{"id":22171,"date":"2016-09-27T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T14:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=22171"},"modified":"2022-01-29T12:05:31","modified_gmt":"2022-01-29T17:05:31","slug":"mission-admission-what-to-expect-from-your-mba-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-what-to-expect-from-your-mba-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Admission: What to Expect from Your MBA Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/chairs-325709_1280.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-18705 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/chairs-325709_1280-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Mission Admission: What to Expect from Your MBA Interview - mbaMission\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/chairs-325709_1280-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/chairs-325709_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/chairs-325709_1280-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/chairs-325709_1280.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With MBA interview invitations continuing to arrive at this time of year, we thought it would be appropriate to discuss some challenging interview situations. Most business school interviews are straightforward opportunities for an interviewer to learn more about a candidate\u2019s personal and professional backgrounds, goals, reasons for selecting a specific school, and leadership\/team experiences. Yet interviews can vary dramatically from school to school, and sometimes they include a few peculiarities. So, what constitutes a \u201ctough\u201d interview, and how can you best navigate one?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stoic interviewer:<\/strong>\u00a0Some interviewers can be unemotional, refusing to give you any indication as to whether you are making a positive impression or not. And amid the intense pressure of an interview, you may perceive this lack of clear positive response as a sign of actual disapproval. The key to managing such a situation is to tune out the interviewer\u2019s lack of emotion. Focus on your answers and do your best to not be distracted by anything about the interviewer, ignoring everything except the questions he\/she is posing. \u201cReading\u201d the interviewer in real time can be challenging, so you should instead concentrate on showcasing your strengths.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Philosophical questions:<\/strong>\u00a0Most candidates are ready to discuss their experiences and accomplishments, but many are <em>not<\/em>\u00a0prepared to discuss their values and philosophy on life. Harvard Business School, in particular, likes to understand applicants\u2019 motivations and will ask questions like \u201cWhat is your motivation to succeed?,\u201d \u201cWhat drives you?,\u201d and \u201cWhat gives you purpose in life?\u201d The key to answering these sorts of questions is pretty simple: expect and prepare for them in advance (after all, you are being warned right now). However, you should not assume that all the questions you will receive during your interview will be experiential.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Persistent questioning:<\/strong>\u00a0Sometimes a tough interviewer will continuously delve deeper into a subject, such as by repeatedly asking \u201cCan you be more specific about [the topic under discussion]?\u201d after posing an initial question. These kinds of unusual pressure tactics can be disconcerting, but the key is to simply stay on topic. No matter how persistent he\/she is, the interviewer is always essentially asking you about a subject that you know quite well\u2014you! So again, by avoiding the distraction of the tactic and sticking to your agenda, you should be fine.<\/p>\n<p><em>mbaMission offers even more interview advice in our FREE<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/shop.mbamission.com\/collections\/interview-guides\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Interview Primers<\/strong><\/a>,<em>\u00a0<\/em><em>which are available for 15 top-ranked business schools.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. With MBA interview invitations continuing to arrive at this time of year, we thought it would be appropriate to discuss some challenging interview situations. Most business school interviews are straightforward opportunities for an interviewer to learn more about a &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-what-to-expect-from-your-mba-interview\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mission-admission"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mission Admission: What to Expect from Your MBA Interview | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With interview invitations continuing to arrive at this time of year, we thought it would be appropriate to discuss what to expect from your MBA interview..\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-what-to-expect-from-your-mba-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mission Admission: What to Expect from Your MBA Interview | mbaMission - 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She is in charge of updating and revamping most of our publication materials, ranging from the extensive Insider\u2019s Guides series, the Interview Guides, and the International Program Guides to our shorter publications, including the HBS 2+2 and Deferred Admissions Guide and numerous blog posts.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/who-we-are\/team\/erika-vaatainen\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/erikavaatainen\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/author\/erika\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}