IESE Interview Report.

So folks I decided to write an interview report for the benefit of all the IESE applicants. You can find this report here - Clear Admit's Wiki page or here - Accepted MBA interview database.

ACCEPTED!!

So i guess this is how it feels to be accepted!! I got into my top choice dream school - IESE Business School!

I'm currently overwhelmed with joy and happiness and at the same time humbled by this offer from a world class business school. I would like to thank the entire blogging community especially Rocky and MBA Bubbles for all their support and encouragement.

I got to make atleast a thousand phone calls and need to prepare for a party (everyone is invited:))! So will update you with more details in the next post (soon).

Peace!

IESE Assessment day - a great taste of the MBA classroom

Last weekend I attended the Assessment day and the Case Presentation event organized by the IESE Business school. Team-work, case-study, fun-learning, and diversity are the words that i can use to describe my experience. Gracias IESE!

I really enjoyed this experience and actually last night I was still dreaming about the events that took place during the weekend. I had a chance to meet and share my thoughts with about 30-35 brilliant applicants from Asia, US, Canada, Europe and Latin America. My biggest take-away from this day was definitely the case presentation and the discussion. For example, I being a non-finance guy was focusing more on the the internal operations of a company (in a case). But being in a room with i-bankers, entrepreneurs, fashion designers, engineers, IT professionals, marketing gurus, and sales experts, and hearing their views just opened my mind to various other aspects of business that i simply lacked knowledge in. I guess this is the beauty of the Case study method. And needless to say, I fell in love with the case method.

Imagine, if in 45 mins if i learnt how to calculate the earnings of the CEO from the Financial income statement of the start-up company or how often did the company pay its suppliers from the Asset and Liability statement, I can only imagine the amount of learning that i will be able to get in 2 years of my MBA. Wow. Also if, in a day i made some good friends from across the globe with people who work in atleast 10 different industries, I'm sure an MBA would definitely give me some life long friends - friends who would play a big part in shaping the dimensions of the future business arena.

Now I'm just crossing my fingers and praying that I get the opportunity to go back to school and do what I really want to do!!

All the best to all the applicants.

Adiós

Please Help earthquake victims in Haiti

This is my humble plea for your donation to help Haiti victims. Just imagine if your home, your job, your money, and more importantly your loved ones are taken away from you - how would you feel? This is what people in Haiti are facing right now. The least we can do is to bring them some relief.

Recent stats show that I get approximately 50-60 visitors to my blog a day. If every visitor donates just $1 towards this cause, it will translate towards a significant sum of money. So please help.

The following are the links where you can safely and securely donate your money.

1. The American Red Cross

2. UNICEF

Kindly act fast, your dollar can make a big difference.

God Bless!!

P.S. If you contribute, please put your name in the comments section. Please do not put your donation amount.

Skype - A true friend of International B-schools

I recently had an interview with a top B-school in China (Why China - I'll reserve that for another post). Since i couldn't make the trip to China, I was interviewed on Skype!! The interview went really well, but what intrigued me was what would have the schools done without Skype? Use Yahoo messenger, AIM plueezzz!!

Although Skype gives you the luxury of interviewing at your home turf, it poses some unique challenges. I for one, like a nice face-to-face interview where i can personally connect with the interviewer and a human touch is a big player in such situations. But nonetheless, if it really comes down to interview-from-home, here are a few tips for my fellow applicants to take into consideration.

1. Always check the timing - time zones can be deceptive: I almost missed my interview. My interview was scheduled on the 11th of Jan at 9:30am and this was according to local time China. I casually added a calender entry for 9:30pm, on Jan 11th according to New York time. A big mistake. Its so easy to confuse time zones especially when the freaking daylight saving is in effect. This meant my interview was one hour early, i.e., 8:30pm. Then a couple of days before the interview it hit me. 9:30am, Jan 11 in China is actually 8:30pm on Jan10th in New York. Phew close call. The bottom line is check the timings - twice and don't make your own assumptions.

2. Costume check - Interviewing from your bedroom doesn't mean interviewing at your own terms. Remember this is not a casual video chat, it is an interview. So don't sport your new Christmas pajamas and dress as you would to a real interview. If you are not sure - Ask the interviewer beforehand.

3. Gadget check - Electronics devices undergo a rigorous quality check before they are launched in the market. But the hard fact is that they are devices and devices can fail. So check your webcam and mic and make sure they are working. Also make sure your (skype) status shows "online".

4. Rehearse the interview - Do you make awkward gestures while talking. Well on a webcam, due to limited visibility, these gestures would make you look like you are on drugs. So rehearse your video interview on skype. Better yet, record them and see how you appear to the interviewer. I did that and I was shocked to see that I could have easily gotten a job at the nearest circus as a clown!

5. Background check - The last thing you want to do is to leave your Pam Anderson poster or your pet python to be on the background of the video. The focus of the interviewer should be on you. This way he/she will be able to comprehend what you are saying. Keep your background light and simple. Your back could face a white wall and this way you will have the interviewers attention.

6. Sound Check - Before starting the interview, confirm with the interviewer that she can hear your loud and clear. You, of course wouldn't want her to read your lips, right?!

7. Don't be camera shy: Face the camera while speaking, not the monitor or computer screen! If you have recorded your interview rehearsal you will know why!!

Here is a bonus tip - Resist the temptation of writing down your responses and reading them to the interviewer. Again, if you have recorded your rehearsal, you will know how obvious and stupid you will look!!

So there are a few pointers of tackling the video interview. For some pointers on how to prepare for the interview, here is a post that i'd written a couple of months back "Preparing for the Admissions Interview"

That it for this week. My hearty congratulations to all those who got an admit and herez wishing the rest all the very best.

Zai Jian!