Interview Questions: Rotterdam School of Management

Yesterday evening, I had my interview with an AdCom of Rotterdam School of Management (RSM). This interview was over Skype because I was not able to attend the interview held previous week when she was in Bangalore (due to some personal reasons).

The interview started at 8:30 PM IST and went over for about 35 minutes. She decided to switch off her cam, because of dim lights in room. I was on cam.

This interview was a little different from my earlier ones in respect of some very new questions. Here they go (not in the exact order they were asked):

1. I have read your essays. I want to know why you chose this year to apply for MBA? Do you think it is a perfect time for MBA for you?

2. You have mentioned your career goal in your essays. Could you explain in detail about it? What exactly is your plan, which is your targeted companies, etc.?

3. I see that you have served in one of the companies for just 4 months? Why you left it so early? Do you think you could have waited for some more time there?

4. Tell me something about the NGO you are associated with and your responsibilities there?

5. If I say, that you are taking this interview for RSM, then what is that one key thing you would be looking in the applicant?

6. How are the key things that influences Indian businessmen or entrepreneurs in doing business?

7. How your friends describe you in 3 words?

8. What will you bring to the RSM community?

9. What is that one thing you are very passionate about at this point in your life?

10. What are the things that really daunts you when you think of coming to RSM?

11. Do you think you are a leader? Why you think that? What kind of leader are you?

12. What kind of leadership skills you want to improve upon in RSM?

13. What changes you see in yourself after doing MBA from RSM?

14. If career is not a factor, do you want to get settled in Netherlands or back in your country?

15. In one of your essays, you have mentioned about a very harrowing event of your life? What is the biggest learning you took from it? Could that event happen again in your life?

16. Why you chose this career in Information Technology? What drives you about your job?

17. If I say tomorrrow is your holiday, how would you like to spent your entire day?

These are more or less all the questions she asked. I will get to know the result next week. I am not yet selected in any school, and if this time I got selected, I will be in soup. I won't be able to leave the school nor I would love to have my honeymoon in there ;)

But still I hope to taste that soup!

A

Updates on my journey so far...

I am coming to my own blog after so long. It's a mixed feeling. I am feeling sad that why I didn't blog for so long. I think because my updates are negative, I was hiding from them and from my readers, like a child hiding from his parents after getting flunked. At the same time I am feeling good that, even though a little late, I am back to my blog and writing with a smile on my face. I have had always smiled while writing a post on this blog...somehow I loved this blog and my journey with it. And I deeply apologize to my readers, if they have visited this space with expectations of a new post or my updates.

I have lot of updates on my MBA journey and off-MBA life. Let me start with MBA:

1.      You must have guessed by now that I am not selected in any school. Even though I have a 740 score and a quite decent profile, somehow somewhere I lacked miserably. Even my MBA mentors not able to judge the reasons behind.

a.      One reason could be that I applied only to top-notch schools. ISB R1 (ding post interview), Ross R1 (waitlist post interview), Kellogg R1 (waitlist post interview), Richard Ivey R2 (interview), Harvard R2 (ding w/o interview), Stanford R2 (ding w/o interview), MIT Sloan R2 (ding post interview) and finally, Rotterdam.

b.     Other reasons could be my non-IIT college, IT background and zero international exposure.

c.     Another reason could be just above-average communication skills, which is not enough to compete; I feel so and will work upon it very seriously.

2.     Important: I feel it’s necessary to mention here that I took the services from Kaneisha Grayson of The art of applying and found them totally waste of money. I am in MBA admission process for last two years now (unfortunately though), have worked with many people in this industry, and very well understand the difference between good, bad and worse service providers. And Kaneisha Grayson’s services fall, according to me and my experience, in the last category. I would strongly discourage you to take her services. I will soon write a detailed post about my horrible experience with her. Disclaimer: These are solely my personal views based on my own experience.

3.     My Rotterdam is interview is scheduled for tomorrow and even if I get selected in this last school for this year, I might not be able to attend the school in January 2012. The reason for this I mentioned in my point 5.

4.     Important: After scoring 740 GMAT, having two years of experience in resume preparation and essay writing, working with so many amazing, good and not-so-good mentors, and interacting with many alumnus, students and applicants, I have gained a real good insight about GMAT preparation, and essay writing and reviewing. If you have noticed, I have received the interview invites from almost all the schools. This itself explains the quality of my submitted Resume and Essays. Owing to this knowledge, I consulted two of my friends, in their Resume and essays for Ross and Darden. Both of them had received the interview invites. If you need any help or reference, drop me an email.

5.     I am getting married soon with the love of my life and I am very elated because of this one reason. At least life is on progress for good, if not MBA then MarriageJ.

6.    This doesn’t mean my MBA dream is dead. I am very much planning to re-apply with full enthusiasm and stronger profile in 2012. My love will support me for my MBA, she promised. But that time only to one-year schools. I am grown old for two-years now, and practically won’t be able afford them.

7.      I am getting an opportunity to work in US for a few months. This would give me much needed international exposure and could shine in my resume. I am very much looking forward to it. Also for my honeymoon ;)

8.      I am also planning to join toastmaster to nurture and master communication skills. Hope this would help.

9.      Last but not the least, I have a passion for writing fictions and sketching portraits, which I had never shared on this blog. Follow me on my personal blog and let me know how much you like my work. I will wait for your comments there!

Seems like a lengthy enough mail to compensate my absence!

Never let yourself down by failures, God must be weaving something more pleasant for you!

Love…Cheers!

A