These 7 Questions are the Key to MBA Interview Success

UPDATE: This article was originally posted on March 7, 2019. It has been updated with new information and tips below. 

You’ve reached the next step in your MBA success story.

Thanks to your strong MBA CV, compelling essays, competitive test scores, and impressive professional achievements, what comes next is one of the most meaningful and exciting opportunities yet. 

What comes next, of course, is the MBA interview, a critical step for the business school to assess your fit and qualification for their program. For you, it’s an opportunity to tell your story, provide greater context to your application and gain additional insights into the program.

This is your chance to make an impression.

In this guide, we’ll cover the most critical questions in any MBA interview, as well as how to prepare thoughtful answers that make sure you beat out your competition to earn a spot at your dream school. 

 

QUESTION 1: Tell me about yourself

In this question, you should essentially give your “elevator pitch.” Use this time to provide context to your CV and general story, focusing on your best achievements and your motivations for each move in your career (both why you left and why you joined any position). 

You should spend no more than 3-5 minutes answering this question. Unless you have a particularly complex work history or are on the older end of things (think 7+ years of work experience), you likely don’t need to spend more than 3 minutes here. 

However, I also don’t suggest rushing. Often, clients come to me for interview training thinking they need to give their tell me about yourself answers in under 1 minute. In my opinion, this is a mistake. In under a minute, I don’t learn anything about you that I didn’t learn from reading your CV. This is your chance to begin to share your story and highlight your personal brand, so make sure you give us enough detail to do this! 

Your answer should cover all of these points:

• Educational history (where you went to college, what you studied, and any exchanges or activities you participated in)
• Career progression (jobs you have had, highlights from each position, why you went from one job to another). 
• Your extra-professional activities (if you have time, you can also add a bit of information about what you are involved in outside of work)

TOP TIP: This question may also take the form of “Introduce yourself” or “Tell me more about you”. 

 

QUESTION 2: What are your short-term and long-term goals?

In this question, you need to explain to your interviewer what your career plans are in the short term (right after you finish the MBA) and in the long term (this can be the endpoint of your career or around 10 years in the future, depending on your story). 

Make sure to include specific job titles and information about why you want to pursue these goals. 

If you wrote one for the school you’re interviewing with, you should also go back and check your goals essay to ensure that the answer you give here is consistent with what you previously said. This is not the time to change your mind – or your story! 

 

QUESTION 3: Why MBA?

Here, you must show very specifically why you need an MBA to get from your current position to your future goals. You should focus on specific gaps and needs and should tie each gap to your career goals.

For example, if you need to work on leadership, tell the interviewer why/how you will have greater leadership responsibilities in your next position and how you believe you need to develop in order to meet this challenge.

Our MBA Resource Center has dozens of real interview mocks from Haas, as well as detailed guides to help you prepare for questions ranging from “Why our MBA program?” to “Tell us about a time you failed.”

The Ellin Lolis Consulting MBA Resource Center is your one-stop shop to interview success. Click to join!

If you’re unable to justify why you need an MBA to reach your goals, you’re not likely to receive an offer from your dream school.

We suggest you focus on 3-4 topics, such as networking, leadership, entrepreneurship skills, negotiation skills, etc. If building your network or joining a tight-knit community is also important to you, consider mentioning this.

 

QUESTION 4: Why Now?

In this question, you must answer why NOW is the best time for you to do an MBA, and not one year from now or two years ago. 

Show the interviewer why you believe you are at the point in your career where you are ready to take the next step but that reaching this next step requires you to complete an MBA to build additional skills. 

This question is not as common as it used to be, however, if you are particularly old or particularly young, considering the average age and number of years of work experience at the programs you’re targeting, you should expect to receive this question. 

 

QUESTION 5: Why our MBA program?

This is perhaps the most important question in your MBA interview. You must give several specific reasons why the school you are interviewing for has the best program to fit your needs. 

(Students attend a meeting of MIT Sloan’s Quantitative Finance Club, courtesy @mitsloan on Instagram)

You must cite specific majors, classes, clubs, etc. If your answer is generic, you will not impress your interviewer and could seriously damage your chances of admission. We suggest you focus on:

• Your pillars for improvement and specific elements of the program that will help you solve this issue. (For example, if you said you need to work on leadership, mention how School X will help you grow as a leader. Be specific. If you’re not sure what to say, go back to your goals essays.)
• How you hope to be involved and learn outside the classroom (mention specific initiatives and/or clubs, showing how you will learn from each thing you mention.)
• Any other important factors – DO NOT mention rank, as this is a very superficial reason for wanting to attend a program. (If the school has a tight-knit community, a global profile, or a specific program or approach you like, mention it here. Be sure to show how each will benefit and enrich you). 

 

QUESTION 6: How will you contribute?

Another important consideration schools make when analyzing your profile is how you will add to the overall diversity of the class. They are curious about what experience you will bring and share, as well as how you plan to get involved on campus. 

This answer should have two parts: 

1) the unique perspectives (personal and professional) you will share with your colleagues, and 2) the clubs or organizations you plan to get involved in and why this is important to you. 

When answering, try to keep the question “why should any of my classmates care?” in the back of your mind. Though this is a direct question, it will help you make sure that what you say you will bring is relevant and specifically applied to a way you can contribute to the school. 

So, instead of saying, “I’ve worked as an entrepreneur,” this question should push you to say something more like, “Having worked as an entrepreneur with both successful and failed ventures, I believe I can contribute the key factors that led to better outcomes in my business, something I am especially excited to share with the approximately 50% of INSEAD students who run or own a business at some point in their careers.” 

By framing what you bring in terms of what others will get out of your experience, you’re well on your way to showing you’ll be an outstanding addition to your top-choice program. 

 

QUESTION 7: Do you have any questions for me?

In any interview, it’s a good idea to have questions prepared for your interviewer. The questions should show that you have done deep research and are genuinely interested in their MBA program. You should prepare different questions based on who is interviewing you. 

In the case of an alumni interview, experience-based questions, such as “What has been your experience with the bidding system for classes, and how did you prioritize your top choice classes?” or “I noticed you were a KWEST Leader (Kellogg), what motivated you to participate in KWEST as a leader and would you recommend this to incoming students?”

In the case of an admissions interview, questions that probe more deeply into something you read on the website about the program are good bets, as are questions about why your interviewer decided to be part of the school, what the school or program’s greatest asset is, and if he or she would offer any advice to incoming students. 

For all interviews, you want to avoid questions like “Which classes do you think I should take?” since you should already know your answer to this. You should also avoid questions whose answers can clearly and easily be found on the school’s website. 

In short, take advantage of this opportunity both to show your genuine interest in the school and to learn something new. 

 

How To Prepare Your Answers To These Critical Questions

Before starting to prep a client for interviews, I always ask them to prepare their answers to the critical questions covered in this post. 

When I first started training applicants for interviews, I was surprised to find that nearly 100% of the time, clients wrote page-long answers to each question and spent hours trying to memorize each word of the answer to show up to our sessions with “perfect” responses. 

However, when we started practicing, the painstakingly prepped answer started to unravel at the seams before totally falling apart. 

That’s because an interview is not a Shakespeare play. Yes, it should be a carefully prepared experience in which you transmit critical information about yourself. But unlike a production of Macbeth, it should be a fluid and natural opportunity for you to build a connection with your interviewer. 

Writing and memorizing scripts for interview answers gets in the way of building an authentic connection with your interviewer. 

Focusing on getting every word right means you’re likely not making appropriate eye contact (which can make you seem distant, arrogant, or uninterested — not good if you’re trying to make a stellar impression). 

It also means you might be too distracted to pick up on subtle body language cues that prompt you to adapt your answer (or even wrap it up faster than planned) and build a good rapport with your interviewer. 

Second, and let me really stress this, you’re not going to perfectly remember all your answers. In stressful situations, like your MBA interview, your body often enters into its “fight or flight” response, meaning certain brain functions (many tied to memory) simply stop functioning properly. This means you’re likely to “blank out” all that information you tried to memorize, totally derailing your interview. 

The good news is that the solution to this problem is simple: bullets!

Instead of writing out entire answers, write out 1-2 word bullet points that correspond to the key points of your argument. By using these points as your “stepping stones,” you’re able to remember critical information and naturally get from point to point each time. 

By freeing up your mind, you have more time for charisma and can keep a steady flow for the entire interview, ensuring you’re one step closer to making your dream of attending an elite MBA a reality!

TOP TIP: We’ve written an extensive guide on how to nail any MBA interview, including multiple types of questions and in-depth tips and tricks you can use to improve your performance. Check it out here!

 

Effectively Tell your Story During Your Interview

One of the most common mistakes we see in MBA interviews is that candidates fail to tell compelling, well-constructed stories about their profiles while also nailing the basics. 

Striking this balance between sharing STAR-format examples that show off your background while also presenting strong answers to questions like “Why do you want an MBA?” is a challenging task that requires significant thought and preparation. 

Because of this, it’s no surprise that, on average, 50% of interviewed applicants walk away without an offer.  

This is why our interview preparation process here at Ellin Lolis Consulting is known as the best in the industry. We offer customized 1:1 support that ensures you’re able to turn your application’s strengths into compelling answers that show fit and sell your profile in any type of interview. 

Not only can you take advantage of our development process through multiple sessions – you can also benefit from a single session! If your budget is tight, our interview experts can focus your session on a single aspect of the preparation process, from workshopping your answers to providing mock interviews. 

Forget simulation platforms or long lists of tips – our 1:1 preparation focuses on playing to your strengths and overcoming your weaknesses to turn you into an interview expert. Hire our interview services here. VIP packages that allow you to work directly with Ellin sell out quickly, so make sure you sign up today!