Acing The Interview

The interview is the most nerve-wracking part of the application process. It is often very difficult to know how to prepare for the interview. There are several things that you can do to prepare, but I believe that the most important thing you can do is to make sure that you enjoy yourself during the interview. If getting into a top-tier business school is the most important thing for you in your life, then you will have a problem relaxing and doing well in the interview. Further, I think that most top-tier schools want to see candidates who will not “live or die” based on their acceptance into a good business school. So, first of all, if you are obsessed with getting into a top-tier business school, you should first work on getting over that fixation (see my comments below in the “Conclusion” section about why business school is overrated). Assuming that this isn’t a problem, there are several things that you can do:

• Talk to others who have successfully gone through an interview
• Talk to others who got “dinged”
• Prepare for penetrating questions about your weaknesses
• Prepare answers for standard leadership questions, goals questions, strengths / weaknesses, and failure questions
• Again, remember to have fun

A final story about interviews—it is sometimes OK to be unconventional if you are being honest. At one point, my interviewer asked me why Harvard should admit me over the many other qualified candidates. Though my head was screaming that I should list of whole bunch of attributes, before I could stop myself I said, “I don’t know that I am. I know some pretty amazing people who have applied. I can’t answer that question for you because I think that this decision ultimately hinges on what kind of class you are looking to put together and how different groups of people complement each other. What I can tell you is what I will bring to the class and I can promise you that nobody will work harder or be more excited to contribute than me.” I then went on to list some of my best attributes. After I left the interview, I thought for sure that I would be “dinged” because I didn’t confidently explain why Harvard should admit me. I heard back a week later that I was accepted. I don’t tell you this story because I think that you will get this question or because I think that I answered the question correctly. Quite the contrary, I am telling you this story because I think I answered the question in a way that was authentic to how I felt. Because of that authenticity, I think I was able to speak with conviction and honest and I think that the interviewer felt this. I think that there are many of my classmates, who were accepted, who answered that question by saying “Here are the reasons why I think you should admit me over others…” There are multiple styles of leadership, persuasion and interviewing. I would simply suggest that you use the style that is most harmonious with who you are.

Career Choice

There are several traditional career paths that lead to a great business school and a much smaller set of non-traditional paths. It seems like roughly half of my classmates at Harvard had pursued the “traditional” path. I define the traditional path as 2 years of grunt work at a consulting firm or an investment bank then 2 years of work at large company, hedge fund, venture capital or private equity firm. The result is that most of the class had 4 years of work experience and most of my classmates had worked at an investment bank or consulting firm at some point in their careers.

There are several strong secondary paths that lead to top-tier business schools and the schools are adding more of these non-traditional paths each year. Here are several that I believe represent several meaningful alternative paths:

· 3+ years of consulting or investment banking. Most of the large consulting firms and investment banks encourage (or strongly encourage) professionals to move on to a different career after spending 2 years at the firm. These firms make exceptions for those professionals that they consider their strongest or top-performing professionals and they invite these professionals to stick around for 3+ years. Often individuals in this category are given raises that put their salary in a range fairly close to that of MBAs. Further, many of these firms will invite these professionals to stay at the firm until they are accepted at business school and then they will offer to pay for their business school for them in return for a commitment for these professionals to return to the firm after business school. MBA programs are aware of these programs and every year they admit many people directly from consulting firms or investment banks who have stayed at the firm for more than 2 years.

· Star undergraduates. Most of the top-tier business schools now have a track for star undergraduate students. Typically you have to have a very high GPA, incredibly GMAT scores (i.e., close to 800) and have had significant leadership experience in undergraduate to qualify. Almost every person that I knew in this category was a student body president.

· 4+ years of “big company” experience. Many of my classmates came from Fortune 500 companies—WalMart, IBM, Marconi, eBay, etc. Top-tier business schools admit a significant number of individuals from these companies each year. However, you often have to have more than 4 years of experience and you definitely will need to outperform other people of your tenure at the organization. Business schools want to see proof that you are on a faster leadership track than your peers. Typically, they want to see a rapid promotion schedule and significant leadership experience.

· 3+ years of nonprofit or social enterprise work. While this is probably the smallest category of those I have identified in terms of percentage of admitted students, it is an important one. Further, business schools are emphasizing this category more and more. Again, you will have to point to significant leadership experiences that will separate you from the large numbers of applicants with similar backgrounds

Obviously, you shouldn’t make a decision about your career path based on getting into a business school. However, I do believe that the career paths I have outlined do have a significantly higher probability of leading to a top-tier business school than others. One other thing. The career you choose before business school has enormous impact on your career choices after business school. In general, you have to have worked in private equity, venture capital, or at a hedge fund before business school to get a similar type of job upon graduation. You should keep this in mind. Business school is only a small step in your career.

Prepare Early

I will keep this section short—the gist of the message is that you should begin to prepare as early as possible. Ideally, you would begin to create a resume of experiences that would help you get into a top-tier business school in undergraduate school. There is a small problem with this advice and that is that most of us use undergraduate school as the time to consider multiple career options. We like the fact that we can experience a dizzying array of potential career opportunities while we are in college. While I wish that I could say that doing so will have no negative impact on your desire to get into a top-tier business school, I think that the opposite is true. Most people who get into great business schools deliberately (i.e. non-accidentally), make an early decision to get into business. This early decision gives them a distinct advantage over other candidates who discover this later in their life. Those who decided early can work to have business experiences early that others typically achieve later.

I decided my junior year of undergraduate that I wanted to go into business. However, I did a number of things in my last two year that helped qualify me to get into Harvard. I co-founded a student mentoring organization, I added a second major in economics. I started a non-profit organization. I got an internship with a real estate consulting firm in Chicago and applied for internship positions at banks, consulting firms, etc.

I personally feel that you have to explore many different career options while you are young. So, while it is an advantage to prepare early for a career in business, I would only recommend that course of action to individuals who are absolutely sure that they want to pursue a long-term career in business. If you happen to be one of these people, congratulations, you will probably be better positioned to get into a great business school.

What Are Top Business Schools Looking For II

• Good grades. Most business schools look for academic leadership and the primary data point that they use is GPA. If you are coming from an Ivy League or Ivy equivalent school (like Stanford) for your undergraduate, you will be held to a much lower standard here. Top business schools will generally want to see that you have a solid GPA but not an incredible GPA. A 3.2 GPA will not kill your application but it may be viewed as a somewhat negative contributing factor. A 3.4 to a 3.6 GPA is probably PAR. A GPA above 3.6 probably contributes positively to your candidacy. If you graduated from a non-Ivy league school, I generally believe that you will need to have a 3.8 or higher GPA. Anything below that could literally disqualify you from the admissions process, unless you have some serious advantages in other areas. Further, even if you have a 4.0 GPA from a non-Ivy, I believe that the admissions committees will only view this as PAR and not as a positive factor.
• GMAT. The GMAT is the great equalizer. This standardized test provides the admissions committee with a good look at your "standardized test" intelligence. The admissions committee will use this to understand how smart you are in one sense. I call it the great equalizer because non-Ivy league undergraduate applicants can use this score to show the admission committee that they are no less smart than their more pedigreed sisters. At Harvard, they frequently admit people with GMAT scores of 650 (or even below) but they have to demonstrate significant leadership in other ways. The average for the class tends to hover around 700, however so you should really try to exceed that score. 700 to 740 is probably considered PAR and 750 and up will probably contribute positively to your candidacy.
• Letters of Recommendation. Letters of recommendation give the admissions committee a look at how much you have influenced other people and convinced them of your leadership skills. There is an age-old debate about whether to err on the side of having brand-name recommenders who may not know you that well or having people who know you extremely well but who do not have brand name recognition. I have seen both strategies succeed. I have also seen the “brand name” strategy seriously backfire. If you pursue this strategy, you need to ensure that the person who is recommending you has at least some direct knowledge of you and preferably has worked with you for at least some period of time. That said, there is definitely a “networking” side to getting into business school and I don’t think it hurts to have the President of the United States say something glowing about you if it is sincere and based on real experience. However, I have seen an individual get the top partners at two of the most prestigious private equity firms in the world to write letters of recommendation and even call the dean of a particular business school and it backfired. So, as always, you should exercise caution when using a networking or “name dropping” approach—and this is a general business principle. In any case, the letters of recommendation should highlight the 3-4 themes that you are trying to establish about yourself. I personally prepared each of my recommenders by giving them a document that highlighted the themes I was stressing, a resume that showed all of the work that I had done for them, and a copy of some of my essays.
• Essays. Essays are extremely important at Harvard and other schools. These documents give the admissions committee real insight into who you are, how well you can express yourself, what you think is important, and perhaps most importantly how well you understand the mission of the school to which you are applying and why that school should admit you. I could write another entire report on how to write essays. For the time being, I will have simply summarize a few key points. First, create a mutually reinforcing and internally consistent message across your essays. Make sure that the essays build to create a story about why you are unique and why you are good fit for the particular school to which you are applying. In general, each essay should highlight one aspect of you that you want to convey to the admissions committee. However, the essays should also build on each other. Look for opportunities to explain why you really feel that you would be a good fit for the school in question. Highlight things that you have learned about the school from conversations with alumni, etc.
• Extracurricular Activities, Awards, Other. The application to top business schools will give you ample opportunity to highlight extracurricular activities, accomplishments, honors, and awards that you have received. Now is not the time to be humble. However, for those of you award junky types, highlight the awards that round out the story you are trying to convey about yourself.

What Are Top Business Schools Looking For

Grades, GMAT, great letters of recommendation, amazing essays, unbelievable work experience, maturity and success at a very young age. All of the top business schools look for similar traits. However, these traits really miss the main point. Most of the business schools have a one sentence statement that summarizes what they are looking for. Harvard is looking for leaders who will have a dramatic positive impact on the world. I believe that Stanford looks for innovators who will have a dramatic positive impact on the world. Wharton tends to emphasize raw intelligence and quantitative horsepower. Northwestern tends to attract the next generation of the world's brightest marketing talents. Tuck tends to focus on creating a small family of leaders who can support each other in their careers. I can't speak to many of the other top tier business schools but you get the idea. In all of these cases, though, you should really talk to a graduate of the school because I think that building on some of these “stereotypes” of the school may actually hurt your candidacy. For example, while Northwestern truly does have a great marketing program—I personally believe that it is the best in the country and probably in the world—the school may really prefer to downplay its marketing strength and to highlight its broader strengths in other areas of the curriculum.

You should start by understanding what each business school is really looking for. You can do this most easily by reaching out to a graduate of the school (or two or three) and asking them what they think that their school looks for. At Harvard, it is all about leadership. Leadership is a bit of a nebulous term but Harvard has some definite opinions about what it means. I would highly recommend picking up the Harvard Business Review book on Leadership. You can find it here. This book will help you to understand specific terms and actions that help identify leaders. You will want to build a set of these experiences and highlight them in your application. Leadership involves identifying a worthy goal or vision and persuading others to help you achieve that goal. At Harvard all of the other selection criteria take a back seat to leadership experience and potential. Harvard will admit individuals with low GMAT scores and relatively poor grades if they have had significant leadership experiences.

A successful applicant will identify what the particular business school is looking for and then highlight 3-4 major themes about themselves consistently through all aspects of their application that demonstrate why they are a good fit for the business school. I personally highlighted 1) entrepreneurial / intrapreneurial passion, 2) innovative approach to problem solving, 3) ability to influence others to achieve worthy goals, 4) desire to make the world a better place.

Is Business School Right for You?

There are a few things that you need to think about before you begin the process of preparing to get into to a great business school. First, you should ask yourself if going to business school is really the best thing for you and your career. I currently work in venture capital. As part of my job, I meet with entrepreneurs daily. I believe that going to business school is probably not the best choice for the vast majority of aspiring entrepreneurs. Established entrepreneurs that have already been successful or those who have financial means to support themselves for several years as they hatch new ideas can often benefit from attending business schools. Business schools are fertile grounds for hatching new ideas, planning businesses, and finding other talented partners to help you launch a business. However, individuals who have not been successful entrepreneurs in the past and who want to learn how to be an entrepreneur or aspire to be an entrepreneur will probably find business school disappointing. There are several reasons. Even though the entrepreneurial curriculum at HBS and other top schools is amazing, by far the best education for an entrepreneur is actually launching an entrepreneurial venture. All other forms of education pale in comparison. Second, an entrepreneur often needs be able to live on a limited salary for relatively long periods of time. Business school makes this more difficult by placing the burden a lot of debt on the individual. For example, I graduated from HBS with over $120,000 in school-related debt. Third, entrepreneurs typically do not require the certification or validation of the Harvard degree to succeed in their career. Aspiring entrepreneurs are just one category of individuals who may not benefit from going to a top business school; however, there are many more categories.

Rather than talk about the individuals who may not benefit from attending business school, I will focus on those who can gain the most from attending business school. Business school is ideal for the following types of people: 1) people who desire to make or are making a career transition and lack the business knowledge that they will need for their new career (e.g., a person moving from non-profit work to investment banking), 2) people who want to work in a career where a top business degree is required or strongly favored, 3) people who believe that gaining a degree from a top business school will dramatically increase their salary, 4) people whose business depends on a global network of accomplished professionals, 5) people who love learning about business in an academic way, and finally 6) people who are financially well off already, enjoy business, and have a desire to enjoy another post-undergraduate learning experience with a group of (generally) young, ambitious, bright students. If you fit into any of these categories, congratulations, business school is probably a good step for you in your career.