I had my Chicago interview yesterday with an alumnus. He was initially difficult to pin down because of both of our hectic travel schedules but we managed to touch base finally and kept to the original date we had tentatively fixed earlier.
After he mailed me a day before the interview confirming the place and time, I pressed the panic buttons and started preparing answers to standard questions. I think ‘walk me through your resume’ by far has to be the toughest question – walking through 5 years of my resume was definitely not an easy task and I had to sit down frequently for catching up on my breath!
So anyway, I prepped most of the standard questions that are asked and called him up on the day of the interview to confirm the appointment. I had previously uploaded my CV through the website so assumed that it would have reached him. However, to be on the safe side, I carried an extra copy of the CV with me.
HOT TIP: DO carry an extra copy of your CV with you. It turned out to be the best thing because he hadn’t read it from before and took a couple of minutes going through it while I checked out the cute receptionist (we met in the lobby of a five-star hotel). So yeah, after having spent 5 minutes going through my CV, I knew he wasn’t going to ask me to ‘walk him’ through my resume.
I had reached the place about 15 minutes before and spent some time sitting there and getting comfortable with the surroundings and used to the noise levels – which was probably good because lots of people were moving around and I tend to get distracted if I haven’t been able to assimilate them in.
So yeah, he read my CV in good detail and was a little intrigued with my background and work experience and asked me to start explaining what I did after school and why I graduated in Zoology, did an MBA in rural development and was into investment banking now. It took me a while to get along with my story and he kept asking questions in between – which was great for me because I tend to keep rambling on and get carried away, otherwise. I however made it a point to get back to where I had left before his question and carry on from there.
He asked quite intuitive questions about my background and work. He saw that I had traveled quite a lot so asked which of the places I had been to was my favorite and why.
After much questioning about my work (yeah he seemed to be VERY interested in what I was doing, which was super because I totally knew what I was saying), he then asked me ‘Why do you want to leave’? Which I took to be ‘why MBA, why now’. And I tied it all to my short term and long term goals and why getting out at this point to get an MBA would do me a whole lot of good. I made sure I hammered in my goals pretty strongly and he said he was quite impressed that I had planned it all out and had made a good case to do an MBA.
I was at this point expecting he’d ask me Why Chicago, but he never asked that – I guess the fact that I had finance written all over my answers and resume made this question a little redundant. He didn’t even ask me where all I had applied and why I’d choose Chicago over them…which was ok again!
One thing I really appreciated was that he was very seriously evaluating my short term goals and trying to work with me already to identify how I could achieve them after completion of an MBA. He asked me if I have been in touch with some firms in the US already, told me it’d be difficult to come back to India for a while and then threw the zinger at me – ‘whats your plan B if you don’t get the job profile you want to?’ I wasn’t really prepared for this one and hadn’t thought about it myself, so said I didn’t have a plan B except for starting something up on my own. Which is probably what I’d love to do by leveraging on some of my contacts in the US but I probably didn’t sound too convincing about it. He said the cost of this education is really very high and in case one doesn’t have a plan B, one is often stuck with a whole lot of EMIs coming through every month – which is very true and I should have given more thought to it and made place for a Plan B somewhere in my mind if not essays. I know how consulting is everyone’s plan B but I dont want to go down that route and stick to what I like doing. So anyway, I really appreciated his concern and told him so. I think this was one question where I did not have a watertight answer – I just hope this is’nt the spoiler!
He was taking detailed notes on my CV, including little points about my boss, colleagues, college days, etc – so I am assuming that he will be reporting those points for the Chicago adcom to check against my essays to see if they match with what I told him. 😀
All this went around for a while and he reiterated that he was impressed with how I had planned my short term goals. He then asked if I had any questions. I asked him a few – how it was like coming back to India so soon after graduating, his career plans and whether he’d like to work abroad now, whether there is enough time after academics to be able to contribute to the non-career clubs there and some random questions about his experience at the GSB. The interview ended here – after having lasted for about 50 minutes.
