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With the release of first-round interview invitations and the subsequent increase in pressure on MBA candidates, we present a five-part series with our friends at Vault to help applicants decompress and thoughtfully manage the MBA interview process. In this second entry in the series, mbaMission founder Jeremy Shinewald describes the two main kinds of business school interviews and explains how you can prepare accordingly and ensure your strongest stories are shared, no matter which approach you encounter at your target school.

Two Interview Types: Blind vs. Comprehensive

Last week, we debunked the myth that your MBA interview will be complicated and cover unfamiliar topics, and established that most business school interviews are in fact casual conversations in which you discuss your life and experiences to date. So, now that we have covered what to expect with regard to the content of your MBA interview, we can address what to expect in terms of the context of the questions you will be asked. MBA interviews fall into two categories, blind and comprehensive. Although their styles vary dramatically, the important thing to keep in mind (as we established in Part I of this series) is that you already have the answers, because the questions will always be about you.

The Blind Interview
In a blind interview, like those conducted at Kellogg, Tuck, Cornell and Duke, your interviewer will not have read your file and will be coming into the meeting with very little information about you beyond, perhaps, what is listed in your résumé. As a result, you can expect to be asked primarily open-ended questions. For example, your interviewer may start with a fairly basic question like “Can you walk me through your resume?” or “Tell me about yourself—who are you?” As you answer this opening question, your interviewer may interject with a few questions along the way in response to certain topics as they arise. Or, he or she may just sit quietly and allow you to finish your response, then follow up with additional questions about why you feel you need to go to business school and why you have chosen this specific school. Later, your interviewer will likely ask you about your leadership and team experiences, both your successes and failures, and may finish with questions about your personal interests and community activities. Blind interviews follow no real standard form. Your interviewer will pose the questions, but you can control a lot of the direction and tone of the interview by selecting the nature and content of your responses, and will thereby be able to reveal your strongest experiences.

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With the release of first-round interview invitations and the subsequent increase in pressure on MBA candidates, we present a five-part series with our friends at Vault to help applicants decompress and thoughtfully manage the MBA interview process. In this first entry on business school interviews, mbaMission founder Jeremy Shinewald debunks the myth that you will be asked oddball or intentionally perplexing questions, and encourages you to take a step back and think about your story.

“What if I don’t know the answer to a question that I am asked?” This is probably the number one anxiety among business school interviewees. However, this anxiety is an unnecessary one, because your interviewer will always be asking you questions about a topic you actually know very well—you!—not questions that require applied knowledge or research. So, in an MBA interview, you will not need to know how to calculate a discounted cash flow or express your opinion about the U.S. interest rate policy. Instead, you will need to be able to reflect on and discuss your life experience, why you want an MBA, the value you can add to your target program and your need to attend the specific school at which you are interviewing.

When mbaMission spoke with Bruce DelMonico, director of admissions at the Yale School of Management, he was clear that interviewers are not asked to create a “stress interview” for the candidates, explaining that Yale’s interview is instead a “fairly standard behavioral interview.” He added, “The purpose is not to trick you or throw curveballs, but really get a sense of the applicant.”  Echoing these sentiments, Dawna Clarke, director of admissions at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, told mbaMission, “We have interviews that are conducted by our staff as well as alumni and current students, and typically, when someone comes in for an interview, a few minutes are spent just making the person feel at ease. We try to ease people into it. They’re definitely not intended to put someone on a hot seat.”

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If you were to read a skilled writer’s work (in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or New Yorker, for example), you would find articles that are characterized by “connectivity.” Simply put, a skilled writer ensures that each sentence is part of a chain—each sentence depends the previous one and necessitates the next. With this linkage in place, the central idea is constantly moving forward, giving the story a natural flow and making it easy to follow. Although you need not write at the same level as a professional journalist, you should still embrace this concept, because it is central to excellent essay writing. With a “connected” essay, you will grab and hold your reader’s attention.

You can test your essay’s connectivity by removing a sentence from one of your paragraphs. If the central idea in the paragraph still makes complete sense, then odds are you have superfluous language, are not advancing the story effectively and should revise your draft.

Try this exercise with a random selection from the New York Times:

“For many grocery shoppers, the feeling is familiar: that slight swell of virtue that comes from dropping a seemingly healthful product into a shopping cart. But at one New England grocery chain, choosing some of those products may induce guilt instead. The chain, Hannaford Brothers, developed a system called Guiding Stars that rated the nutritional value of nearly all the food and drinks at its stores from zero to three stars. Of the 27,000 products that were plugged into Hannaford’s formula, 77 percent received no stars, including many, if not most, of the processed foods that advertise themselves as good for you. These included V8 vegetable juice (too much sodium), Campbell’s Healthy Request Tomato soup (ditto), most Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice frozen dinners (ditto) and nearly all yogurt with fruit (too much sugar).”

If you were to delete any of these sentences, you would create complete confusion for the reader, proving that each sentence is connected and vital!

There is an old journalistic maxim—“Show, don’t tell,”— that demands that writers truly illustrate the actions involved in an event or story and not just state the results of what happened.

Tell (Results Oriented):

“I arrived at ABC Bank and took on a great deal of responsibility in corporate lending. I managed diverse clients in my first year and earned the recognition of my manager. Because of my hard work, initiative and leadership, he placed me on the management track, and I knew that I would be a success in this challenging position.”

In these two sentences, the reader is told that the applicant “took on a great deal of responsibility,” “managed diverse clients” and “earned recognition,” none of which is substantiated via the story. Further, there is no real evidence offered of the writer’s “hard work, initiative and leadership.”

Show (Action Oriented):

“Almost immediately after joining ABC bank, I took a risk in asking management for the accounts left behind by a recently transferred manager. I soon expanded our lending relationships with a children’s clothing retailer, a metal recycler and a food distributor, making decisions on loans of up to $1M. Although I had a commercial banking background, I sought the mentorship of our District Manager and studied aggressively for the CFA exam(before and after 14-hour days at the office); I was encouraged when the Lending Officer cited my initiative and desire to learn, placing me on our management track….”

In this second example, we see clear evidence of the writer’s “great deal of responsibility” (client coverage, $1M lending decisions) and “diverse clients” (a children’s clothing retailer, a metal recycler and a food distributor). Further, the candidate’s “hard work, initiative and leadership” are clear throughout.

The latter is a more interesting, rich and humble paragraph—one that is more likely to captivate the reader. By showing your actions in detail, the same conclusions are drawn, but facts facilitate them. Essentially, facts become your evidence!

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand, but the educational experience itself is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we focus on Michael C. Feiner from Columbia Business School.

Michael C. Feiner (“High Performance Leadership”) is the former chief people officer of PepsiCo Europe and president/founder of Michael C. Feiner Consulting, Inc. At Columbia Business School, he teaches one of the most popular courses each year—judging from the number of bidding points students typically need to spend to get a spot in the class (students often use more than half their allotted points for all courses just on this one class)—which attracts students of all backgrounds and interests. First years initially meet Feiner during orientation when he presents an ethics case to all incoming students. His teaching style combines case studies, lectures and recent news and journal articles, and he places great emphasis on class participation. Several anecdotes from alumni indicate that Feiner is a stickler for participation and attendance—one recent alumna with whom mbaMission spoke said he even made one of his past students return to take the course’s final class a year after he had graduated because that student had missed the class when he was enrolled. Still, we learned that many students have been known to take Feiner up on his “lifetime guarantee” of professional support.

For more information about CBS and 13 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.