One-Day Interview Course - Feb. 24th

A lot of MBA applicants have received their interview invitations over the Chinese New Year holiday and to help people quickly prepare for their MBA interviews we will be holding a one-day course on February 24th.  See course details below: 

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This will be a one-day four (4) hour course designed to give you real-world, practical knowledge which can quickly improve your interviewing ability and increase chances for admission into your dream program.

Books are helpful for preparing for the GMAT, but to nail your MBA interview, you need to deeply understand the interview process, get inside the interviewer’s mind and learn what they want to hear - and you need real world practice in front of real people.

Schedule:

2/24 (Sunday):   13:30-17:30

Class Size, Location & Pricing:

Size: limited to 15 students

Location: A2 GMAT (台北市大安區信義路四段6號13F-7).

Pricing: NTD1,600 per student

RSVP to David at: transcendadmissions@gmail.com

Instructor:

David Johnston (Graduate of Georgetown University Law Center; Founder of Transcend Admissions Consultants)

Course Overview

(13:30 – 14:30)  Understanding the MBA interview

-          An explanation of the MBA interview process

-          Review the most important interview questions and discuss the purpose of the questions

-          Learn how to best structure your interview answers

-          In-depth discussion of how to approach the most important questions (“why MBA?”, “why career goals?”, “why our school?”, and questions about teamwork and leadership)

-          Analyze a sample written answer to a “Why MBA?” question

(14:30 – 15:30)  Applying Your New Interview Skills

-          In the “hot seat:” Students give presentations and receive in-depth personalized feedback from the instructor other students

(15:30 – 16:30) Applying communication skills to the interview

-          Introduction and examples of how to use effective body language

-          How to make a positive impression on the interviewer and get the interviewer to like you

-          Learn how to “break the ice” and convey a sense of humor in a professional setting

-          Strategies to practice for your interview

-          How to adapt a story to multiple questions and situations

-          Examples of the best questions you can possibly ask your interviewer to connect with them

(16:30 – 17:30)  Applying Your New Interview Skills

-          In the “hot seat:” Students give presentations and receive in-depth personalized feedback from the instructor other students

-          Ask David interview questions to see how he responds under pressure, and adapts the same story to different scenarios

Interview Mastery Course - Part II

MBA Round 2 interview invitations are already being sent out - it's time to get prepared!  We are holding another interview preparation course in Taipei - see course details and registration information below.  

Interview Mastery Course:

Master Your Nerves - Ace Your Interview

Interview Mastery is a six hour course designed to give you real-world, practical knowledge which you will use to improve your chances for admission into your dream program.

Books are helpful for preparing for the GMAT, but to nail your MBA interview, you need to deeply understand the interview process, get inside the interviewer’s mind and learn what they want to hear - and you need real world practice in front of real people.

Schedule:

2/2 (Saturday):   14:00-17:00

2/3 (Sunday):   14:00-17:00

Class Size, Location & Pricing:

Size: limited to 25 students

Location: A2 GMAT (台北市大安區信義路四段6號13F-7).

Pricing: NTD3,500 per student

RSVP to David at: transcendadmissions@gmail.com

Instructor:

David Johnston (Graduate of Georgetown University Law Center; Founder of Transcend Admissions Consultants)

Course Overview

Class One (14:00 – 15:30)  Understanding the MBA interview

-          An explanation of the MBA interview process

-          Review the most important interview questions and discuss the purpose of the questions

-          Learn how to best structure your interview answers

-          In-depth discussion of how to approach the most important questions (“why MBA?”, “why career goals?”, “why our school?”, and questions about teamwork and leadership)

-          Analyze a sample written answer to a “Why MBA?” question

Class One (15:30 – 17:00)  Applying communication skills to the interview

-          Discussing the structure of an interview

-          Introduction and examples of how to use effective body language

-          How to make a positive impression on the interviewer and get the interviewer to like you

-          Learn how to “break the ice” and convey a sense of humor in a professional setting

-          In the “hot seat:” Students give presentations and receive in-depth personalized feedback from                    the instructor and other students

Class Two (14:00 – 15:30)  Getting Inside the Mind of an Interviewer

-          Learn Adcom and alumni interviewers’ motivations and how they approach interviews

-          How to research and prepare for your interviewer so that you can form a strong connection with them

-          The “Tradition Trick” & other classic connection strategies

-          How to avoid embarrassment: what to do when you’re completely stuck

-          Examples of the best questions you can possibly ask your interviewer to connect with them

-          How to adapt a story to multiple questions and situations

-          Strategies to practice for your interview

Class Two (15:30 – 17:00)  Applying Your New Interview Skills

-          In the “hot seat:” Students give presentations and receive in-depth personalized feedback from the instructor other students

-          Ask David interview questions to see how he responds under pressure, and adapts the same story to different scenarios

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

In Part I of this series, we asked you to think about how to adapt one sample story to three distinct MBA interview questions. In Part II, we’re going to show you how to use almost exactly the same story to answer three different questions, just by tailoring the conclusion.

The three distinct MBA interview questions at hand are:

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.

Our sample answer without the conclusion was:

“Sure, that’s a really interesting question, Mr. Interviewer.
 The biggest challenge I’ve overcome was the time that 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 drove all over Taipei to collect the used musical instruments. I established 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 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.”

Sample Conclusion Question One: Leadership

This was a critical leadership experience and I learned a great deal about myself in the process. One important thing I learned was how to best interact with a team while trying to motivate them to do something they were not being paid to do. I realized that I prefer positive reinforcement to negative reinforcement, and prefer to include people in a team environment to motivate them to help each other rather than to demand they complete tasks. I believe that I can develop this positive style of leadership at your MBA program when I take _______ course on leadership, and intend to pay it forward by using my leadership skills to make an impact in more community activities during my MBA studies.

Sample Conclusion Question Two: Challenge

What surprised me is that the biggest challenge I faced in this entire experience had nothing to do with motivating people as a leader, or finding resources. The biggest challenge for me was in finding the inspiration and idea in the first place, and once I had that everything else naturally fell into place. I know that by attending your MBA program I’m pursuing the strongest passion I’ve ever had in my life. I truly believe that my life will fall into place after graduation, with some careful planning, just like my musical not for profit fell into place after I found the inspiration to start it.

Sample Conclusion Question Three: Teamwork

Achieving success in this project was truly a team effort. During the course of organizing the charity concert with my peers we met many times to discuss different ideas and how they could be effectively implemented to have the maximum impact on donations. I learned that people from backgrounds different than my own had unique insights to contribute that really helped us reach our goal, and that I enjoy the collaborative teamwork process a great deal. In fact, since then I have gone out of my way to volunteer for group projects at work because I feel that I’m not only helping the company meet its goals, but educating myself about how to interact with and learn from other people in the long run.

Conclusion

Notice how all three of these answers fit neatly into place at the end of our sample story? They build off of each other, and many of the conclusions continue to touch upon multiple points from the questions (leadership, teamwork, overcoming a challenge). Although your story will different, the principle behind these questions is similar.

When you practice for your interview, keep in mind that you will want to try to use your best stories. Thus, find a way to make your best stories fit multiple questions. Like these stories above, you'll find that many stories have elements of teamwork, leadership, overcoming challenges, etc., and that you can make slight adjustments to the stories to directly address the question. 

I hope this was helpful for those of you preparing for MBA interviews. If you have any additional questions about preparing for your MBA interviews, feel free to reach out to me, David, at transcendadmissions@gmail.com.

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.

Analyzing the 10 Most Commonly Asked MBA Interview Questions (Part II)

Many applicants are gearing up right now for their MBA interviews, and beginning to practice their answers to common interview questions. This is part two of a two part series breaking down 10 of the most common MBA interview questions where I will address the reasons behind why they are asked. We covered five questions here in Part I, and today we’re covering questions 6 – 10. I won’t write out answers to the questions here, but I’m instead writing down the meaning behind the questions will help you to formulate your own tailored answers.

1.     What are your future goals?

When you go into your interview, you need to have a very clear picture of how you’re going to use your degree when you graduate. Are you going to found your own company? Are you going to become a management consultant? Interviewers ask you future-goal oriented questions in order to gauge the path you see yourself taking, and evaluate whether it is viable. Business leaders always set goals and think in terms of what’s coming in 5 – 10 years ahead. Interviewers want to understand that you already have thought about your career path down the road, and have a clear idea how you can achieve it.

2.     Can you walk me through your resume?

Interviewers don’t want you to sit there and read through your entire resume with them – they have already read it. I often tell people that interviewers want to understand what “is not on your resume.” In other words, they want to understand the story of who you are and why you made the decisions you made. Why did you study what you studied as an undergraduate? Why did you choose to work at your first company, and switch companies to your second and third? They want to see the logic and reason behind the choices you’ve made to get to where you are.

3.     Can you give me an example of a time that you demonstrated leadership?

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Business leaders need to have leadership skills, so you need to have leadership skills, and tell a persuasive story about a time you led others to success. At the end, refect upon what you learned and improved upon during the experience.

4.     What is your definition of teamwork?

Group work is a seriously important aspect of any MBA program. Interviewers aren’t looking for a literal definition of teamwork here – don’t memorize something out of a dictionary. Instead, tell a compelling story about a time where you worked successfully on a team, and what you learned by working with others. Interviewers need to understand that you can learn from people who have different skills than your own, and that you aren’t a selfish person who will offend or argue with everyone on the project team. Use this question as an opportunity to showcase your people skills.

5.     What would you say is your biggest weakness?

This is a very important question, and much related to the question “what makes you stand out?” Business leaders and executives are constantly evaluating their own personal weaknesses, and the weaknesses of their organization. If you aren’t able to give a clear and constructive answer to this question – interviewers will feel that you are not able to reflect on yourself and don’t have what it takes to succeed in business. It takes an honest, transparent look at yourself to be able to grow in a high pressure, high intensity environment like an MBA program, and you should show your interviewers that you’re capable of rising to the challenge when you answer this question.

This has been part two of my two part series on the top ten most commonly asked MBA questions, and the why behind the questions. You can find part one here. When you start to get into the mind of your interviewer, when you start to think about the meaning behind their questions and the process of the interview itself, that’s when you’re preparing yourself in the best way you possibly can to ace your interview.

If you have other questions or would like some personalized coaching to prepare for your upcoming MBA interview, don’t hesitate to reach out to me, David, at transcendadmissions@gmail.com.