Staccato
After a very eventful morning, the rest of the day was tame by comparison. Work wasn't as busy as normal giving me enough time to prepare for my interview. I had to do a little Superman thing where I changed clothes on the fly in the parking garage. I could have gone to the gym and changed there, but it had started to rain, and I was loathe to drive, park, run in the rain, change, run back and drive again. It would taken too long and I would have gotten wet for my efforts. So my car doubled as my "telephone booth".
On my way over to the meeting place, the traffic was light, made the meeting spot 30 mins ahead of time. The person taking the interview, walked in right on schedule. Since I was early, I was writing my lines on a notebook, and there I made my first mistake. Instead of giving him all my attention, I put everything away, which took a minute or two while he was standing apparently waiting for me to invite him to join me at my table. Ah! Who can script these moments?
After a moment's hesitation we reconvened, there was the usual "at ease" question regarding how easy it was to find the place, and small talk. After which the interview began in earnest. The Alum then puts his watch on the table, and says, "we have been advised to run this on a strict schedule by the school, so I am going to ask you questions for 20 mins after which you can ask me questions". Right of the bat the first question is, "Why Michigan and only Michigan can help meet your goals". I was like DANG! That was right in the deep end. No walking through the resume, no soft questions to warm up, BAM! So I answered that question with some of the points I had rehearsed. Wasn't as effective as I would have liked it to be since I couldn't put forward the entire background story. And because of the abruptness, it threw me off a little, I was trying to stay concise, and with the clock ticking away towards the 20 min mark, attempting to answer the question as fast as I could speak. When I was done, immediately the second question on how I led teams, followed by on one resolution of conflict in teams. By this time I had hit my stride and my answers were slower, better thought out and I was actually had the Alum nodding, but I was really put off by his constant note taking. There was no eye contact because he was writing things down from word GO! Lack of eye contact, absolutely distracts when you are trying to weave your spell and doesn't let you get fully involved in the story. There were only two questions left, one on how I motivate myself to do things and the final question on, how I would contribute to the class.
The Alum was a recent graduate, and this was probably his first few interviews on the other side of the table. But he was a really nice guy which he proved soon after, he was getting late to get home, (his phone rang a couple of time towards the end) but he took the time to answer my questions and gave me his perspective on the Michigan MBA. He did mention again that they had very strict guidelines on how to run interviews, which was not the impression I got from reading other people's Alumni interview stories.
All things said and done, the interview took exactly an hour. Staccato question and answer style for the first half, but I enjoyed the later half, and since we wrapped up the questions so fast, we spent quite a lot of time speaking about Michigan. I just hope that, that bit of the interview is given more weightage than the previous one.
I walked out feeling very ambivalent as far as the interview is concerned. No wild whoops of joy having cracked it, but no sorrow at having fudged it badly. All in all, in one work Okay! Will see how it goes.
Having boned up for the interview, I went back and hit my Michigan essay on 'Why Michigan' and had the first draft out inside 45 mins. One pass today and I should be done. Expect to wrap up the remaining essays in the next couple of days and submit Michigan.
Just wanted to thank everyone for the tremendous assistance with the resources that I received and for the good wishes. I truly appreciate it. It feels very good to have such a strong support group, and I hope I can repay the favor.
On my way over to the meeting place, the traffic was light, made the meeting spot 30 mins ahead of time. The person taking the interview, walked in right on schedule. Since I was early, I was writing my lines on a notebook, and there I made my first mistake. Instead of giving him all my attention, I put everything away, which took a minute or two while he was standing apparently waiting for me to invite him to join me at my table. Ah! Who can script these moments?
After a moment's hesitation we reconvened, there was the usual "at ease" question regarding how easy it was to find the place, and small talk. After which the interview began in earnest. The Alum then puts his watch on the table, and says, "we have been advised to run this on a strict schedule by the school, so I am going to ask you questions for 20 mins after which you can ask me questions". Right of the bat the first question is, "Why Michigan and only Michigan can help meet your goals". I was like DANG! That was right in the deep end. No walking through the resume, no soft questions to warm up, BAM! So I answered that question with some of the points I had rehearsed. Wasn't as effective as I would have liked it to be since I couldn't put forward the entire background story. And because of the abruptness, it threw me off a little, I was trying to stay concise, and with the clock ticking away towards the 20 min mark, attempting to answer the question as fast as I could speak. When I was done, immediately the second question on how I led teams, followed by on one resolution of conflict in teams. By this time I had hit my stride and my answers were slower, better thought out and I was actually had the Alum nodding, but I was really put off by his constant note taking. There was no eye contact because he was writing things down from word GO! Lack of eye contact, absolutely distracts when you are trying to weave your spell and doesn't let you get fully involved in the story. There were only two questions left, one on how I motivate myself to do things and the final question on, how I would contribute to the class.
The Alum was a recent graduate, and this was probably his first few interviews on the other side of the table. But he was a really nice guy which he proved soon after, he was getting late to get home, (his phone rang a couple of time towards the end) but he took the time to answer my questions and gave me his perspective on the Michigan MBA. He did mention again that they had very strict guidelines on how to run interviews, which was not the impression I got from reading other people's Alumni interview stories.
All things said and done, the interview took exactly an hour. Staccato question and answer style for the first half, but I enjoyed the later half, and since we wrapped up the questions so fast, we spent quite a lot of time speaking about Michigan. I just hope that, that bit of the interview is given more weightage than the previous one.
I walked out feeling very ambivalent as far as the interview is concerned. No wild whoops of joy having cracked it, but no sorrow at having fudged it badly. All in all, in one work Okay! Will see how it goes.
Having boned up for the interview, I went back and hit my Michigan essay on 'Why Michigan' and had the first draft out inside 45 mins. One pass today and I should be done. Expect to wrap up the remaining essays in the next couple of days and submit Michigan.
Just wanted to thank everyone for the tremendous assistance with the resources that I received and for the good wishes. I truly appreciate it. It feels very good to have such a strong support group, and I hope I can repay the favor.
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