Laos Books

Plenty of MBA students are preparing for job interviews right now. There are many different kinds of interviews: the behavioural interview, the fit interview, the case interview, the assessment centre interview, etc.

While we prepare and practise, I can’t help but think back to the preparation I did for my Saïd Business School interview.

Over a recent dinner with some MBA friends, we talked about our performance in our SBS interviews. As we spoke, I knew immediately that our conversation would be enlightening for anyone preparing for an MBA interview.

Here is the gist of our conversation:

One friend said he opted for an in-person interview, which turned out to be one of the most awkward interviews of his life. After a clumsy handshake, he said the interviewer asked him five minutes of questions and then sat in silence for the last 25 minutes of the interview. During that time my friend tried to engage in friendly conversation, while thinking to himself, “All my dreams are going out the window as I speak. This interviewer clearly has no interest in me!”

Another friend at the table talked about how his interviewer asked him some of the most intellectually challenging questions he’d ever had, including:

- How should international financial institutions be regulated in order to minimise the risk of a future financial crisis?

- In your application essay you mentioned a classic business book that inspired you. If you released a new edition of that book this year, what would you change about the content?

- In light of your experience with public-private partnerships, what do you think of PPP as a model for delivering infrastructure projects to the public?

After leaving the interview tongue-tied, my friend was certain he had performed poorly and would not be granted admission.

Meanwhile, my MBA interview was fairly straightforward. I didn’t get any curve balls. I got typical questions like:

- Tell me about yourself.

- Why do you specifically want to come to Oxford’s business school?

- How will you contribute to our class?

- Which clubs will you join?

Even though all my interview questions were relatively straightforward, and even though I had prepared for roughly 60 hours (!), I still felt as though I slipped up a few times. I was convinced that my nerves had gotten the best of me. I walked out of my interview figuring I had a 50/50 chance of acceptance.

These three real-life interview examples demonstrate that MBA applicants should prepare thoroughly for any kind of interview. You can get lucky and have a “typical” interview like mine, or you may end up with a more “esoteric” interview like my friends. Prepare for anything and everything and with a bit of charisma, you should be able to pull off a great interview.