Preparing For B-School Interviews | Guidelines From An IIM Lucknow Student

Start With The Fundamentals

Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals

The fundamentals for an MBA interview boils down to two critical questions:

Tell me something about yourself.
Why MBA?

There is hardly an MBA interview without the above two questions. Sailing through these two questions will increase your chances of converting exponentially. As the above quote suggests, one must put a lot of time reflecting on why she wants to do an MBA. What value addition will it give? Will it throw up career opportunities that excite you? Is it in alignment with your long term goals?

A good introduction sets the ball rolling in the Interview and also ensures the ball remains in your court. It opens up opportunities for interviewers to ask you questions on things you have highlighted in your introduction, things you should be well versed with. A good introduction generally steers the interview along those lines and the candidate, if well prepared can easily ace the interview. Also, a good strategy would be to include points in your introduction that you can talk about a lot and to keep the most interesting aspect at the very end.

The Domain Gyaan

Domain knowledge shows 2 critical aspects of an aspirant:

Do you have a passion for the domain?
Are you able to apply the theory learned to real-life problems?

It is of utmost importance to give killer answers to the questions from one's domain. It shows passion for the domain and conveys to the interviewer that this person is quite passionate about doing things in life. Hence the logical conclusion that you must be passionate about doing an MBA.

MBA is a professional course that requires you to think on your feet by applying concepts you have learned. Hence it is quite logical and important for you to be able to apply your domain knowledge to solve real-world problems.

Current Affairs

Business & Current Affairs are intertwined, more like foster sisters!

As budding managers and future entrepreneurs, you must be well versed with the changing Macro-Economic dimensions & how that is going to affect the business industry you might be working in. Decisions based on the ability to understand the changing dynamics of macro-economic events can easily save you from huge loses, vice-versa can bring major gains as well.

Hence it is important enough to brush up the hottest news segments from around the world and form an opinion on how that would impact business industries. Also, it pays off to have an understanding of the current status-quo in your country as well as your native state.

The Finishing Touch

After you are well armed with knowledge on current affairs, the domain Gyan, your introduction & the reason for doing an MBA, the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle would be thorough research of the institute and few critical HR questions.

Thorough research on the institute would help you focus on:

Pedagogy style followed in the Institute
The quality of the faculty
The mission, vision and what the institute symbolizes
A better understanding of the culture of the Institute

A few critical questions one should prepare is:

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

It is advisable to substantiate your strengths with examples from your life. Also, it is vital to show that you are working on your weaknesses to foster a positive impression.

Biggest achievement and failure

It is recommended that one must be prepared with at least one achievement and failure from diverse aspects of life- college, work-ex, personal life, etc