It's Recruitment Season!

Happy new year folks! I can't believe it's already 2017. So since my last post last month, I had the joy of finishing exams, spending an awesome week on the ski trek (great skiing in Val Thorens and partying!) and travelling to Iceland and Ireland over December. Oh and catching up on sleep - precious sleep that is now back to being a distant memory.

Like most other MBAs planning on trying consulting for the summer, I meant to do some work on cover letters over the holidays....but didn't. So my 2017 started with churning out cover letters. McKinsey, AT Kearney and Strategy& have their applications due the first week of January. Bain and BCG and others follow only a couple of days later. During this time, as expected, Careers Centre was especially crowded. You had to come an hour before a drop-in session at least, if you wanted any chance of seeing a consulting or finance sector coach. Actually, this is probably still the case since we're still in the thick of structured recruitment season.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with writing and re-writing cover letters and CVs, formal recruitment and networking events, invitation-only recuitment events (breakfast for BCG, dinner for Bain) and applications. Through it all, for those of us recruiting for consulting, case practice after case practice and fit interview practice.

Great sources of people to practice cases with:

• Consulting peer leaders (PLPs) through careers centre - these are MBAs who are sponsored consultants and those who interned in consulting last summer
• LBS Rugby Club - if you still need a reason to join, this would be a big one! The Rugby Club assigned mentors to members according to what you were recruiting for and provides sessions where you can do interview practice for your particular recruitment sector with second years
• LBS Women in Business Club (men totally welcome!) - similarly, WIB assigns second year mentors for what you're recruiting in to help you through the entire process
• Consultant classmates
• Friends who are recruiting for consulting as well

MBB also offers one-on-one coaching sessions if you get shortlisted for Round 1 interviews. I have never in my life prepared so much for interviews before!

This week is Round 1 interview week, which kicked off as early as Monday depending on which office people were recruiting for. Everyone seems to be in a suit practically daily! Thankfully classes this term have so far been very cruisey so 100% focus is on recruiting. Corporates with structured programs have applications due next week so the cycle continues (until offers are in the bag)!

INSEAD Interview #2

After the relaxing atmosphere of my first INSEAD interview, I was not too nervous about the second, since it would make the third MBA interview I was doing. This interview however was unexpectedly far more intense than even the LBS one.

In fact, my interviewer, a partner at an investment banking firm, covered so much we had to do it in two parts because we ran out of time the first round. So I wound up having a one hour face-to-face and then a follow up 45 min phone interview with him and never got to ask my prepared questions!

He was very very thorough and covered practically everything that you expect from an MBA/job interview and then some. Aside from the usual walk through CV, why MBA, why INSEAD, he also questioned almost all the steps I took in my CV. Many of the questions he asked was around thought processes and what I was feeling when I made various decisions which was a bit different. A few curve balls he threw me were questions about what I was feeling towards getting an MBA, any reservations I had, and what my greatest fears in doing the MBA would be.

Interestingly he asked specifically for me to describe an entrepreneurial situation and clarified that it could be within the workplace. Thankfully I actually have a hobby side business, but I think I would have struggled if I didn't have an "obvious" experience. He also asked for specific examples of when I made a good judgement and when I made a bad judgement, which was a bit different from strengths and weaknesses (he asked about those too). I basically used up every single story I had pre-prepared in this interview and had to come up with some on the spot.

The good thing about the intensity and all-rounded questioning was that it did give him a good sense of who I was. In spite of the intense and detailed questioning, I never felt like he was asking the challenging questions to "catch me out", but rather because he genuinely wanted to get to know me.
So I'm positive he'd have given me a good recommendation because at the end he summed up all my strengths and said that he thought I'd fit very well at INSEAD. Plus he mentioned that he hoped I would pick INSEAD over LBS if I got accepted to both.

My advice to INSEAD applicants is to be "real" and show your interviewers who you are as a person. Understanding your thoughts and feelings helps them connect with you and become one of your "supporters". Also, even if you don't end up going to INSEAD, if they like you and connect with you then that's another person you can add to your network.

London Business School Interview

LBS only required one interview. The adcom however sends specific instructions to interviewers on what areas to focus on and questions to ask. As such, I was prepared for an intense "grilling" from my interviewer - an alumni who was a partner at a PE firm who had a very different background to mine.

The interview went for 1.5 hours instead of the 2 hours or so I expected. He was very nice, but like what I found with most of the LBS people I interacted with, there is a certain air of formality and conservativeness. LBS people are also a bit harder to read it seems so I wasn't too sure how I did.

The interview started off with the usual walk through CV/why an MBA/why LBS and also some questions about the career choices I made. He then focused quite a bit on leadership and teamwork experiences. He also asked what my leadership development goals were. I was asked quite a few questions on what international business experience I had as he said that this didn't come through very clearly on my CV since my career consisted of working only in NZ. LBS definitely wanted him to ask about it. The hint I got was that I needed to rewrite my CV.

LBS interviews require an impromptu presentation on a topic chosen by your interviewer - 5 mins to think and 5 mins to present. I found the presentation part a bit of a challenge because there were two parts to it. It was a case about leading change management - managing restructuring and the fact that people were not happy about it. I was asked to present a) how I would approach this with my team and how much I would share my personal feelings b) Pick one of 3 questions and also talk about that - I picked one that said to describe how to overcome resistance to change. I didn't feel like I had a good conclusion to round off the presentation because the presentation was in 2 parts though I tried to relate them. Did I mention, on-the-spot presentations are really not my strong suit?

The third part of the interview was where I got to ask questions and he gave me a lot of advice on what I should do to prep and what electives I should take. Interestingly, he suggested that I major in finance given my long term goal, although I have zero knowledge of finance. It definitely gave me something to think about post-interview.

He also advised that to get the most out of LBS's career services, you needed to try and fit within the mould and that you would struggle if they couldn't put you in a box, which happened with him. Fortunately for me, since I want to move into consulting, I'm easy for career services to put into a box.

He also said that if I got admitted, to get in touch with him and he would provide me with prep resources for finance given my lack of finance knowledge, and resources for consulting since that was what I wanted to move into. I was definitely wowed by his helpful offer and left the interview with more pre-MBA tasks to add to my to-do list.

INSEAD Interview #1

Following the email invitation to interview from INSEAD, I was sent the contact details of the two INSEAD alumni and instructed to arrange interviews with them.

My first interview was an alumni working as a Relationship Manager at a bank. Surprisingly, I was invited to his home for the interview as he lived not too far from me. Most of the reports I read about INSEAD interviews was that it was conversational. This was true of my first interview. It was really casual - so much so my interviewer told me he was just about to vacuum when I arrived! 

Contrary to what I expected, there weren't a whole lot of questions asked. He started of telling a bit about himself as his background was entirely different to mine and then got me to talk through my CV, why I wanted to do an MBA and why INSEAD - questions that were entirely expected. Then he asked about my goals and about team work and what my leadership style was. There was also some discussion about whether I'd dealt with conflict and what sort of cultural diversity was in my workplace. 

All the questions were easy to answer and we got along well. He also asked me at the end if there was anything he hadn't asked about that I really wanted to talk about which gave me the chance to throw in a few things about my charity work. The last part of the interview was him answering my questions for him and giving me advice on how to get the most out of the programme.

Unfortunately as he had graduated quite some time ago, there was not a whole lot of specifics he could provide that were still very relevant. Quite a few of the questions I had pre-prepared thus had to be thrown out. However, I felt I still got quite a bit of useful advice and insight into the MBA program at INSEAD in general.  Out of all the business schools, I would say I've had the most positive interactions with INSEADers and my interview with him definitely reinforced this perception.

Read how my second INSEAD interview went on here.

The Interview Wait

The wait after submitting an application is excruciating. You will most likely find yourself experiencing the following:

1. Chronic email checking and refreshing
2. Worry that your application was not good enough and whether or not you should have said something differently
3. Chronic checking of forums to see if others have received any results. This is done in conjunction with #1 above
4. Anxiety and deep down some jealousy (if you're being honest) when people start announcing on forums that they have received interview invitations and you haven't. This leads to more experiencing of #1 and #2
5. Worry that no news means a ding...then more of #2
6. Decline in productivity at work due to all of the above.

Well, unless the school releases invitations to everyone at about the same time like in the case of LBS. In which case the above applies for a much shorter period of time.

At the end of the long wait, I received invitations to interview from INSEAD and LBS - half the battle won! It was a ding from Yale. I wasn't too gutted about that though, as looking back Yale didn't really fit my key post-MBA objectives very well anyway.