I interviewed with a recent alum. I got the impression that most of the applicants in my area interviewed during Haas’ ‘Super Saturday’ event on campus, but I happened to complete mine after that date at an off-campus location. I had visited Haas twice prior to the interview and had a good feel for the school’s curriculum and culture going into the interview. I can’t stress enough how important that was during the interview. Being able to reference particular academic programs, majors, professors, etc. gave my responses to the interviewer’s questions much more depth.
I didn’t get the typical ‘walk me through your resume’ instruction. Rather, the interviewer had thoroughly reviewed my resume and had chosen questions that would force me to elaborate on my work experiences. Many questions, while not really curveballs, were porbing and situational in nature: ‘Tell me about how you dealt with specific problem X?’ and ‘How did you show leadership when you managed problem Y’?, ‘Tell me why you think your company encountered problem Z’. Other questions were more generic: ‘Tell me how you would improve your organization’ and ‘Where do you see your industry headed in the next 5 years?’ though I would say the interview felt more targeted to my experiences than ones at other schools. I didn’t get the sense that the interviewer was prompted by a standard list of questions.
I did, however, get the ‘Why MBA?’ question at some point during the interview, though not at the very beginning. This was my fourth interview so I had the response down cold, as all applicants should. You know it’s coming, so there’s really no excuse for botching it. My advice to applicants would be to treat this one as a mini-project. I drew from my essays and created a few powerpoint slides that outlined my rationale. I reviewed the slides right before the interview. I also got the ‘Why Haas?’ question. Again, I created review notes for this question using the following approach: 1) Pretend I’m the dean of Haas. 2) Pretend I’m making a marketing pitch to a potential student who has interests and a background that match mine. 3) Use the points in the marketing pitch as the meat for my response to the ‘Why Haas?’ question. The role reversal exercise seemed to help me frame my response.
My interviewer was very professional, though not particularly warm. I tried to initiate some light smalltalk at the very beginning of the interview, but my interviewer seemed intent on launching into serious questions immediately. My interviewer also asked to see my driver’s license to verify my identity, which I thought was a bid odd (though this is apparently a standard practice for Haas).
