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ESADE SPAIN MBA Interview
ESADE Business School appreciates if you try to meet them in person. The extra effort to come to an Interview Day in your region, or an On-Campus Session in Barcelona, shows ESADE how serious you are about the process. Also, be prepared to ask plenty of good questions in the interview!
ESADE Business School is open minded regarding the candidate’s work experience, education, and the post-MBA goals, but when they are reviewing the application – and especially in the interview stage of the process – the school wants to see consistency and sincerity in responses.
The interview can occur with or without a case study. If the case study is included, the process can last a couple of hours whereas if no case study is included it will be over in 40 – 50 minutes.
ESADE MBA Frequently Asked Interview Questions
Professional experience-related questions
- Tell me something about yourself, or Walk me through your resume.
- What are your short-term and long-term goals?
- Why MBA? or Why now? or Why an MBA at this stage of your career?
- Why ISB?
- What is your Plan B? in case your primary goal does not happen?
Personal qualities-related questions
- What are your key strengths? Can you give some examples, please?
- What are your key weaknesses? Can you give some examples, please?
- How can you add value to the Class? or Why should we take you?
- Any reasons why we should not select you?
- Interests and Hobbies related questions – why do you do it, what have you achieved/learned?
Frequently Asked Situational & Behavioral Questions
- What is your leadership style? Can you give an example of a project you led?
- What would you describe are your greatest achievement to date?
- Give me an example of a time you failed.
- Give me an example of a time you faced a conflict. How did you handle that?
- Give me an example of a time when you did not meet a client’s expectations. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?
The last one – Do you have any questions for us?
- Can you please tell me how international exchange students and schools are assigned?
- How club leadership is selected?
- Any other questions you may have in regards to the program.
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ESADE MBA Interview Questions – 1
Okay, so a round of interviews has started in India as some of you may know. Katie is conducting them in Delhi at the moment, and I had mine yesterday. I was a little bit worried about the case study, but I needn’t have been. If you were good at GMAT Comprehension, then this should be easy! You just have to summarise the article they give you and answer a few questions in presentation format. I had my notes in bullet points and expounded from there.
The rest of the interview is simply a chance to sell yourself. There are probing questions, but only to get to know you better. There isn’t any stress or putting you under pressure. Just make sure you can answer all the standard MBA interview questions in depth. She is very friendly throughout and it is almost semi formal – some parts of the interview may become like a discussion or even a chat. I think you have to work hard to sell yourself in such a situation, yet maintain a balance, and not overdo it. I came away with a positive feeling, but it is difficult to assess your chances after such an interview as she probably would not show it if you did badly. I know it is a cliché, but you really need to be yourself in this interview as they are trying to genuinely determine if you would be a good fit for the school, which would be mutually beneficial.
ESADE MBA Interview Questions – 2
My interview experience was very extremely good. The interviewer was very professional in terms of punctuality and preparedness to conduct my interview. She had really done her homework and had prepared questions that managed to touch upon every important aspect of my online application.
My tip: Go through your essays again, it’s a one-hour interview and one last brush-up will help you structure your thoughts. In my experience, I was answering all of my written essay questions verbally during that one hour.
Another highlight of the interview was how it seemed more like a conversation, rather than being a standard one-hour grilling session that most people expect at a big school/organisation. This really worked well for me.
Also, have all of your questions ready, my interviewer really encouraged questions. It was around my questions that the conversation was built and I believe that this enabled me to structure my interview better.
ESADE MBA Interview Questions – 3
The interview experience as mentioned by a few others on this forum was indeed wonderful. It is known that ESADE admissions team focus most on the candidate’s background, goals and motivation. In my case, it was no different. Moreover, I had the opportunity to connect with the admissions director and some members of the local alumni network during an admissions event before I submitted the application on 9/30. I felt this went in my favor and so by the time the final interview happened over Skype on 10/16, the admissions team was well aware of my background. I received the acceptance note this morning. A beautiful coincidence but it was the best birthday gift I could have asked for!