My interview was very much like Monica’s interview below. I had met Brook for an information interview about 4 months ago and so we had a little bit of a rapport already, which made things a lot easier from my side. At the start of the interview Brook told me that she preferred things to be very natural and free-flowing and that she was not going to put me under any kind of pressure or ask any random questions to try and throw me off. She said her intention was to learn as much as she could from our time together and she wanted the session to be as casual as possible. This put me at ease and made the interview more like a conversation than anything else.
She divided the interview into 3 parts, just like Monica’s experience below. By the time we got through the first part she said that she felt that I had already answered a lot of the questions that she had for the second part so we briefly went over some questions that she still had, because she wanted to gauge how I related some of the things I said about myself to an actual work scenario. She asked me about a time when I had to deal with a pressure situation at work and asked me to go through the actual steps I took to deal with it. I gave her a long and detailed answer to that question and after I was done she said that it pretty much answered all the other questions she had for me in this section.
She then proceeded to give me some feedback on what she thought of me, which was a pleasant surprise as b-schools typically don’t provide much feedback during the interview. She mentioned that she doesn’t normally give feedback either, but just wanted to let me know that she liked my profile and my that she would make a positive recommendation to the Admissions Committee….which made me very happy!
She then asked me to ask her any questions that I may have for her. I had a few questions for her which she answered in great detail. I liked the fact that she took my questions and concerns seriously and tried her best to make sure that I got the answer that I wanted.
She said that I would hear back from the school by the end of March. Overall, the interview was a delightful experience, as Brook is a really relaxed and easy person to deal with.
I can’t wait to hear back from IESE in a few weeks!
