How to Prepare On Your Work Experience For B-School Interviews Part -2

How to Prepare On Your Work Experience For B-School Interviews (Part 2 of 3)

Continuing with our series on preparing on work experience for your b-school Interviews we bring you the 2nd part of this three part series looking at the final set of guidelines that you can look at during your preparations

4.    Go ten levels deep In case you are preparing a resume to take along during your interview or as is the case with a lot of b-schools, filling up the form that they have sent you post the written test, you will have a section where you will have to describe your work experience. Go ten levels deep  on anything and everything that you write in this section. The questions will usually come from these points and additionally from what your answers are to these problems. So it is important that you write and prepare 10 levels deep on each point/key word that you use in explaining your work experience.

5.    Leadership Qualities – Most aspirants go by the logic that “I was good at the technical details of my job and hence I will be a good manager” but sadly it does not hold as much water as a normal pre-MBA aspirant would like to believe. Most top notch colleges are looking for future leaders as 2 1/2 years down the line from your admission to the b-school, you might be handling teams from 20 to even 500 people.  Logic dictates that they would like to look at people who have some nascent level of leadership qualities which they can develop . Now here it is again a balancing act that needs to be done. To say that you were leading a team within 1-2 years in a organization though is plausible but is highly improbable. Coupled with that , with 50-60% of the aspirants who are coming to the interview probably saying the same thing , the interviewers would be very sceptical about whole claim. So again you need to moderate what you say making it more believable. So the mentoring of new recruits that you did after 1 year or a small problem that you took leadership of and solved are better examples of bringing out your leadership roles without compromising on its plausibility. Lying again is not advised as there cross questioning to determine the veracity of the claim should be expected. So idea is to dig back into your work experience and find those unique assignments/initiatives that on the face of it does not look like a leadership role, but on proper structure and narration  will display your latent leadership qualities.

6.    Taking Initiative – What is said about leadership qualities is also applicable verbatim on taking initiative. B-Schools are looking for proactive people as opposed to reactive people and trying to relate what you speak about your work experience which show initiatives that you took up or responsibilities that you got by showing initiative will go a long way in enhancing your candidature

7.    “Don’t get too Technical” – Another problem that is faced by a lot of aspirants , especially engineers, is that of getting too technical in the description of their work experience.  In marketing terms you can call this a “product centric approach” as opposed to a “customer centric approach”. The product being you here and the interviewers, the customers.  The interviewers don’t give a hoot about how technically exciting your project was, and especially if it’s actually that technical for them to understand anything about what you are describing, to them you are probably just rambling adding nothing to your candidature . They would rather want  you focus on the business aspect of what you did, which will be covered in the next two points.

8.    Big Picture Thinking – As a continuation to the earlier rule, the interviewers would love a person who not only did the technical job brilliantly (in any field), but had a better understanding of what was the big picture regarding the same. It comes from the parable where a traveller comes across 3 workers.  He goes to the 1st person and asks, “Sir, what are you doing?” getting an answer “Cant you see I am doing masonry work”, not satisfied he goes and asks the 2nd worker who replies  “I am building a wall”, the traveller, still curious, goes and asks the 3rd worker who replies “Oh, I am building the future abode of the local god here, I am building a temple” The traveller proceeds satisfied with the answer. Similarly, a aspirant saying “I was doing coding for the CRM module for xx airlines” would be enhance probably his candidature by saying “I was engaged in implementing customer retention mechanisms using CRM for a top 10 airlines company to be piloted by march this year before the commonwealth games”. In the second statement he/she has not only  demystified the technical language but also demonstrated a understanding of the big picture. Also by talking about Olympics he/she has demonstrated his/her better understanding of airlines business which gets a spur of new customers nearer to international sports events, making his deadlines more critical.

9.    Quantify your achievements – Interviewers usually prefer people who can talk qualitatively but also quantify this qualitative data. As business has a strong mix of material science and social sciences it requires an ability to seamlessly move across between the two. In line with the big picture thinking, this also demonstrates a ability to look at the big picture and on top of it explain it in more measurable terms. For example, instead of saying “I suggested improvements that when implemented made the life of sales people easier”, it might be better to say “I suggested improvements in processes that saved between 30 minutes to 1 hour from a already packed schedule of the sales executive.  This lead to a 5% decrease in sick leaves and 10 % decrease in turnover over the next 6 months”. Obviously this example is a bit farfetched, but it is just a indicator of what should be tried. And all numbers must be backed up with actual analysis as cross questioning is sure to happen.

To be continued…