#mba interview prep

MBA Interview Prep 4: How to Thank Your Interviewer

By the time you’ve finished your final interview, we are sure you are heaving a huge sigh of relief, thrilled to be done with this long and exhaustive MBA application process. But before you turn off the application part of your brain, there is one last thing you should think about – thanking your interviewer.

This is a very simple thing, but it can end up confounding many, and some applicants end up sending out a convoluted thank you note, or an overly eager page-long email that negates their positive interview.

While it is not requirement, sending a thank you note is a gesture that shows you appreciated the interviewer’s time, and valued the experience. It’s also a chance to cement their impression of you, and to follow up with questions.

So let’s talk about how to ace that thank you note so you can finally relax.

Brevity is the soul of wit – Your thank you note should be succinct and to the point. Think sonnet, not Hamlet. Be direct, sincere, and well spoken, just like you were in your interview (hopefully!)

Connect the dots – If you talked about something personal, you can (briefly) refer to it. If they mentioned something you hadn’t heard of, you can talk about how post the interview, you researched it. Be specific to your conversation; include a detail that stuck with you, something that interested you, or something you bonded over. Don’t just say “I’m so glad we both love cricket”, but do include something like, “Our conversation about monetisation of sports has stuck with me as I watched this weekend’s match”.

Punctuality is the politeness of princes – Send your note within a week of your interview. Don’t do it immediately after you leave, in the cab or on the way home, but don’t wait a month, so they assume you’ve forgotten to send one or, worse, are so ill mannered that it didn’t occur to you to send a note.

Avoid innumerable questions – Ask questions if you have them, especially if they are a follow up to a topic you discussed or something specific to the program. Don’t ask general questions and don’t feel the pressure to make up something if you feel like you have nothing to ask.

It’s a thank you note, not a love letter – Resist the urge to gush in your thank you note. Any overly dramatic, hyperbolic, or sentiment-driven statements are bound to be treated with suspicion or dismissal. Lines like “I will always remember our conversation fondly” or “Your kind words meant the world to me” should be edited out. Although you might really feel that way, you run the risk of sounding insincere, which is the last thing you want for your application.

The post-interview thank you note is a gesture, but it’s one worth making in order to maintain the image you have projected of yourself as a business leader and future alumni of the school. So be specific, be succinct, and make sure you send it!

While you’re preparing for your interview, read about how to approach the ‘Tell me about yourself’ question here, find out how to prepare for the team-based interview here and figure out the difference between admissions committee and alumni interviews here.

If you require any more guidance, get in touch with us. Good luck preparing!

Office Address

The Red Pen Nirlon House, Unit №10, 1st Floor, 254-B Doctor Annie Besant Road, Hanuman Nagar, Worli, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400030 [email protected] 9820491179 or 022 6132 3600

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MBA Interview Prep 3: Difference between admissions committee and alumni interviews

3rd in a 4-part series on MBA interviews

Different institutes conduct interviews in different ways, and knowing the format for these interviews beforehand can help you prepare. While all interviews are aimed to learn more about the applicant, in terms of their personality, motivations and whether he or she would thrive in that program, the style and focus of alumni interviews are often different than those conducted by the admissions team.

For some schools, including Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, and Carnegie Mellon Tepper, a member of the admissions committee (AdCom) leads the interview. For other programs, such as Columbia Business School, Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, and Northwestern Kellogg, alumni, typically those living in the region, interview potential candidates.

In general, for AdCom interviews, the interviewer has read some or all of your application materials, including the resume, essays, and forms as well as your letters of recommendation. This means they have a strong sense of your application and background prior to the interview and may have prepared structured questions to ask. It’s not uncommon for an AdCom interview to focus on something highly specific within application materials, or have industry-specific questions on hand.

Conversely, alumni generally have not reviewed your application prior to the meeting. In some cases, they may ask you to send across your resume in advance or ask for it when you meet with them. As a result, alumni interviews tend to be more fluid and dynamic, lasting anywhere from 30-minutes to a couple of hours. As alumni interviewers are assigned based on geography, the alumnus could have a similar professional background to you, or they could be from a completely different industry, so you should be prepared for the conversation to go in various directions.

One thing to remember about alumni interviews is that they volunteer to do this, and that means most alumni are extremely passionate and proud to be associated with their school. In these interviews, therefore, they are assessing whether you would ‘fit’ into that school environment and culture. They are wondering what it will be like interacting with you a cocktail party? How would it be to work with you on a project? Start a company with you? Are you someone they would want to meet up with at an alumni event ten years in the future?

While AdCom may also want answers to these questions, they are additionally trying to understand whether you are ready to manage a rigorous MBA program, and gauge the experiences you bring to the school to ensure diversity in the classroom. They want to know if you play well with others, and if you have the raw potential to learn from their program and the vision to carry forward these lessons into the professional space.

While you probably know by now that as an applicant you should be prepared to ask questions at the end of the interview, one thing to keep in mind is that these questions should vary depending on whether you are in front of an AdCom member or an alumnus.

It’s worth asking alumni about their own MBA experience – what was a typical day like during business school? What did they do on the weekends? What you shouldn’t do is ask them statistics, such as the average GMAT score of the class, or questions relating to coursework, or curriculum. For one thing, they might be several years out of the program and things could have changed. For another, a lot of that information is available online, and questions like that make you look lazy.

AdCom members would be better suited to answer more in-depth queries about courses, or if you have questions about research or interdisciplinary opportunities not easily understood through a search of their website. Additionally, you can ask more about clubs and organizations that you find interesting and how they work in conjecture with the program. Remember to be specific and tailor these questions to your own experiences.

It is critical to understand the nuances between these interview formats to be better prepared for your upcoming interviews. Knowing their style well and showing up ready can only help you on your MBA journey.

If you want help with how to maximize this time, get in touch with The Red Pen MBA team.

Office Address

The Red Pen Nirlon House, Unit №10, 1st Floor, 254-B Doctor Annie Besant Road, Hanuman Nagar, Worli, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400030 [email protected] 9820491179 or 022 6132 3600

Visit Here-: Global mba Study abroad Master degree programs Study overseas Undergraduate degree Post graduate education Higher education Undergraduate admissions admission consultants in mumbai study MBA masters in management undergraduate study abroad consultants in mumbai best consultants for masters programs overseas education consultants study in us