Military Interviews at HBS
MILITARY INTERVIEWS AT HBS
A MILITARY GUY ASKS:
but I think I’ll be drilled especially hard on “why MBA”, “what are your career goals”, etc.
What are your thoughts on how a military applicant should prepare and handle an HBS interview?
hmmmm, not really, they know the drill w. military apps,. and that goals are often general management, consulting etc. as platform for leadership role blah,blah–the interview will not be AS SUBSTANTIVE so much as process: can you talk, are you one of those charming and smart milit dudes or one of those yes maam, no maam types. IN that way, sorta the same as most interviews. Maybe some jive about what you may find hard about HBS, what you liked and did not like about milit. what you can contribute (q asked to almost all anyway but for mil. try to go beyond the obvious, and include non mil stuff and some jive about where you come from, interests, etc. etc. ).
below is typical mil interview report
Sandy,
Had my HBS interiew yesterday on campus with ————, assistant admissions director. It was actually much more straight forward than I thought. She began by telling me that she and several other people had read my application and that her notes would go into my file for the final decision. Standard intro. Throughout the interview, it was apparent that she was very familiar with my story. She had a list of 3-4 questions that she said she wanted to talk about. All specific things I mentioned in my essays and admin data. Here’s the breakdown of the more general questions:
- Tell me about your _ job in college
- Why army / why service academy
- What can I contribute to the class
- Did I go to a class. -
Tell me about how did x in Iraq
- Tell me about your current job
- Challenges transitioning
- Tell me about what you learned from a mentor (personable leadership and the importance of communicating with your subordinates, leadership by walking around)
- Ever had a bad leader. Did you learn anything
- Why HBS (
- How are you preparing for b school
- Anything else you’d like me to know
Interview was right at 30 min. Maybe a couple min short of. Only other thing, she never asked me about leadership. I’m guessing she knew I had it. Finally, she did ask me about my thoughts on the Petraus report. I dodged saying that there are always things to improve and that it’s good that we’re having a conversation about it.
