How to Prepare On Your Work Experience For B-School Interviews (Part 3 of 3)

Continuing with our series on preparing on work experience for your b-school Interviews we bring you the final part of this three part series looking at the final set of guidelines that you can look at during your preparations

10.    International Experience - during work experience is obviously a great thing to have on your resume, but just remember that , especially if you are from IT field, there is a good chance that a lot of aspirants who are competing  with you might also have a international experience. Keeping this in mind in, don’t overemphasise on your international experience and leave out the other parts of what you did during your work experience.  This does not mean that you not mention it but just that you don’t make your whole work ex about a international trip what was probably a very less part of the whole work experience, only because you perceive it to be important.

11.    Social Service or CSR - What is said about international experience holds true about social service too. Though it is a good thing to talk about and a good CV point, avoid a holier-than-thou attitude and keep in mind that CSR is a very common activity adopted by organizations now-a-days and most other aspirants would have some experience in the same.

Practice – Though not a guideline in itself as it’s a general rule that is applicable to all kids of preparation especially with respect to preparation for PI, there is nothing that can substitute for practice. It is advisable to buy/get a blank note book for you PI preparation and make a book where in you write down the main points for each question that can be asked and try to think of sub questions and answer them going 10 levels deep as said earlier. This will help you not only think in a more structure manner it will also act as a record of your good answers as otherwise you might forget answers that you thought of by the time the actual interview comes. Also this will hold you in good stead once you enter the MBA college for the interviews for various summer / final jobs

Some common questions that you can use to start preparing the book talked about in the 12th point include

1.    What can you tell me about your past bosses?
2.    How do you think a former supervisor would describe your work?
3.    What did you enjoy most about your last employment? Least?
4.    Describe the job or the activity which has had the greatest impact on your career goals.
5.    Comment on “People quit bosses not jobs”
6.    Tell me about a time when you successfully resolved a conflict.
7.    Give me an example of a leadership role you have held when not everything went as planned.
8.    Give me an example of a leadership role you have held when everything went as planned.
9.    What two attributes are most important in your job?
10.    Give an example of a situation in which you provided a solution to an employer.
11.    Give an example of a time in which you worked under deadline pressures.
12.    Give me an example of how you manage multiple projects.
13.    What would you say to a boss that has a sub-par idea?

Finally to sum up the rules

1.    Don’t Bitch about your previous/current employers.
2.    While describing difficult situation criticize the situation and not the people.
3.    Go ten levels deep about everything about your work experience.
4.    Avoid fake work experience claims and at the same time prepare well for actual non-formal work experience.
5.    Try to bring in leadership and proactive(taking initiative) qualities when you talk about your work ex.
6.    Don’t get too technical while describing your work experience.
7.    Demonstrate big picture thinking citing example and also while answering questions
8.    Try to quantify your achievements, but at the same time make sure you can back them up.
9.    Don’t get too hung up on international experience or social service, without underplaying them.
10.    Ideally maintain a note book to write down model answers and practice for the PI.

These pointers are by no means exhaustive, but are a good starting point for your preparation towards a PI on Work Experience. Again most of these rules are not hard and fast but more like generic guidelines and a person has to take a call on what he/she wants to finally say at the interview, as it is up to him/her to finally defend these answers in the interview.