The first essay was around describing the most important personal quality which enhances my leadership ability. For this, I started out by reading Harvard Business Review’s 10 must-reads on Leadership to get an understanding of what are the key attributes of a leader. After that, I introspected and figured out which one of these attributes is applicable to me and whether I have demonstrated the same in the past. Once I finalized the attribute, I wrote the essay starting by giving an overview of the attribute along with its importance to a leader and then gave two examples - one from my undergrad and one from my workplace as evidence of my leadership prospects. The main challenge here was limiting everything within 400 words.
The second essay was regarding my short-term and long-term career goals and how ISB fits in there. For this, I briefly described my current role and elaborated on how I envision my career post ISB in the short term and gradually in the long term. I spent quite a bit of time going through ISB’s website, reading and listening to testimonials about what sets ISB apart and used these to write about how ISB can help me reach where I aim to go. The central theme of the whole essay was why ISB is the next logical step for me. It should be noted that all the things which you write in the application, as well as the essays, can come up for further questioning during the interview stage if shortlisted. So this is a great opportunity to present the spikes in your profile and potentially drive the interview.
Interview
The final stage in the admissions process is the personal interview. ISB screens out many applications and invites only a few potential candidates for the interview. That being said, you still have to perform well here to get the final admit. To prepare for the interview round for ISB, I focussed on 4 sections - about myself (strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, achievements), my undergrad (extracurriculars, leadership roles), my work experience (projects, behavioural aspects) and my career goals. In particular, I found this link from IMS very helpful. Apart from this, it is good to have an understanding of current affairs and general knowledge as well.
My ISB interview was conducted by two alums in their early thirties. Both of them were very chill and made me feel very comfortable and at ease. In the very beginning itself, they told me that this interview was all about getting to know me better and they will spend the next 40 minutes discussing 4 aspects - my hobbies, my work experience, my career goals and why ISB.
The interview started with some questions around my hobbies and application essays. I had mentioned reading as one of my hobbies so they asked me to name one under-rated and one over-rated book which I had read. They also asked me to delve deeper into one of my leadership experiences which I had mentioned in my essay. Then they asked me certain behavioural questions related to my work experience such as the initiatives I had taken, challenges faced, disagreement with the manager, a quality I admired in my manager, how I managed my subordinates and lessons learned from the experience. Since I had already thought about pointers to each of these questions, I had a great discussion on these aspects. After that, they asked me about my career ambitions, how I see myself 10 years from now, which attributes I would like to develop and what is my backup option if my career goals don’t materialize. Finally, they asked me what things I would like to learn at ISB, names of 3 people who I am keen to interact with at ISB, some challenges which I foresee while pursuing my degree at ISB and ended by asking me to recite a poem I had wrote (I had mentioned writing poems as a hobby in my application). They then asked me if I had any questions for them. Since they were both alums, I asked each of them their single biggest takeaway from the ISB experience. It is generally a good practice to ask questions to the interview panel if prompted since it demonstrates your genuine interest in the program. The whole interview lasted for around 50 minutes; overall it was very chill and a great experience. I didn’t even realize how 50 minutes had flown by!
Verdict - Finally, about a month after the interview, I was elated at receiving an email in my inbox offering me admission into the ISB PGP in Management program for the class of 2022!
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