The interview began with an exchange of thoughts on our respective European experience and as if to formally mark the beginning of the interview, the interviewer informed me about the “blind” nature of the interview. The first question asked me to talk about my achievements. Now, it is always easier to start with a résumé walkthrough in order to put the self-perceived achievements in context and I did just that. Although I tried to avoid sounding like I was responding to the wrong question, I felt the need to run the interviewer through my background in order to put the remaining response in context. This is where I felt I rambled a bit. I was nervous; would be foolish of me to deny it but I felt it was a very natural thing to happen considering it was the first time I was interviewing outside of my organization in more than five years’ time. However, I managed to find my bearings after my initial five-minute monologue.
Or so I thought.
The next question was “Why Wharton?”. I had decided that I would approach this response by covering the reasons I had mentioned in my essays and then take the time to elaborate on each one of them separately before concluding how it all is in line with my experience so far and my future career and personal aspirations. Naturally, it did not go the ideal way and I ended up talking about my community service experience without giving my response a solid and logical ending. This was the most critical response and I screwed it up royally. By the way, I did not mention how the collaborative environment at Wharton appealed to me nor did I talk about the various clubs I would join if I were to attend the school.
“Why {this function}? I must admit this question took me by surprise. It’s quite difficult question to convey a suitable response without using industry-specific jargon and doing so is counter-productive considering the interviewer may not be intimately familiar with your area of expertise or even your industry. Nevertheless, I talked about the recent changes to my job responsibilities and how I was fascinated by the function in question and how Wharton would help me build on my current experience and knowledge and how I would contribute to the classroom with my current understanding of this function. I felt that my response was quite spontaneous and not well thought over, but I let it go.
“What do you feel are your strengths and weaknesses?” I managed to provide a satisfactory response to this question and actually tied up my weakness as a developmental need which can be addressed by an MBA. Luckily, I remembered to mention that these weaknesses were in line with my recent performance appraisal and mentioned the alternate (albeit less effective and uncertain) methods that I, along with my boss, devised to address the weaknesses. I also provided anecdotal references to my career progression while talking about my strengths.
Not surprisingly, I was then asked about my leadership style. I talked about a situation at work and supplemented my response with examples on how I managed a challenging project. However, I am not sure if what I did next was right or wrong. Instead of finishing on a positive note (illustrating my strengths as a leader), I talked about my weakness I’d mentioned earlier in the discussion and how overcoming that particular weakness would make me a more effective leader. I can only *hope* that the interviewer took this as a reflection of self-awareness and not as an indication of a low-on-confidence leader.
And now, for the mother of all screw-ups.
The interviewer asked me if there’s anything which we had missed. Sensing that the interview was approaching an end, I quickly ran through the entire conversation in my mind. Instead of talking about the points I’d missed to make, I decided to talk about an activity which I have been pursuing since high school and am very passionate about. I was asked how I intended to continue pursuing the activity at Wharton to which I valiantly said “I’d like to found a club at Wharton by collaborating with **** organization.”. Fair enough, only that the **** organization I mentioned happened to be in Chicago and not in Philly! “Are you sure of the name of the organization?” the interviewer probed. “Well, not quite sure of the name but it definitely is the oldest organization of its kind in the US”, I said. Frantic note taking followed while I cursed my memory for having forgotten the name of the goddamned organization.
“Any questions for me?”. I rattled off the questions I had intended to ask and while I tried hard to appear attentive to what was being said, I was rewinding the entire interview in my head while simultaneously cursing myself for the all the stupidity I had managed to display in the previous 45 minutes.
I’m aware that the interview is “just another data point” for the admissions committee, it is wise to remember that it is an evaluative process. The only consolation I drew was the fact that my essays already covered all the points I missed out in my interview. Now this could mean either good news or bad. Good – if the ad com takes a statistical “union” of my interview and my essays and bad – if they decide on taking an “intersection”. Whatever it is, I’ll get to know soon.
Cross posted [1]
Update: Denied admission after interview.
