Had my interview today with an alumni of Chicago Booth at his office. It was a very pleasant experience. Here’s how it went: My interview started around 20 minutes late and when my interviewer walked in I sensed he was in a rush and he indicated as much by saying it’ll have to be a short interview (around 30-35 mins). He explained to me that he hadn’t read anything about me so it was going to be a ‘blind interview’. He put me at ease by saying that most of the questions that he would ask me might be similar to those already asked in the essays and that he wasn’t going to ask me any oddball questions. He asked for a copy of my resume and began by telling me a bit about himself. He did this very well and explained important details of his life story in brief detail. After this he started off with his questions (and he took a decent amount of notes and didn’t make as much eye contact as I had hoped he would:
1. Tell me about yourself
2. Why an MBA?
3. Why not a school on the east coast? (after I told him I want to specialize in and work in finance)
4. Why Booth?
5. Did you ever have a falling out with a partner in the big 4 firm that you worked in (I explained an ethical issue that I had encountered at my time at the firm)
6. What kind of opportunities do you see for yourself after the MBA (as in which industry/function do I see myself working in)
7. What kind of finance job (specific) are you targeting after your MBA? After I told him about how I wanted to explore the possibility of managing HNI funds by investing them in public/pvt companies he asked me how will I trust the books of potential companies (I had told him earlier that in my experience as an auditor I saw far too many books of accounts which were not properly made)
8. What specific area in finance do you want to specialize in at Chicago? (PE; investment mgmt; investment banking; corporate finance etc)
9. Apart from the curriculum what else would you indulge in while at Chicago Booth?
10. What do you do when you’re not working?
11. How will you contribute to the program at Chicago Booth?
12. Question for him: Does it make a difference being in Chicago (and not being in NYC) but still wanting to work there on wall street? He was clearly a very proud Booth alumni and he ended it by saying that Booth is by far the best school in the world to learn investment management in. Period. Nothing else matters. I liked that answer.
Even though I didn’t face any oddball questions and was able to answer most of the questions quite comfortably, in hindsight I think I didn’t come off as confident as I should have. I think I sounded too ‘rehearsed’ and too ‘prepared’ which prevented me from being as lively and as spontaneous as I normally am. And I suspect that is because I spent a fair amount of time analyzing interview questions on websites like ClearAdmit and I confess I rehearsed the answers to a lot of the questions beforehand.
I honestly don’t know why I did that since I’m normally very well poised before interviews and am quite confident about myself. I can now confidently say that reading up questions beforehand and rehearsing them is NOT the right approach and all it does is tightens you up and prevents you from being as good as you normally are. Especially if you are someone who is otherwise a very good conversationalist and is at ease with discussing various topics then you really should stay away from reading about what kind of questions are normally asked in B-school interviews.
You should just know your own story and motivations right (which you should considering it’s barely been a month since you finished your essays) and then just trust yourself. It all flows out automatically and that is a much better strategy than learning/rehearsing answers.
Having said all that I’m hoping for a positive outcome. If I don’t get it, the only positive is that I learnt a valuable lesson for the future. Good luck…
