Interview Tips-Adapting Your Story P2 - 工管

In Part I of this series, we asked you to think about how to adapt one sample

story to three distinct MBA interview questions. In Part II, we're going to

show you how to use almost exactly the same story to answer three different

questions, just by tailoring the conclusion.


The three distinct MBA interview questions at hand are:

Question 1: Can You Tell Me About a Time You Demonstrated Leadership?
Question 2: Can You Tell Me About a Time You Overcame a Challenge?
Question 3: Please Tell Me About a Time You Worked Well on a Team, and What
You Learned.


Our sample answer without the conclusion was:

"Sure, that's a really interesting question, Mr. Interviewer.The biggest

challenge I've overcome was the time that I started a nonprofit in college to

collect used musical instruments to donate to a needy school with gifted

musical students and not enough musical instruments. I drove all over Taipei

to collect the used musical instruments. I established a not for profit

organization to make the donation legally, and also worked with my schoolmates

to put on a charity concert where we raised enough money to buy a brand new

Tuba - the most expensive musical instrument. This experience helped me to

realize how valuable and rewarding it is to help people less fortunate than

myself, and that I can be successful in leading my peers to have a positive

impact on society."


Sample Conclusion Question One: Leadership


This was a critical leadership experience and I learned a great deal about

myself in the process. One important thing I learned was how to best interact

with a team while trying to motivate them to do something they were not being

paid to do. I realized that I prefer positive reinforcement to negative

reinforcement, and prefer to include people in a team environment to motivate

them to help each other rather than to demand they complete tasks. I believe

that I can develop this positive style of leadership at your MBA program when

I take _______ course on leadership, and intend to pay it forward by using my

leadership skills to make an impact in more community activities during my

MBA studies.


Sample Conclusion Question Two: Challenge


What surprised me is that the biggest challenge I faced in this entire

experience had nothing to do with motivating people as a leader, or finding

resources. The biggest challenge for me was in finding the inspiration and

idea in the first place, and once I had that everything else naturally fell

into place. I know that by attending your MBA program I'm pursuing the

strongest passion I've ever had in my life. I truly believe that my life will

fall into place after graduation, with some careful planning, just like my

musical not for profit fell into place after I found the inspiration to start

it.


Sample Conclusion Question Three: Teamwork


Achieving success in this project was truly a team effort. During the course

of organizing the charity concert with my peers we met many times to discuss

different ideas and how they could be effectively implemented to have the

maximum impact on donations. I learned that people from backgrounds different

than my own had unique insights to contribute that really helped us reach our

goal, and that I enjoy the collaborative teamwork process a great deal. In

fact, since then I have gone out of my way to volunteer for group projects at

work because I feel that I'm not only helping the company meet its goals, but

educating myself about how to interact with and learn from other people in

the long run.


Conclusion


Notice how all three of these answers fit neatly into place at the end of our

sample story? They build off of each other, and many of the conclusions

continue to touch upon multiple points from the questions (leadership, teamwork,

overcoming a challenge). Although your story will different, the principle

behind these questions is similar.


When you practice for your interview, keep in mind that you will want to try

to use your best stories. Thus, find a way to make your best stories fit

multiple questions. Like these stories above, you'll find that many stories

have elements of teamwork, leadership, overcoming challenges, etc., and that

you can make slight adjustments to the stories to directly address the

question.

I hope this was helpful for those of you preparing for MBA interviews. If you

have any additional questions about preparing for your MBA interviews, feel

free to reach out to me, David, at [email protected].



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David Johnston
[email protected]



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