The following is a London Business School MBA Admissions Interview Report provided by a recent applicant:
I received my invitation email, which said I should reach out to the alumna assigned as my interviewer in Dubai and set up an interview within two weeks. I did just that and we had to wrangle schedules before settling on a date. I had been a bit worried about the impromptu presentation because just as the name suggests it’s not something you can prepare for, so I didn’t know what to expect. My interviewer showed up and she seemed excited about the interview and about sharing her experience. She had my resume and she asked me behavioral questions and questions about my experience. The interview was very conversational and it felt informal. She also kept giving me positive remarks like “you seem to have a strong application” and “you seem to know how to handle pressure.” This took some of the pressure of the interview off. She also emphasized the importance of diversity of experiences at LBS and said that my international living and working experience is a big plus. When it came time for the presentation, she gave me a paper with the “case” and told me to read it and that if I wasn’t comfortable with it, she’d change it. The case was about a pizza chain that prepares fresh pizza but delivers it without baking it. My role as the marketing director of the company was to come up with three marketing strategies or concepts to convince people that they should buy our pizza. I thought that was pretty easy. She left me for around five minutes. I had my pitch ready in three. I think I took 3-4 minutes to go through my answer. She then asked me a few follow-up questions that were easy to answer. Overall, I felt like I left the interview knowing that I gave a good representation of my past experience and my goals for the future and I felt good about myself and my application.
A few weeks later, I received my acceptance offer.
