November 2008. I chose to interview with a local alumnus and found three in my area. I googled each of them and found someone who had worked for my firm (large MC). We met at his office in a conference room for about one hour. He had not read my resume even though he had access to it. Good thing I brought extra copies. He took a quick read and the interview was HIGHLY conversational. He had very few formal questions and didn’t seem to have an agenda at all – the only question he really wanted to ask was “why Wharton?”
Questions:
- Tell me about what you do. (I also talked about my career progression towards my current job)
- Tell me what your approach is for dealing with conflicts (this was the only formal behavioral question)
- Why Wharton? (no why MBA question though I chose to answer it)
- What kinds of activities do you want to get involved in at Wharton?
- Plenty of time for my questions.
I left the interview feeling very good, both about my performance and about Wharton. He gave a lot of positive body language and at no point, tried to rush the conversation. I even owned up to googling him after he noticed that we worked at the same firm – that enabled me to ask about our old company’s alumni network v Wharton’s and he had a lot to say on that subject – namely that Wharton’s alumni network had improved a lot in the short 7 or 8 years since he had graduated.
