If you need help with your WAT-PI prep you can checkout- InsideIIM’s MBA Admissions Bootcamp. You’ll get 5 live mock interviews, dossiers on Current Affairs and Domains
2. Unilever ChangeMakers 2022: Apply for Changemakers 2022, which is HUL's structured Foundation School aimed at helping you get into your dream b-school. In addition, you get a chance to intern at HUL during your summers and get an early advantage to the biggest b-school competitions namely LIME, FinAce, and Nutcracker.
   

---

Conclusion

I hope you liked this article on how to prepare for personal interviews and questions for mba interviews. You can also check out our WAT preparation guide as well. If you liked the article do drop a like and share your thoughts/suggestions in the comment section below. If you want to connect, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn- (Gaurav Gyanchandani). All the best!