Take Two Bskool

I had my Haas interview -- also see the Wiki post -- yesterday during the school's 'Super Saturday' event for Round 2 applicants. Comprised of the interview, student & career panels, lunch, a tour and welcome/closing remarks by the admissions directors, the event was a 6 hour affair. Fortunately, my interview took place during the first two hours of the day, allowing me to enjoy the rest of the event free of pre-interview nerves.

A first year student conducted my interview. After some initial chit-chat, we got down to business. Her questions ran like this:

1. Walk me through your resume.

2. The admissions committee told me to ask you this: Why have your career goals changed? (I am a Haas reapplicant)

3. Discuss your leadership style. How do you lead?

4. Discuss a time when you were part of a group of peers and you failed to meet your objective. How did you deal with this?

5. What is it about Haas, specifically, that makes you want to attend this program?

6. If you are admitted to Haas, what attributes will you bring to the program? How will you contribute?

7. Do you have any questions for me?

Overall, I think this was my strongest interview of the application season. Prior to my interview, I reminded myself to be confident, but modest, and to take more time when responding to questions (both from the perpspective of taking a moment to choose an answer and from the perspective of speaking at a slightly slower pace.) The most challenging question was #4 -- I struggled to recall a good example, but came up with a fairly general example that I think sufficed.

Number 2 was somewhat of a surprise, given that I explained this change in my application (and that this was a blind interview). I assumed that the adcom wanted to ensure my interview response was consistent with my essays, so I kept the response as such, while providing additional detail about the broader 12-month process I had undertaken in determining the post-MBA field that 1.) I was most attracted to/passionate about, and 2.) would ideally leverage my existing experience.

However, I remain slightly worried. Although I've put a tremendous amount of research into my career goals in the last year, speaking with dozens of brand management MBA students/alums, talking to current CPG brand managers, and studying/analyzing the elements of each MBA program that will ideally position me for this career path, I still have a nervous feeling that schools who have seen my my previous applications think I'm this crazy nutter who wanted to do one thing last year and a new thing this year.

After 30 minutes of providing answers, I had 15 minutes to ask my interviewer some questions of my own. This was great, because there were definitely some elements of the Haas program that I wanted to hear more about. Given the program's small size, I asked a several questions and follow-up questions about the process of on-campus recruiting vs. the process of working through the career center to pursue an employer not recruiting on-campus. I also inquired about academics, clubs and I asked my interviewer about her own goals and how she was structuring the Haas program to help her achieve these goals.

In parting, I should add that the depth of the Super Saturday program helped answer a lot of lingering questions I had about the program, especially in regards to career services and recruitment.