Congratulations! You’ve just been invited by your dream business school to have an interview. You’re feeling a wide range of emotions: relief that your MBA candidacy is still alive, pride in having advanced to this point, anticipation about meeting a decision maker in-person, and uncertainty over how to prepare.
With only a few weeks before the actual interview, there isn’t much time to sit back. Based on our experience at The MBA Exchange, advising thousands of eager b-school applicants and helping them prepare for admissions interviews, here are 5 suggested steps to make the most of your upcoming “moment of truth.”
1. Review your application
The credentials, experiences and accomplishments that you presented through your application produced this interview invitation. So, it’s valuable now to revisit that application and consider exactly what the school now knows about you. Not only will this step help you avoid repetition during the interview, but it will remind you of the strengths to be emphasized and the vulnerabilities to be explained during that face-to-face discussion.
2. Strengthen your candidacy
Believe it or not, there’s still enough time to improve your profile in ways that will increase your chances for success. Planning a new initiative at work, attending a networking session, engaging in dialogue with an international colleague, adding more detail to your post-MBA career plan – these are “quick hits” that you can describe in your upcoming interview in order to refresh your candidacy. What can you add, change or improve this week?
3. Prepare your core stories
There’s no way to know exactly which questions you’ll be asked in the interview. And, even if you could do so, focusing solely on those questions will result in formulaic answers that seem memorized and uninspired. So, a far better approach is to build a set of core stories about your professional, personal and academic past, present and future. The resulting content will be authentic and adaptable to almost any question you’re asked. And remember to have a solid grasp of why you want an MBA, why now, and how the targeted school’s offerings can help you achieve your long-term goals.
4. Practice your interviewing skills
The best way to become confident and competent before the big day is practice, practice, practice. You could lock yourself in a room and rehearse alone. Or you could recruit a friend or colleague to ask you questions for an hour. But those approaches have obvious limitations. We’ve found that the best practice method is to video record yourself answering a wide variety of potential questions. This way, you’ll experience how it feels to face an interviewer and have the chance to see and hear how you did.
5. Perfect your approach
After all of this preparation, it’s time for the “dress rehearsal.” Having a real-time, mock interview with an experienced admissions expert should be the final step before the actual interview. This session should combine Q&A with actionable, constructive feedback after each response. Furthermore, the mock interview should be video recorded so you can play it back and observe exactly what you did effectively and what you need to improve.
So, what’s left to do? Shine your shoes. Get a good night’s sleep. Have a healthy breakfast. Arrive 10 minutes early. And smile! Your MBA admissions interview is a moment you’ll never forget. If you’ve prepared thoroughly and thoughtfully, the outcome is more likely to be successful. And there will be no cause for regrets. So, give it your very best effort, starting today, starting now.
