The following UCLA Anderson interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them!
My MBA2 interviewer described the interview timeline to me – about 30 minutes for him to ask me questions and 5 minutes at the end for me to ask him questions.
Walk me through your résumé.
I gave an overview of my work at the companies I’ve worked at and my non-profit experience
I can read what you’ve written, but give me some more flavor of your work at X (my 1st company).
Described work responsibility, impact, and initiatives I drove. I realized he had to ask this because I hadn’t included my job responsibilities in my ‘introduce yourself’
Describe a time you had to work with engineers who weren’t giving quality inputs for your work (related to my responsibilities).
I described an achievement about persuasion/convincing. But I didn’t have qualifiable improvements from it, so I faltered when he followed up with “What was the benefit from this?”
Describe your work at 2nd company.
Describe this process of innovation and a time when the customers required something different from what you were delivering
I didn’t like this question because even though my dept. was client-facing, my own role wasn’t. I also realized I shouldn’t have mentioned that my dept. is client-facing. I had to struggle to connect an achievement with client-discussions.
Tell me about the process in your team/organization of arriving at which modules (work) to focus on.
I think I messed up on this because I didn’t want to talk about a technical story. Instead I should’ve been confident in showing that I have technical prowess. But at the same I could’ve cut short the answer or something. I instead rambled and laughed too much while answering this.
Given your background, what do intend to do after MBA?
I talked about my long term and short term goals. Also mentioned I want to mentor my B-school batch-mates who are interested in entering my industry post-MBA.
You have talked about many things that you want to do in your long-term goal; Is there some specific idea that you’ve thought of for your long-term entrepreneurial goal?
I talked about why I specifically have chosen not to think about any 1 idea, but am gaining the required knowledge for it.
Why MBA?
I talked about the key business concept themes that I want to pick up.
Why UCLA/Anderson?
Any specific clubs that you are looking forward to?
I had to say I have only looked at professional clubs till now, not at personal clubs. I talked about the collaborative culture and the LA-feel that makes me love the atmosphere there. It would’ve made much more sense for me to have known some extracurricular clubs there.
You have never visited the US, how do you think your time here will be?
I talked about my excitement at the diversity v/s MBA at a top univ in my own country. Also mentioned my exposure to diversity at my workplace with global teams from various cultural backgrounds and how those perspectives have shaped my thinking.
What do you do in your free time when you are not busy changing the world?
I talked about my community involvement and my hobbies. We talked a little more about the sports side of my hobbies.
What is it that drives your continued interest in XYZ-sports?
Tell me about this last point written in your résumé. (he went through almost all points on my resume)
I talked about a one line non-profit initiative I was part of.
I found the interview time to be too short. I felt compared to another B-school’s alumnus interview, which’d lasted for 40-45 minutes, these 25-30 mins were very less. I ended up poorly summarizing my points. My take-aways were that it is very important to be prepared with your stories, be very clear, follow the MECE principle.
He then said he is keeping away his pen and paper and giving me time to ask any questions I have with him. Told me that this will not be evaluated. I asked him about his background and his future goals.
Asked him questions:
– about the new Anderson Venture Accelerator
– his internship / work target / AMR
– Classes he is looking forward to
– any nearby cross-fit gyms that people go to there (my lame attempt at making a personal connection, instead of all professional questions)
I was selected to UCLA Anderson along with another peer school. I chose UCLA. I was also offered a significant scholarship.
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