What should you expect when you reach the admissions interview stage? By the time you get to the alumni interview phase of your admissions process you have faced and overcome a series of challenging requirements. Therefore, we realise that as the last step in this process, alumni interviews are welcomed with a certain amount of trepidation.
As such, we have interviewed two current alumni interviewers to help address some of your concerns and provide you with a few tips. Of course, the information below is only intended as a general guide - every interviewer has his/her own style and although the Admissions Office provides them with a set of parameters, there are no standard questions that they need to ask.
Name: Sue Adams MBA Class: '00D Number of years interviewing: 5 Location: Singapore |
Name: Ralph Anzarouth MBA Class: '90D Number of years interviewing: 20 Location: Tel Aviv |
1. Please tell us about your personal/professional background. I am a former lawyer and media executive who now works as a coach and consultant, including career coaching and delivering skills workshops at INSEAD! |
1. Please tell us about your personal/professional background. I am an Italian marketing professional. After my undergraduate studies in Business Administration and Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I obtained an MBA degree at INSEAD. I held marketing positions at four Fortune 100 companies, including Procter & Gamble and Lucent technologies. |
2. Why do you choose to interview for the MBA programme? I think it is important for the candidate as much as the school that prospective MBA students have a realistic expectation of what an MBA will help them achieve and whether the investment is going to be worthwhile for them. |
2. Why do you choose to interview for the MBA programme? I think this is a wonderful way of giving back to INSEAD: helping with the selection of MBA candidates is a great opportunity to express gratitude in a concrete way to those who chose me when I was a candidate. The second reason is that the network of alumni is one of the greatest strengths of INSEAD and by interviewing candidates I contribute to shaping what the network will look like in the years to come. |
3. What is the typical structure of your candidate interviews – e.g, duration of interview, location, your style? We tend to meet somewhere informal like a quiet cafe, for about 45 minutes, during which we have a conversation both about the candidate and about the programme. |
3. What is the typical structure of your candidate interviews – e.g, duration of interview, location, style? I always interview outside of my office, in order to be sure that no business issue can interrupt our discussion. I like to show candidates that we give as much importance to their choice and to their future with us as they do, because this is true. We generally spend slightly more than one hour together and, when possible, we discuss in all the languages listed in the application by the candidate. I try as much as I can to show to the candidate than he is in a cooperative setting, a real win-win: I am trying to assess if he or she will be a good fit. |
4. What are you trying to evaluate or assess with regards to the candidate? My assessment is about whether the candidate has clear thoughts about what they want to do with their career and whether an MBA at INSEAD is likely to be of benefit to them, plus whether they are likely to positively contribute to the experience of their fellow students. |
4. What are you trying to evaluate or assess with regards to the candidate? By helping to assess if candidates are a good fit for the MBA Programme, we ensure that they are making a good choice by joining us, a choice which will have a great impact on both their professional and personal life. Therefore, before the admissions committee takes a decision, the good fit must be evaluated personally, which is what I try to do. Each candidate is a different story which needs to be understood. I try to imagine him or her in different INSEAD settings and I even ask how they would react to different situations. Then I try to think of the candidate in 5 or 10 years: Will they be a positive member of the INSEAD community? |
5. What tips or suggestions do you have for candidates? Think carefully about the decision to do an MBA and have a clear list of criteria as to why it will help you. Get input from as many alumni as you can about what they gained from the programme and evaluate how that input is relevant to you. |
5. What tips or suggestions do you have for candidates? The most important is to be yourself. By being true to oneself, one maximizes the chances that the input we receive will result in the best decision, for the candidate and for INSEAD. Think thoroughly about why you really want to go through such a demanding programme like the INSEAD MBA. And think about how this fits into your career plan and into your life in general. The interviewer will appreciate the fact that you know what you do and why you do it. |
Candidates who are selected for the interview phase will usually experience two separate interviews (depending on the country and availability of alumni) which will be held in person and in their country of residence. As much as possible and in order to establish some common ground, we will also try to ensure that one of the interviewers has a similar professional background to yours.
If you have any questions about the alumni interviews or about any other elements of the INSEAD MBA Programme, please contact us directly on: mba@info.insead.edu or visit us at one of our global events or on campus in France or Singapore.
