After having several interviews with alum, students and adcom, I found this one unique. Although I had previously had an alum interview, I did not find it to be as comfortable/casual as this one. Having said that, the interviewer still managed to maintain a respectable level of formality, seriousness, etc. I.e. the tone was relaxed but the context what quite serious and he nonverbally made it clear that “we are here to do business.” I was thus very impressed with the ability of the interviewer to make me feel so comforable while at the same time sticking to the agenda. The interview was scheduled for 45 minutes and he explicitly stated before the interview that we would keep to that schedule (he actually set his stopwatch!).
The interviewer first asked me to explain how I ended up in my current job. I took this as a cue to give him a quick rundown of my background (education, etc.) and gave a brief walkthrough of my resume up to the point of joining my current employer.
He then asked me directly why I want an MBA and why now and WHY STANFORD. I think I told him more than he needed to hear about Stanford, so after a while he broke off into new topics: leadership and management.
My interviewer said he wanted to know some things about my leadership, teamwork, management experience and said that he would ask me some questions. Here they are:
- What has been one of your greatest management challenges at work (that has resulted in a less than favorable outcome) and how did you handle it, learn from it, etc.
- Tell me about your leadership experiences/accomplishments/challenges/outside of work and what you learned from them.
My responses to these questions evolved into a discussion about management and the importance of finding a balance between “hard” and “soft” management skills. He then mention that Stanford does a good job in teaching this balance.
Here are some of the questions that came next:
- What book are you reading/what kind of books do you read?
- What do you do in your free time?
A this point we were at about the 40-minute mark (5 minutes to go) and he asked me if I had questions for him. I said that I really didn’t have specific questions about the Stanford program but that I am interested to learn about his personal experiece, how Stanford helped boost him to his current position in Asia, and his management experiences in Asia. For the next ten minutes, he happily shared his experiences and I was happy to listen. We shook hands and wished each other the best.
Summary: fabulous experience. I was most impressed with the personality of the interviewer – extremely humble and down-to-earth while at the same time a very powerful and successful business person. The interview was about 50 minutes.
