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Dear MBA Applicants,

Why am I writing?
I wanted to write to you and share an incident that took place in Kellogg MBA interview. This year's interviews are about to get started, and this will address many challenges that you might face in months to come.In this email, I will also suggest an appropriate approach to handle the odd-ball question an applicant faced.

About the Interview: The interviewer was a New Delhi Based Kellogg MBA Graduate, and not an admissions committee member, and the interview took place over a face to face conversation. It went for over 1.5 hours, and the interviewer was had a very friendly demeanour but was very professional (as was expected).

While most of you will be prepared for "Why Kellogg?, he had a different question. And he started the conversation with:
Walk me through the steps of how you arrived at the MBA decision NOW, what were the steps you took to learn more about different schools, what were the key differentiating factors, the schools that you narrowed down to, and how did you arrive at Kellogg?( Phew.... � )
Candidate's Expression "Dude! What is the matter with you? How many questions are these?"
Here is how an appropriate structure ( and your pre-interview approach) should look like for this question:
A. Start with the key highlights of your work experience (if this is the first question and has not asked "Walk me through your resume" yet.
B. Bring up the major turning points that led you to consider making a move to your next career. Showcase why you were intrigued to move to "Your post MBA target role". What opened your eyes? Or What led you to believe that you want to move to product marketing, or consulting, and bring the major AHA's from your recent experiences.
C. Bring up the main factors that you were looking at while selecting business schools. Location, Class size, Environment, Strengths of the School, and your experiences of interacting with the alumni group of the top schools are the most important ones. Highlight the turning points of decision, and demonstrate the rigor of the research that you conducted.
D. List the schools that are in the same cluster. It is very important to throw in the names of similar schools. Disparity in school selection will eventually make you an candidate who lacks focus, and is primarily driven by rankings, and a brand (YES! Candidates do that a lot). Narrate your experiences of working towards assessing these schools. Note: do not ever cite negative experiences that you may have had with any school. For example, if no one responded to 10 emails that you sent over to a particular school, it isn't a great idea to tell your interviewer that the community at a rival school is obtuse and cold.
E. Narrow down to Kellogg: Bring in the key points from your experiences of trying to know more about Kellogg. Mention the interactions that you had with "Whom" and bring in why those factors are important to you. Throwing in the names of Alumni randomly will not help as much as really bringing in the key factors that are important to you.

Other Questions asked in the interview

1. Tell me about a team experience and a challenge you have faced.
2. What is your biggest accomplishment at work?
3. Leadership experience at work?
4. What role do you play on a team?
5. Tell me about xxx (a specific extracurricular activity on the Candidate's resume).
6. Follow up question on the leadership experience such as the specific actions and leadership style of the candidate
7. How has your leadership style progressed since college (through work and a specific extra-curricular activity)?

Word of Advice: Do not apply in isolation. Get out of your comfort zone, and share your interests with the school communities. Share your reasons for doing an MBA and ask how the school will help. I am sure you have mastered the art of Telling 'Why Duke?', or "Why Ross?' or 'Why Columbia?'. If not, refer to the article and look at the Third Degree of Expression 'Why do I love a particular business school?'. They want to gauge the intensity of research to assess your love for them. Admission committees are insecure, and are very open to an honest expression of why would any candidate want to join their school. Just as any human being would, they want to sense the compassion in your response, and not just the names of electives, student clubs, or the names of your target recruiters.

You can gauge from the nature of the interview questions: The Game isn't that simple anymore.
I will continue to share anything that can add value.
Good Luck with MBA Applications !

--
Jatin Bhandari