I interviewed with an alumnus of the class of 2013. The interview was blind; he had my resume a week before our meeting.
We met at a coffee shop near his office. He ran me through his background before Booth, a few thoughts on his time there, his work since then, and then introduced the format for the interview. He said he would open the floor for me to walk him through my résumé and we’d go from there. He said he’d stop me for questions as needed. I had prepared for this, so I introduced three themes that run through my work history and then started with my undergrad background. I walked him through the major steps of my background, pivoted to “why an MBA?” and then moved into “Why now?” and “Why Booth?” I had specific elements of the curriculum, concentrations, clubs, and labs in mind and mentioned those. I pivoted to my goals post-MBA and had specific industries, functions, and employers ready to talk about. This was a very standard MBA interview. He took lots of notes during this time.
I pre-empted a number of his questions by the way I structured my answers, so he didn’t have to ask directly. There were a few specific questions based on my answers, but nothing surprising. He did ask if I had visited campus, which I had. He had some thoughts about employers, and we had a 5 minute diversion talking about the strength of Booth’s recruiting and how good the 2013 jobs report was.
We moved to questions that I had for him. I had prepared one about my background and how it might fit with Booth, one about the classroom dynamic, and one about lifestyle stuff. This led us to about 15 minutes of discussion about all kinds of aspects of the culture, community, and life in Chicago.
Overall, the interview was very positive, conversational, and encouraging. He commented favorably on my work experience and suggested that recruiters would look on it well. I walked away feeling even more positively about Booth than I did going in, and I was glad I had prepared well. I’d say the interview was basic/straightforward in a good way.
To summarize, be prepared for the following and get to this without being prompted:
1. Walk me through your resume
2. Why MBA?
3. Why now?
4. Why Booth?
5. What do you want to do post-MBA? Why is that a good fit for you?
6. What questions do you have about Booth?
