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

Power Eating For Exam Time - Guest post

Since its a season when many applicants are studying to slay the GMAT, here is a guest post by Lior for some wonderful tips on healthy eating during this stressful time. Hope this helps!

Exam time for students is not only a stressful time because of the extra study time required and the pressure of the exams themselves, but it often centers around a busy season as well such as Christmas for example, or Easter in the Spring. This adds additional time constraints to the student.

The first thing to suffer during this time is a healthy diet. Yet this is the time when proper nutrition is needed most. Extra energy is needed to be able to cope with the additional time constraints, and lack of sleep means their resistance to colds and flu are dropping. Here are a few hints to help keep you on the right track with your eating habits.

Pre-prepare

Take a bit of time to do some shopping for some quick healthy snack foods. These will come in handy when you are really pressed for time. Items such as granola bars and some veggies and dip pre-prepared are good choices. You can quickly grab them while you are on the run, or are studying. These will give you at least part of your daily quota of vegetables even though you are not able to sit down and eat a proper meal. If you prepare these at the start of exam week you should have enough to carry you through the week. Be sure to carry a few of the granola bars with you as they will carry you through as a quick snack when needed.

Health drinks

Try to stay away from the caffeine laden energy drinks. Instead, replace these with vegetable and fruit drinks. You will be replacing some of the vitamins you are missing as well as not stressing out your body with the caffeine. There are some great combo drinks available that are a blend of fruit and vegetables.

Meal Replacements

If you have to miss a meal, try to be sure it is no more than one meal a day. In this case drink one of the liquid meal replacement drinks. These contain a high quantity of minerals and vegetables.

Have a fortified breakfast

There are some excellent cereal on the market that are fortified with extra vitamins and nutrients as well. Make use of these and replace your sugar coated cereal with these at least during exam time, although they are good to be used on a daily basis and not just during this stressful period.

These are some tips on what to eat to help you get through exam time, but you also want to be sure you pay attention of what not to eat. Loading up on high caffeine drinks and chocolate only provide quick but temporary energy boosts, and are really hard on your body. Grabbing a bag of potato chips to stop the hunger pangs, is not a healthy move either.

With some careful planning and preparing some healthy meals ahead of time, then freezing them is also a great step to take. This way when you are pressed for time during your exams, you can quickly and easily heat up one of these meals and still be eating healthy.

This was a post by Lior who works for an MA in Israel program and also for the MA in political science program in Tel Aviv university.

I am in top ten of 2010-2011 Best of Blogging competition :-)

I am overwhelmed by this news. I am in top ten of 2010-2011 Best of Blogging competition :-)

Thanks to all the readers and voters. And many congratulations to other winners.

Cheers!
A

Why do you want an MBA?

April is over and with that the last deadline of almost all the schools. While many applicants are busy through the complicated process of arranging visas and hefty loans, a few are making every possible strategy to win the adcom's heart and flip their tedious waitlist to refreshing admit. And while many others are trying to figure out their mistakes and deciding their next moves in life, many are on their high to start this journey fresh.

I congratulate the first many, wish the second (including myself) but my this post and the upcoming ones would be for the last two manys.

You must be knowing or will learn soon that is essential to have a plan throughout the application process. So, whats the plan and how to make it?

1. You want to apply for 1 year or 2 years or the mix of both?

2. How many schools you want to apply?

3. How to select schools and so on...???

You need to answer these and many more similar questions before you make a plan but before that you need to answer the utmost important question, which most of us take lightly or think only at the time of writing essays in bschool applications. - "WHY DO YOU WANT AN MBA?"

Most of the applicants think that MBA is some magic which will change their life, provide them cool status and make them rich. And, without even knowing what MBA actually is they start preparing for the GMAT. I did the same, and it was the biggest mistake. Indeed, MBA could change your life but only when you know exactly how it will change your life.

Ponder very very seriously over this. Think what you really want to do. What kind of work you really enjoy and what kind of companies or jobs you want to see yourself in after some years. Then, connect to the people (esp. alums or senior managers) who are already in those companies or jobs and try to understand how they reach there. Start reading blogs of MBA students. Research getting an MBA online. Start visiting sites of your dream companies. This would help you understand the whole MBA thingy. And you might also learn the alternate routes to reach there without spending thousands of dollars.

So, as the fresh season starts, put on your thinking caps to answer this question. And believe me, it would not be easy to find the honest answer. So, don't try it alone. Talk to as many people as possible. And when you would find your honest answer, the rest of the path would seem a little clearer.

Dedicate the month of May to get an honest answer for yourself.

All the best,

A