HOW TO APPROACH THE HBS INTERVIEW
The past couple of weeks on the calendar tend to stop everyone in their tracks and dominates the headlines. It’s all about the final HBS interview notification deadline. Interview or ding? Rather, interview or ding or deferral? Seeming as that appears to be a popular option too. Let’s make sense of things and offer some advice on how to respond from here.
Let’s discuss the HBS interview process:
THE HBS INTERVIEW
Congratulations, you got the interview! HBS loves to test confidence and dare people to panic. So here’s how you want to approach this part of the admission process:
Don’t change your plans
An HBS interview is obviously not an admission. Even if you are amazing in interviews and exude the charisma and confidence of George Clooney, don’t change a thing about what you are doing. Stick to whatever plan you laid out for yourself at the beginning.
2. Bunch your preparation
Set your interview date and then set up your preparation to take place within a window fairly near that date. You want to set up your prep work about 7-10 days before the real thing. It helps you to keep the preparation work fresh, but far enough so that you can incorporate any feedback.
3. Own your goals, and get to know HBS
Due to the open-ended nature of the HBS essays, you might not exactly know why you want to go to HBS. If you walk into an HBS interview and don’t know exactly what you want to do with your life (and why). And if you don’t have a really deep and detailed understanding of HBS and what makes it special, you are at a severe disadvantage. If you did not build up to this point with a good consultant, you are starting from scratch.
4. Start thinking about the post-interview writing assignment
You don’t want this to be too polished, but you do want it to be well thought out. Brainstorm about what you might want to voice in the interview. What you have said so far in your HBS application? Consider what might be left for you to say? Think about talking points you want to bring with you to the HBS interview. When the interview is over, you will be able to see which points are left out. You can build upon something unsaid to bring real depth and meaning to a tricky assignment.
