Interview experiences — ISB (Indian School of Business) MBA
At any MBA school, Management Consulting and Product Management are two hot career paths. Some of you might be confused about which path to choose. This interesting article helps understand these careers closely: Click here
Based on the suggestions I received from a few readers, I want to share a few interview experiences. I spoke with a few people who got admits into ISB (Indian School of Business) recently and collected their interview experiences. Over this article, I will share some common questions and interview experiences relevant to anyone planning to apply at ISB.
Firstly, the typical questions asked during an MBA interview are:
- Tell me about yourself (Common starting point in most interviews)
- Why are you applying for this program and this school?
- What are your strengths? Give situations you faced to back your answer
- What are your weaknesses? Give situations you faced to back your answer
- What are your short-term goals? How do you see this program helping you in this?
- What are your long-term goals? How do you see this program helping you in this?
- Do you have any questions for us?
Based on your answers to these questions, there will be follow-up questions. So before the interview, it would be really good to have answers to them and practice delivering them in the best possible way.
In addition to this, there will be questions on your resume or essays. So it is better to thoroughly prepare on those topics before the interview.
Below are some experiences I gathered from a few candidates.
Experience 1:
The interviewers were two school alumni. Started with a “Hi, Hello” sort of greeting. The following are the series of questions I faced after this.
- Where are you from?
- What is new or currently trending in your city? (I replied with a fun thing in a jovial way and made the interviewers laugh. So I guess this set a pleasant and lighter tone for the rest of the interview)
- Do you go around your city or stay at home mostly?
- (Interviewers started looking at my resume) What did you do as a part of this role?
- What are some new initiatives you brought up while doing this?
- Why did you bring these initiatives particularly? How did you come up with that idea?
- How was the feedback on those? and what are the challenges you faced?
- What was the size and type of team you were leading?
- Why do you want to come to ISB instead of going to an IIM?
- What type of value do you think you will be able to bring to a class/club you join at ISB?
- You mentioned in your resume that you won awards in Art (Painting), is it your hobby or you take it as a profession?
- What is the difference between oil paint and acrylic paint?
- Do you have any questions for us?
The interview went on for about 40 mins and the interviewers were very friendly. I think starting with the joke really helped me set a lighter tone. I appeared confident while answering the questions but not so overconfident that it would piss the interviewers off. Whenever I did not know an answer, I was honest in saying I do not know.
Experience 2:
The interviewers were two school alumni. Started with “Tell me about yourself”. I am a management consulting professional. So, most of my interview was around that. The following are the series of questions I faced after this.
- What are your day-to-day responsibilities at your workplace?
- Which industries have you worked on so far?
- What are the solutions you have built for this pharma client?
- What is the approach you have used in building that solution?
- (The interviewer was with a similar work experience. So there were more intense/specific questions related to my work after this)
- You mentioned the names of a few professors in your essay. Which departments are they from? Can you tell why exactly those professors?
- What are some of the clubs would you be a part of after joining ISB?
- Which specializations are you interested in? Why?
- If you do not get an admit at ISB, what would you do?
Most of my interview was around my work in consulting. I think I appeared a bit too confident while answering questions about my work. So the interviewers made the interview really stressful. I was not expecting an admit, but thankfully, I received it.
Experience 3:
The interviewers were ISB alumni. I think they got my application just before the interview began. So they started going through it in front of me.
- Tell me about yourself
- Why are you working at ____ in a tech job while you have studied something very different? (I answered this by covering so many aspects, subtly bringing in my interest in Product management and about my family business)
- Why are you interested in Product Management?
- Why can’t you start working in those roles without an MBA?
- Why ISB MBA for starting a career in PM?
- Why do you not want to register in PGP-MFAB, instead of a normal PGP?
- What are your strengths?
- Why do you think those are your strengths? Give examples of some scenarios to back this?
- How did you handle that situation? Give your step by step approach
- Why do you not want to pursue a Master's in your field?
I was able to drive the interview in a particular direction at the start of the interview itself by bringing in the family business discussion. I think bringing in the family business and linking it to Product Management helped me during the interview.
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