Smart Practice: Adapting Your Best Stories to Multiple Interview Questions (Part I)

There are hundreds of possible questions that the interviewer could ask you in your MBA interview.  But you only have a few days to prepare!  

Preparing for every possible interview question will take a huge amount of time and effort. You can save yourself time, and answer interview questions with more impact by speaking to the meaning behind the questions, and adapting the same story to multiple questions. That way, you will make sure that you can discuss your best story, no matter what question you are asked.

Let’s look at the meaning behind three different questions.

Question 1: Can You Tell Me About a Time You Demonstrated Leadership?

Question 2: Can You Tell Me About a Time You Overcame a Challenge?

Question 3: Please Tell Me About a Time You Worked Well on a Team, and What You Learned from Teamwork.

Although these questions are distinct, the meaning behind the questions are similar. These questions are all mechanisms that your interviewer is using to try to get inside of your head, figure out what type of a person you are, and how you make decisions under pressure. They are trying to evaluate your character, attitude, and ability to adapt to difficult situations.

Now, since the meaning behind the question is similar, we might be able to use the same story to answer all three questions. We just need to ensure it’s an answer which shows what type of person we are, how we make decisions, and then tailor the last part of the story to the question.

Sample Answer

“Sure, that’s a really interesting question, Mr. Interviewer.

"I started a nonprofit in college to collect used musical instruments to donate to a needy school with gifted musical students and not enough musical instruments. I had to drive all over Taipei to collect the used musical instruments. I had to establish a not for profit organization to make the donation legally, and also worked with my schoolmates to put on a charity concert where we raised enough money to buy a brand new tuba – the most expensive musical instrument. This experience was important to me because it helped me to realize how valuable and rewarding it is to help people less fortunate than myself, and that I can be successful in leading my peers to have a positive impact on society.”

At this point, the story above could answer any of the three questions we touched on. As you can see the story contains elements of leadership, elements of a challenge and elements of working on a team. Depending on which question was asked, the story could be adapted to focus more on teamwork, leadership or overcoming the challenge.  

Spend some time considering how you would change this answer to fit these questions. If you’re going to be preparing for an MBA interview yourself, the mental preparation and time you spend thinking about your answer will help you. In our next blog post we will show you precisely how we would customize an ending to this story for all three sample questions above.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about how best to prepare for your MBA interview or optimize your application, please feel free to reach out to me, David, at transcendadmissions@gmail.com.