Interview took place in January 2009 in the office of a male alumnus who is a senior executive at a major Australian bank.
The interview was scheduled for one hour but ended up extending a full two hours.
The tone was relaxed and casual but certainly even keeled – never too serious yet never overly friendly.
There was a very distinct lack of structure – we began by talking about work/life in general and slowly transitioned to the school itself.
It was an hour before we actually addressed any of the official questions yet by this time the following topics were already covered to some extent: (N.B. this was due to my actively (yet subtly) steering the conversation towards these subjects)
- My reasons for wanting get an MBA
- Why I particularly want to attend Kellogg
- Elements of my previous work experience (particularly strategy consulting as this is a background we both share)
His view on the relative merits of the school – in comparison to other top tier schools, all of which he was admitted to The official questions covered were: (N.B. this lasted all of 15 minutes before the conversation shifted back to the Kellogg MBA in general)
- Describe a difficult team situation you have had to deal with in the past?
- Who do you admire as a leader?
- How do you envision yourself being involved in the Kellogg community?
The interviewer was eager to share with me his experiences from Kellogg from an academic perspective as well as a people/culture and community perspective. I found that his accounts were very sincere and he was constantly putting a ‘sell-job’ on the school.
We discussed in detail the differing philosophies of the Australian, European and US education systems and how this related to study at Kellogg, what one would get out of attending there and the opportunities available from an academic standpoint.
I found that the coincidental extracurricular similarities between myself and my interviewer (e.g. music) served as a perfect way to build consensus and trust between us and much of the latter half of our discussion centered around this. He recommended a few clubs and societies that I might want to explore should “when I get there”. It was almost as if this qualified me as a strong potential candidate in his eyes, ceteris paribus.
Overall I was very pleased with the interview – my only gauge on relative success is that if he didn’t think I was a worthwhile candidate then he wouldn’t have wasted a full 2 hrs on me. That being said you never really know.
