LGO Interviews

This post is for those people who got an interview for the LGO program, and specifically targeted at those who are not blessed with the “gift of gab” like myself. Interviews have always been the toughest part of any application process for me, mainly because I don’t speak good. So to those of you who have a difficult time bullshitting, have no fear, it is possible to get accepted, and I have prepared some pieces of advice and tips for you. Interview Fest is coming up on the 29th. That is plenty of time for you to prepare, even if you haven’t started yet.

And I guess that is my first piece of advice – to prepare. I made the mistake of thinking I could basically just come in cold to one of my interviews (for another unnamed business school) and I completely bombed it. My theory was that my natural candor would be refreshing because the interviewer would be sick of canned responses. I assure you that canned responses are expected and much better than the default alternative, especially if the default alternative is rambling incoherency like it is for me.

But I’m sure most of you aren’t as naive as me and already know that these interviews are no joke, so on with the real advice:

1. Relax. Just kidding, I know you’re not relaxed and won’t relax even if I tell you to relax.

Let’s start over:

1. Develop a message. You’re not being filmed in front of a live studio audience (as they used to say on the Cosby show), so don’t worry if you’re not naturally “smooth” or haven’t been in sales or something – most of us aren’t exactly Billy Mays (see picture). What I mean by this, though, is to really get it straight in YOUR head about two things: 1. Why you are excited about LGO – what appeals to you about the program at this point in your life, and 2. What can you do to help – what unique skills/views/background do you have that will help the program and your classmates develop. 
   
   
   Developing a message helps out for two reasons. First, I would be shocked if one of the actual questions in the interview wasn’t “why are you applying to LGO”, and second, it will give you a solid base for preparing for all of the rest of the questions – you can use your message as a gut check to see if you feel comfortable with a certain story. It isn’t absolutely critical that you have to force your message into every answer (nor should you – that’s annoying  in my opinion), but if you really spend time thinking about it and referring back to it when crafting your canned responses, it will really help. 
   
   
   Remember – figure out what gets you excited about the program, AND make sure you focus on how you can help. A lot of people focus only on the first part, but the second part may be more important and impressive (and sometimes easier to answer!)
2. Prepare your stories. The majority of the interview that LGO conducts (at least the one I had) is fact-based behavioral-style, which means they’ll be asking you questions about what you did in certain general situations in the past (“tell me about a time when you X…”). For these types of questions, I found a great resource online at www.clearadmit.com/wiki. If you are like most of my class, you are also probably applying to other business schools. Fortunately, the ClearAdmit website gives you actual questions that were asked at lots of other schools. What I did was try to come up with “utility” stories that can apply to the most popular questions across schools, and then drill down into the more specialized questions. You’ll get the picture if you root around on that website for a while.
3. Practice. I actually did not practice for my interviews at all, but I wish now that I did. If there is one thing I took away from Communications class and various competitions this semester, it is that practice is key. Get a significant other (SO – in the parlance of our time), your mom, a friend, a guy off the street, it doesn’t matter, to ask you some random questions. The more you have told a story, the less nervous you will be telling it during the actual interview.  Unless you are the Allen Iverson of interviewing, you need to practice.

Now some hints/information on the actual interview:

• Know the partner companies, and think of which ones you are particularly interested in and why.
• Be able to talk intelligently about the engineering concentration you chose, and why you chose it.
• The interview is specific to LGO – it is conducted by LGO, not Sloan or the school of Engineering – so questions will be slanted towards LGO specifically
• LGO is very focused on getting people who can work in and lead teams, so try to focus on those types of experiences you have had. Also, examples of leadership (as we have learned) does not necessarily mean that you were in charge of a project – you can lead from below or side-to-side. In the vein of working in teams, it doesn’t hurt to show a little sense of humor either.
• Most advice I found centered around finding “unique” things you bring to table. The “unique” label always was confusing to me – a lot of people have the same general background and skill sets. In brief, I think what is meant by “unique” is actually “specific and compelling experiences that demonstrate some broader trait.” Here are some buzzwords/phrases that are NOT unique for LGO (they should be a given): quantitative skills, engineering background and interest in operations. That stuff should come out in your resume, and the interviewer already knows about it, so don’t use them as your unique characteristic. Here are some top-of-my-head traits/experiences that I would find compelling (and have found compelling in my classmates): actual management experience (especially dealing with low performers), recent research in some academic field, military experience, personal crises, moral dilemmas, working for a failing (or failed) company, specific career goals and aspirations (but if you don’t really truly have a clear one in mind, don’t make one up or try to fake it – more on that in the next bullet), athletic accomplishments, “extra-curricular” activities (especially more recent ones).
• **Warning: I think others may disagree with me on this one.** When taking your interview, you may be asked something like “where do you want to be in 10 years” or an equivalent question (I don’t recall if I was actually asked this question or not). Now, here are the real facts: I think something like 85% of people coming into Sloan are “career switchers” who really have no idea what they want to do when they grow up, I would say that ratio is about the same in my LGO class, and I would still put myself in that category (though things are coalescing slowly). In my opinion, if you really don’t know what you want to do in 10 years, just say that you don’t know exactly – I think the honesty will be appreciated. However, if you take that approach, at least think about your ideal job in terms of job function. For instance, for me, it would be something like “I want to work in (or create) an environment which enables people to make better management decisions through more intelligent use of data.” To some extent, I think this type of question is actually designed to test your ability to create a compelling vision of the future, rather than hold your feet to the fire on whether you want to work for a partner company, or whether you want to be a consultant or not (though you shouldn’t say you want to be a consultant!). Granted, mine is probably compelling to approximately 13.5 people in the entire world, but probably the most important thing is that it is compelling to YOU.

As I think of more tips/advice, I’ll re-post. As always, I’m also free to answer questions, time-permitting (we’re on Plant Trek for the next two weeks). Just email me. Good luck!