Many MBA students are preparing for interviews right now, and we at mbaMission are noticing a number of common (yet easily correctable) mistakes our clients are making when responding to interview questions. In this post, we will address two in particular and give you strategies for correcting them.
Mistake #1: Taking too long to get to the main point of your story. This is problematic because you run the risk that your interviewer will stop paying attention and miss hearing how great you are and how you can help their organization.
To address this issue, we recommend implementing an “answer first” approach, which we illustrate with the following “before” and “after” sample answers to the very common prompt “Tell me about yourself.”
Before: I am a first-year MBA student at School X, majoring in strategic management. I grew up in the Bay Area and went to college at School Y. I joined Company Z’s leadership rotational program and served across the marketing, operations, and finance functions of the company. After two and a half years and a promotion, I left Company Z to join a start-up, where I did project management and helped scale the company from ten to 200 employees…
Revision Tips: Start with a headline or roadmap for your answer. Before describing specific experiences, try summarizing them according to a theme, such as common elements or relevant attributes for the job. Make sure by the end of your answer, the interviewer can understand the connection between your experiences and your target role.
After: I am really excited to be here today, interviewing for a consulting position with Firm X, because I believe my experiences thus far will enable me to drive impact for your clients. Throughout my personal and professional life, I have chosen opportunities that developed my analytical problem-solving foundation and pushed me to build strong leadership and client engagement capabilities. After attending College Y, I decided to join Company Z’s leadership rotational program to apply the business acumen I had developed as an undergraduate economics major. Throughout my two and a half years at the company and rotations across four different functions, I have frequently collected and analyzed large datasets to form hypotheses and proposed potential solutions to senior leadership…
Here is another example of using the “answer first” approach, this time, in response to the prompt “Tell me about a time when you convinced someone to adopt a different way of thinking.”
Before: I would like to tell you about a time when I disagreed with the senior management of Company X about the company’s marketing strategy. The challenges I faced were…
Revision Tips: Hook the interviewer from the start. Use words from the interviewer’s question in your response, and provide context (e.g., numbers) to help them understand that persuading senior management was a true challenge and that your actions were impactful to the organization.
After: I would like to tell you about a time when I convinced the senior director of innovation at Company X, James, to shift from a traditional marketing strategy to a social media–based one. This change led to an eight-X increase in visibility for the firm’s innovation initiatives and three new client contracts worth more than $2M in revenue. In doing this, the challenges I faced were…
With both of these prompts, we recommend limiting your answer to two minutes. No matter how awesome your full story is, the interviewer wants to see how you curate your experiences into a concise narrative.
Mistake #2: Not telling your story in a compelling way. Although many MBA students prepare structured stories to share with their interviewer, they sometimes do not present those stories in an engaging manner. Your word choice, tone, and body language are critical for success in your interview. A lack of confidence manifests in an inability to project authority and credibility—and likely concern on the part of the interviewer that you are not qualified for the job.
To improve your performance, try these strategies: reflect, research, and take action.
Reflect: Ask yourself, “What is the root cause of my lack of confidence?” Recall situations in which you felt confident and ones in which you lacked confidence. Can you identify any similarities or common threads between these two types of situations? Uncovering what makes you feel nervous will help you find remedies for it. Recognize that different tactics work for different candidates, but in the end, be kind to yourself, and believe in your abilities.
Tip: Practice reframing exercises; remind yourself that you are the expert on you. For some useful tips, read this article by workplace psychologist Adam Grant about overcoming his fear of public speaking and this blog post by Jodi Glickman on improving your executive presence.
Research: Analyze the target job description, and talk with employees at the firm to identify the most important competencies for the role. Identify details in each of your stories that correspond with those competencies.
Tip: “Sell” your accomplishments to your interviewer by quantifying your impact. Highlight specifics about how you helped your previous employers or transformed outcomes for an organization; this kind of information helps the interviewer understand your value.
Take Action: Prepare talking points for your interview. Identify the three key ideas you want to communicate about yourself and the three reasons you are passionate about your target role and company.
Tip: Practice interviewing (aloud!). Find friends or—even better—people who do not know you well to conduct a mock interview with you. Record and review your practice sessions, looking to learn from the moments when you appear most (and least) confident.
