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Are you applying to business school this year? If so, you can enroll in one of our free business school workshops, which are offered both online and in person in major cities across the country!

Note: Professor Clayton Christensen passed away on January 23, 2020.

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose a business school. However, the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Today, we focus on Clayton Christensen from Harvard Business School (HBS).

With research interests in the areas of technology management and innovation management, Clayton Christensen (MBA ’79, DBA ’92) joined the HBS faculty in 1992, after having cofounded CPS Technologies (where he was chairman and president) in 1984, working as a consultant for Boston Consulting Group (1979–1984), and serving as a White House Fellow (1982–1983). He is currently the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at HBS. Christensen designed HBS’s “Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise” course, an elective that shows students how to manage a successful company using theories of strategy and innovation to better understand which tools may be effective in various business situations. Students address such questions as “How can I beat powerful competitors?” and “How can we create and sustain a motivated group of employees?”

Christensen is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business (Harvard Business Review Press, 1997), The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Harvard Business School Press, 2003), Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (McGraw-Hill, 2008), How Will You Measure Your Life? (HarperBusiness, 2012), and Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice (HarperBusiness, 2016). In 2007, Christensen and two of his co-authors founded the Christensen Institute (originally the Innosight Institute) based on their research. He still serves as chairman of the organization’s board of directors.

Christensen received an Extraordinary Teaching Award from the HBS Class of 2010 as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award. In both 2011 and 2013, Thinkers50, a ranking released every two years by the consulting group CrainerDearlove, named Christensen the World’s Most Influential Business Thinker, and in 2015, he received an Edison Achievement Award for his contributions to the field of innovation.

For more information on the defining characteristics of the MBA program at HBS or one of 16 other top business schools, please check out our free mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Drawing on our experience in preparing countless clients for their MBA interviews, we at mbaMission are proud to release our updated series of Interview Guides, which now covers 17 individual top-ranked schools for the 2019–2020 admissions season! The guides feature valuable information about the programs’ interview processes, notoriously difficult questions, and past applicants’ experiences.

To help you understand what to expect in an interview with your target school and prepare accordingly, each mbaMission Interview Guide provides the following useful details:

• Insight into what the school is evaluating and hoping to gain from the interview
• An explanation of the school’s approach to interviewing (self-scheduled or invite only, blind versus comprehensive, etc.)
• Lists of the school’s most common questions and themes
• Past applicants’ firsthand accounts of their interview experiences
• Tips on preparing for and responding to common question types
• Help in formulating compelling questions of your own
• Advice on managing the entire interview process, from scheduling to thank you notes

Download the guides free of charge to ensure you are ready to rock your interview! 

And for even more targeted interview prep, try our Individual Mock Interview Sessions (starting at $650), including our one-of-a-kind offering, the HBS Mock Interview and Post-Interview Reflection Support ($850). For even more targeted interview prep, learn more about our HBS Intensive Interview Simulation (starting at $2,500) with veteran HBS interviewer Devi Vallabhaneni, and our Wharton Team-Based Discussion Simulations ($525). 

Last but not least, don’t miss our “Interview Workshop” webinar at 8:00 pm ET on Monday, October 28, 2019, hosted by mbaMission Senior Consultant Rachel Beck. During the session, Rachel will help prospective MBAs understand the types of questions that may be asked to best prepare for interviews. Space is limited–register for free today! 

Harvard Business School

The official deadline for Round 1 Harvard Business School (HBS) applicants is drawing near: September 4, 2019. Once you submit your HBS application (and breathe a sigh of relief), the waiting game for the interview invitation begins.

Predicting exactly what questions you will be asked in your HBS interview is impossible, given the dynamic nature of the meeting and the school’s individualized approach, but this does not mean you cannot prepare to navigate the interaction effectively and increase your chances of leaving your desired impression.

Join us for our new “Decoding the HBS Interview” Workshop, hosted by mbaMission Founder/President Jeremy Shinewald and mbaMission HBS Interviewer in Residence Devi Vallabhaneni (HBS Class of 1997, former HBS Admissions Board Candidate Interviewer).

In this 60-minute workshop, you will learn:

• What makes the HBS interview so different from all the other business school interviews
• The philosophy behind the HBS approach
• How to prepare for the interview

Coming out of the session, you will have a much better sense of what to expect in your HBS interview and how to prepare for it so you can approach your interview with competence and confidence. Space is limited. Reserve your spot today.

Before you attend the webinar, what do you need to know? Drawing on her six years as an interviewer at HBS, Devi Vallabhaneni shares a few helpful tips:

Feeling Nervous

Feeling your nerves kick in is totally normal, but would you believe that every time I interviewed an HBS prospect, I was just as nervous? You might find that hard to imagine, but it is the truth! I felt like I owed each and every interviewee the courtesy of bringing my best to them, really getting to know them, and working just as hard as they had to arrive at the interview. So, first things first, know that the person on the other side of your HBS interview is eager and sincere in wanting to know the real you.

Know Your Story Cold

Your story should be within you, right? Well, maybe you wrote about your love of Chinese cookery in the personal section of your resume, but since then, you have not given another thought to the last cooking class you took—which, by the way, was a good story two years ago! Although I was never specifically trying to find weak spots in interviewees’ stories, I would sometimes start by asking about interests and hobbies they had listed that sounded interesting, so I just might have asked you about your Chinese cooking. Before your interview, refresh your familiarity with your entire application, even the parts you think are trivial.

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*Please note: You are viewing an essay analysis from the 2019-2020 admissions cycle. Click here to view our collection of essay analyses for the current admissions season.  

Once again, London Business School (LBS) appears to be satisfied with the scope and presentation of its application essay questions, having made no modifications to them this season. Although the program strictly requires only one essay—one that largely constitutes a traditional personal statement—some applicants may want to seriously consider submitting the optional essay as well if they feel that doing so will facilitate a fairer or more thorough evaluation of their candidacy. In our analysis that follows, we offer our advice on crafting your approach, whether you ultimately write just one essay for LBS or two.

Essays are a vital part of your application and we recommend that you spend a significant amount of time in their preparation. 

Essay 1: What are your post-MBA goals and how will your prior experience and the London Business School programme contribute towards these? (500 words)

As we noted earlier, LBS’s primary essay prompt essentially covers several basic elements of a traditional personal statement. You will need to show that you have a long-term vision for yourself and your career and that you have a clear plan for how to get there via the LBS MBA program. The basic assumptions, of course, are that business school is the next logical and necessary step in your progress and that you need to pursue your degree at LBS in particular, because the school provides specific experiences, knowledge, skills, exposure, and/or other elements that are necessary for you to attain your long-term aspirations and thrive in your chosen career. Ideally, you have already researched the program thoroughly to discover these important resources and areas of fit, but if not, do not skip this important step and/or refer only to basic offerings most business schools have. Your essay must be LBS specific. Demonstrating your authentic interest in the program by giving concrete examples and drawing clear connections between what the school offers, what you need, and who you are is key to crafting a compelling essay response here.

Because 500 words is not a lot, avoid going into excessive detail about your past, though you will need to offer enough information to provide context and support for your stated goals. Because, as we noted, this essay largely encompasses a standard personal statement, we encourage you to download your free copy of the mbaMission Personal Statement Guide. In this complimentary guide, we present a much more detailed discussion of how to approach and craft this kind of essay, along with multiple illustrative examples.

Optional Essay: Is there any other information you believe the Admissions Committee should know about you and your application to London Business School? (500 words)

Applicants often use the optional essay to explain confusing or problematic elements of their candidacy—a poor grade or GPA, a low GMAT or GRE score, a gap in work experience, etc.—and LBS’s can certainly be used in this way. If you feel you need to clarify an aspect of your profile, first check the other parts of the school’s application, which already includes several opportunities to address certain issues (such as academic performance and disciplinary instances). If you can discuss your concern there instead, do so, and avoid using this essay to simply repeat any information provided via that avenue. If you have a problem to address that is not mentioned in the LBS application, we suggest downloading a copy of the mbaMission Optional Essays Guide, which is also available for free, and in which we offer detailed advice on deciding whether to take advantage of the optional essay and, if so, how best to do so to mitigate any concerning elements of your application.

However, if you do not feel your candidacy includes any elements in need of further clarification, you might use this essay instead to offer a more rounded, positive representation of yourself—but be thoughtful about this opportunity. Do not just copy and paste an existing essay you wrote for a different school here and hope for the best. Take a step back and carefully consider what the admissions committee already knows about you from the other parts of your application, including, of course, your other essay. Then, do your utmost to develop and convey a narrative that is truly crucial to understanding your character. Because this question is so open-ended, your options are somewhat limitless. You will need to honestly check your instincts and ask yourself whether you are simply tacking something extra onto your application with this essay or whether you are offering something that is truly additive and would be helpful for the school to know to fully and fairly evaluate you. Be mindful and respectful of the admissions committee’s time, and remember that each additional file you submit requires more resources on behalf of the admissions office, so whatever you write must be truly worthwhile and clearly reveal that you made good use of this opportunity to provide further insight into your candidacy.

Business schools outside the United States are increasingly popular among MBA hopefuls, and we at mbaMission are proud to offer our latest publications: Program Primers for international b-schools. In these snapshots we discuss core curriculums, elective courses, locations, school facilities, rankings, and more. Click here to download your free copy of the London Business School Program Primer.

The Next Step—Mastering Your LBS Interview: Many MBA candidates find admissions interviews stressful and intimidating, but mastering this important element of the application process is definitely possible—the key is informed preparation. And, on your way to this high level of preparation, we offer our free Interview Primers to spur you along! Download your free copy of the London Business School Interview Primer today.