The most common start to an MBA admissions interview is a friendly, open-ended question: “Tell me about yourself.” It is the only interview question that is so famous as to have its own acronym, TMAYS.
Furthermore, because it is often the very first question, answering it well puts your interviewer in a good mood and paves the way for the rest of your interview to go smoothly.
This article will explain why admissions committees ask this question, some basic mistakes you can avoid, and what you should do if you want to deliver a great answer that helps you to really connect with your interviewer.
Why do MBA Admissions Interviewers Ask This Question?
The interviewer already has your resume, and at some schools, such as HBS, the interviewer has conducted a detailed review of your entire application package, including your essays, recommendation letters, and more.
Because the interviewer already has this information in front of them, they aren’t looking for you to recap the basic facts. So why are they asking this question?
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The interviewer wants to make you feel comfortable.
This is meant to be an easy question — it’s open-ended, and is a totally foreseeable question that you had plenty of time to practice again and again until you got it right.
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The interviewer wants you to connect the dots between the different areas of your background.
Your resume shows where you attended college, where you work, and what you do outside of work, but it doesn’t explain why you chose those schools, employers, and activities.
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The interviewer is evaluating your soft skills.
During an MBA, you’ll introduce yourself to hundreds of people — among others, classmates, alumni, employers, and professors. Will you make a good impression during those interactions?
You might notice that none of these reasons have anything to do with understanding the facts of your background.
Although a good answer will always include some facts about your education and work experience, this question is NOT primarily about memorizing the content of your resume, or figuring out a short way to cover every single experience you’ve ever had.
It is about explaining your deeper motivations and making a personal connection with your interviewer.
Mistake #1: A Chronological Summary
The first big mistake would be giving a blow-by-blow chronological account of your life:
So, I was born in Los Angeles, where I played football in high school, and eventually attended Notre Dame for college, where I majored in…
By my junior year, I secured an internship with…
Why would this be a mistake? First of all, how many times do you think your interviewer has heard this one before?
For experienced interviewers, it may be hundreds of times.
This type of story can bore the interviewer because every part is so predictable. Nearly every MBA applicant in the world:
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Went to high school and pursued some extracurricular activities there
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Attended a good undergraduate program
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Secured an internship, and then a full-time job (often in traditional areas like finance, consulting or technology)
You do NOT want to bore your interviewer by giving an answer that is totally predictable, and similar to what hundreds of competing applicants will say.
Second, this type of answer makes it very easy to fall into the trap of giving too much detail.
During mock interviews, some applicants begin by telling me about two or three college internships before they even get to their first full-time job, at which point they’ll start talking about the details of several work projects per job.
And this huge amount of detail leads them right into the second big mistake.
Mistake #2: Too Long!
There is a fundamental asymmetry in MBA admissions interviews:
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If you give short, clear answers, your interviewer will be happy to dig for extra details by asking follow-up questions.
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However, your interviewer is unlikely to cut you off if you ramble. It would be a violation of social norms to interrupt you and insist that you wrap up your answer quickly… so the interviewer will simply watch and wait until you finish, even if they are getting bored.
This means that you want to give short, understandable answers, and trust the interviewer to dig for more detail if they want it. This enables the interviewer to get through all of their desired topics.
The average MBA admissions interview lasts 30 or 40 minutes, and your interviewer probably wants to cover your career goals, your fit with the school, and a few examples of your previous experiences in which you succeeded, failed, or worked on teams.
Taking too much time on any one question can prevent your interviewer from covering their full agenda.
How to Answer the ‘Tell Me About Yourself’ Question
If you treat your interviewer as a real human being, and the interview as a conversation — not an interrogation — you’ll do wonderfully with this question.
The right answer should be interesting and memorable, but not too clever or overly engineered.
You should take full advantage of the fact that there’s no prescribed structure, which allows you to frame your profile in exactly the way you want.
We could never give a one-size-fits-all answer, but a few successful openings have looked like:
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Sometimes, I wondered how I ended up in private equity… for an applicant who was in a traditional PE job, but had a rather non-traditional background.
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You could say that I’m like a legal Walter White… for a medicinal chemist who was using the MBA to transition into a business-oriented role.
Both of these examples offer an engaging start, while also getting directly to the practical point of explaining what the applicant does professionally, and setting them up to say more about that.
The way you deliver your answer is equally important as the content — maybe more — and for this reason, Admitem’s MBA interview preparation service includes spending two hours with our professional experts on communications training.
5 Tips to Create Your MBA Elevator Pitch
1. Clarify your goals.
To riff on Curtis’s insight above, your overall branding should be consistent across all aspects of your business school application. At the same time, your personal pitch should be responsive to your context. As you go into a conversation, clarify what you hope to get out of it. What is your goal? What are you hoping to learn or accomplish? When it’s over, what do you want to take away (and leave behind)? Perhaps it’s first-hand insight on a certain academic offering or new contacts from alumni. Think consistent and customizable, not canned.
2. Customize for your audience.
It’s important to understand the key attributes top business schools are looking for – leadership, the ability to work on teams, analytical thinking, emotional intelligence, and respect for diverse perspectives. A deeper awareness of what your target schools care about will also help you make important connections to your personal strengths, passions and unique story. Authenticity is key, so as you draw these connections within your pitch, stay true to yourself and your personal style.
3. Be concise and conversational.
While you do want to practice your pitch until it flows with ease, aim for a tone that’s conversational and not overly rehearsed. This means being able to adapt it to the situation, customizing it to be relevant to the context and whom you’re speaking. Don’t be afraid to sprinkle in an interesting anecdote or thoughtful insight that could serve as a conversational segue. For example, you might mention something about one of the four Defining Principles and how it personally relates to you, or ask about how Dean Harrison is making her mark on Berkeley Haas. It creates a nice segue into conversations about the school’s vibe and personality.
4. Convey ‘professional presence.
It’s not just what you say, but how you present yourself. You want to have a solid handshake, strong eye contact, and an attitude of positively that conveys genuine curiosity about learning more. While well-chosen words matter, the impression you leave behind usually has more to do with how you make people feel than what you actually say.
5. Leave them wanting more.
The MBA application is rife with questions that inspire substantive reflection, and your personal elevator pitch is just one component of the brand you’ll want to put forward. As you distill your brand to a succinct statement, consider the top three or so things you want to convey about yourself and your ambitions in a given scenario. Remember that your goal is to both create a positive impression and open the door to further conversation by generating interest, not to tell your life story or rattle off a roster of impressive accomplishments.
Once you’ve crafted your pitch-perfect elevator statement, practice it at every opportunity – with friends, colleagues, even yourself in the mirror. Solicit candid feedback from people you trust. You’ll want to feel confident and ready to enter any scenario – from a networking chat to an MBA interview to (hopefully) your first day on campus in the program of your dreams.
Our team of expert MBA admissions consultants helps you push for more, find your voice, and tell your story in the most compelling way possible. We help current-year and future-year applicants to top MBA programs. Start your journey to MBA acceptance at Leap Quest
At Leap Quest, we’ve done a lot of research into this topic. Having spent several years in the industry, we’ve gathered loads of information and data.
We’re determined to get you the admit you deserve. Our question is, will it be yours?
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