How to survive the inevitable bad part of an mba admissions interview

http://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/
How to Survive the Inevitable "Bad Part"
of an MBA Admissions Interview

By the Amerasia Consulting Group,
Boutique MBA Admissions Consulting
How to Survive the Inevitable "Bad Part"
of an MBA Admissions Interview
MBA Admissions Consultant | http://www.amerasiaconsulting.com

This article is about a harsh reality of the MBA interview
process, which is that every interview is going to take a
dip, or hit a rough patch, at some point ... through no fault
of anyone involved.
Why is this?
And how can you address it?
Let's dive into it.

What do we mean by the "bad part" of an interview?
The "bad part" of an interview in the way we're referring to it is
the part where things start to slide away from the interviewee.
It's that moment where you feel like you start to "lose" your
audience; where you go from being compelling and charming
and totally on point ... to something else that feels distant and
foggy and remote.
It's a very unpleasant feeling that tends to evoke panic moves
and counterproductive responses. It's kind of like getting caught
in a rip tide or skidding out in your car - what you want to do is go
with the current or lean into the skid, but of course people do the
opposite and try to jerk against it and wind up with a crisis.

What we are going to teach you today is how to go with the
current, and how to turn into the skid.
Please understand that we are not talking about total meltdowns
here, which are rare. In all our years of doing this, we've only had
one or two clients completely botch their interviews. One started
crying and another refused to stand behind his own career goals.
Other than those (and even both of those were more the fault of
the interviewer, it seemed), we've never had people experience
true horror stories.
We're talking about something more subtle, but no less
frustrating, far more common, and something that tends to derail
even the best interview subjects.

When does this moment happen in a standard interview?
The moment you start to "lose" the interviewer is almost exactly
the same, regardless of interviewee, interviewer (alumni, student,
admissions officer, whatever), or school - it happens when the
interview shifts from what we call the "nuts and bolts" section (the
first 10 minutes after small talk, where you talk about your goals,
your interest in the school, your job, etc.) and into the
"behavioral" section of the interview.
Nearly every school features a chunk of the interview where they
ask behavioral questions.

This is almost always after the buts and bolts section and its the
place where things tend to lose steam.
So you are looking at arriving at the rough patch about 15
minutes into things, right after you've been crushing it, and right
when they start asking you questions like "tell me about a time
you led a team," or "can you share a time when you stepped in
and resolved a conflict within a team," or "when did you have to
persuade a group of people," or any other question designed to
unpack key b-school traits (or "behaviors") such as leadership,
teamwork, persuasive communication, and so forth.

WHY does it happen during the behavioral section?
This is pretty easy to understand if you've ever sat in the
interviewer's chair for more than about 10 of these. Collectively,
our team has hosted thousands of interviews.
Personally, I did probably 500 of them in my past life as an
associate director of admissions. Paul did dozens upon dozens
as an alumni interviewer. One of our interview gurus did what felt
like a million of these on the GSB campus for BCG.
We KNOW what it feels like to be that person conducting the
interview. And here's the dirty secret: it's almost impossible to be
riveted by one of these behavioral stories.

During the nuts and bolts section, everything is zipping and
moving - your'e talking schools, goals, career paths, motivations,
and all the fun stuff that is universal, elemental to the
proceedings, and, therefore, interesting.
Further, you are also discussing the school in question ("so tell
me, why School X?") which is of course the best discussion point
of all, because both parties have a mutual interest (one person
wants to go there and the other loves it enough to either be
working there, going there, or volunteering as an alum from
there).
However, when you transition to "tell me about a time you led a
team," it's just impossible to really care. Schools (at a high level)
feel they must ask and tease out these qualities, which is fine in
theory, but in practice, it doesn't translate to interesting content.

If I am interviewing you and you start telling me about Deal X and
Person Y and Conflict Z, I just do not have a personal stake or
interest in any of it.
So what happens is that the interviewer - who does a bunch of
these, remember - starts to drift out during this section. They
start thinking about what they will have for lunch or how much
longer this will be or maybe even the great stuff you were just
talking about. Regardless of what they fixate on, it's probably not
your answer to the question at that moment.
Therefore, it creates a feeling that the interviewer is disinterested
(they are), which creates the feeling that the energy level and
dynamic is dipping (it is) ... and that the interviewee is at fault (he
or she is not) and that there is something that can be done about
it (there is not!). And that's where things start to go sideways.

How does it go sideways?
An interview goes sideways when the interviewee recognize this
shift and tries to respond in an ill-fated attempt to get the magic
back. Understand this: you are not going to get the magic back.
Not yet, at least.
However, many people - especially Type A personalities - believe
everything is within their power, including dazzling an interviewer.
So what they do is start to talk more. And more. And more. And
what they talk more about is details.
Facts, setup information, tangents. They just start piling on
information and they turn a 60-second story about a leadership
experience into five minutes of rambling.

More facts and details do not make it more interesting. If you
have read this post up to this point, you now know that it makes it
LESS interesting! You are doing the equivalent of taking out your
conversational shovel and just digging a deeper and deeper hole.
And this is when an interview goes from "totally normal and
good" to "rough.“

Okay ... so what should I do?
Obviously, if we are saying that this happens in virtually
every interview and that there is a wrong approach, it
implies that there is a right one.
To find out that right approach, please contact us for our
interview prep services.

Kidding, kidding. We're going to tell you what to do, in
three steps:
1.Go in with prepared behavioral stories. Have 3-5 stories
about teamwork, leadership, conflict, and the like. You
can use almost any story for almost any prompt, so
narrow down what you are trying to keep track of in your
head.
Telling the right story in an interview is like playing the
right song at a party - it's easier if you have a loose
playlist ready in advance.

Then, you can tweak and adjust based on the exact
mood/question, rather than scrambling in a mad panic
to find the right song/story from a sea of thousands of
choices flying through your mind.
Further, you should structure those stories using the
same SCAR model we use for our impact essays,
which is Situation (15 seconds setting up the
scenario), Complication (this is the thing that raises
the stakes and makes it interesting and is the specific
response to the question they ask - "the reason I
needed to step up into the leadership void was X"),

Actions (15-30 seconds of what you did), and Results
(how it finished up and what you learned about
yourself from the experience).
If you have that balance, it should take 60-90 seconds
to tell your story and it will be clean, easy to
understand, and - most of all - something you can
stick to.

2. Ride out the rough patch. We talked earlier about
going with the current or steering into the skid. Well,
same thing here.
What you simply have to do during this part of the
interview is *accept that this is how it is*.
It's absolutely unbelievable what we see when we do
this job, which is a universe of people who believe that
they can bend the world to their whims.
Look, we get it - many of you are candidates at elite
MBA programs because you have a certain amount of
tenacity.

However, some things just are what they are. If you
try to fight this universal ebb in the interview
experience, you will be the person digging away with
that shovel and just burying your chances.
You become the unlikeable person who patronizes the
interviewer with way too much info, or the scattered
person who just starts rambling, or any number of
unflattering archetypes. And it's all because you can't
resist just going with the flow and accepting that which
you are powerless to change. Besides, we still have
step 3 here. (Between the "powerless to change" stuff
and all the steps, it is starting to feel like a recovery
program.)

3. Seize your chance to win it all back ... when it arrives.
Think of it this way: rather than fighting the current to
look like a hero in the face of an insurmountable rip
tide, why not allow yourself to wash up on shore and
then, full of energy, do a few backflips to impress
people?
That's how the interview works. With a few exceptions
(HBS, to name one, which we approach with a slightly
different lens with our clients), every single interview
experience features a third part after nuts and bolts
and then behavioral and it is this: "what questions do
you have for me?"

This is your chance to completely bring the energy
back. Have questions ready to go.
Make them good and smart questions (that will
interest the interviewer). Show enthusiasm for the
answers that they give to you (don't think about how
you just did during the "real" interview, stay in the
moment).
Lean forward, be expressive, be charming. If you
engage the interviewer in this last frame, that person
will love you.

Again, having done this job, it's so rare for people to
end on a high note ... yet it's so easy to do! It amazes
me how hard people will fight to be dazzling during the
impossible stretch, yet they completely fold up their
tent during the easy part.
Just stay engaged and be a generous
conversationalist, listener, and audience (yes,
audience - everyone, including interviewers, likes to
hear themselves talk and everyone likes to have
people laugh at their jokes, humble brags, and self-
deprecating comments).

It's all there for you at the end and since it's the last
part, it's the part they will remember. You will walk out
of the room and they will write down "Loved him/her!"
on their report.
The five-minute lull where the two of you dutifully and
robotically cranked out the behavioral section will be
long forgotten.

We hope this post helps many, many people be their true selves in their MBA
admissions interviews, rather than letting that nervous, eager-to-please side erupt
to the detriment of their chances. Steer into the skid, everybody.
For an overview of Amerasia MBA Admissions Consulting services, please visit
http://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/mba_admissions_consulting_services/
If you are interested in the MBA Admissions Consulting services offered by
Amerasia, please email mba@amerasiaconsulting.com to inquire about setting up
a free consultation.
http://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/

How to survive the inevitable bad part of an mba admissions interview

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How to survive the inevitable bad part of an mba admissions interview