I just got back from my interview with Rod Garcia here in Chicago. It was certainly one of my most interesting interviews. I didn’t expect as many “What did you think?” questions as he gave…hopefully I answered the questions fairly well. We met in a conference room of a consulting office downtown. Rod was very nice and friendly off of the bat and genuinely seemed like he wanted to get to know you. There was on one else in the room waiting to be interviewed, but Rod mentioned he had two days of interviews in Chicago before flying out. He had a watch and my application on his table and was very cognizant of time. We went about 45 minutes overall (35 mins interview, 10 mins questions)…here’s how it went down:
- Is there anything else you would like to add since you submitted your application? Promotions, additions, etc?
- Tell me a little about what you do at work.
- Tell me about a project management experience you’ve had.
- What kind of feedback did you get after the project was over?
- How did this make you feel? What was your thought process?
- Tell me about a time when you had to do something that you didn’t want to do.
- How did this make you feel? What was your thought process?
- Tell me about another project management experience you’ve been given.
- I know this is one of your strengths, but tell me about a time when you’ve done something innovative.
- What were you in charge of?
- What did you do after your initial steps? What did you think?
- Tell me about your thought process behind choosing MBA schools.
- What would you bring to MIT and want to get out of it?
- What do you do outside of work?
- Any questions for me?
Anyway, I’m not sure if I was clear enough on my thoughts to every question, but think I had a good story for each one. It’s very different from the other interviews in that you really need to be clear on what you were feeling and thinking and what drove the action you took. Overall though, I was impressed by Rod and not intimidated at all. He seemed very sincere and genuinely wanted to get to know me. It’s hard to get a read on whether or not I did well in the interview but I felt pretty good coming out.
