I just had my off-campus interview with a recent alumnus. It took place at a local coffee shop and took a little more than an hour in all. It seems he was supposed to take roughly 30 for the interview and 15 minutes for answering my questions about the program but we had such a lively discussion about his experience in consulting and the many opportunities Latin America offers for MBA grads that we lost track of time. The interviewer was an extremely nice person. He gave me some great career advice, given that I’m looking to go into consulting, and he even offered to help me plan out my MBA experience.
He asked the following questions:
- Walk me through your resume, but make sure you highlight just a couple of key achievements
- Why are you pursuing an MBA?
- Why now?
- Why Booth?
- Clarifying questions about Booth’s program. Apparently, he wanted to make sure I knew the program well so after I mentioned the school’s flexible curriculum he prompted if there was anything specific about the curriculum that supported my reasoning for choosing Booth.
- What are your short term goals?
- Tell me about one occasion in which you displayed leadership.
- Tell me something you feel passionate about.
- Tell me something about you that I could not know from reading your resume
- Tell me a solution you have recently proposed to your employer (asked for an example in my last setting)
- What will you contribute to Booth, or what will you bring to the Booth community?
- Place yourself 30 years in the future… what would you define then as having been successful?
I prepared for the interview by talking to several Booth alumni, and the recurrent advice they gave me was that I should be relaxed, and think I was going to meet a nice person and have a conversation with him and not an interrogation. I was also told I should be very explicit as to why I though Booth is a good fit for me, given the school’s very analytical approach and quant reputation. In an alumnus words ‘you should be able to express why Booth may not be for everyone, but is a great fit for you’.
