Interview Experience - IMD

IMD Interview Experience 1:

Below is an MBA personal interview and IMD interview tips shared by a candidate applied through General Education. You may refer for your MBA interview preparation.

IMD follows unique MBA personal interview process. The typical interview day @ IMD will be -

The first stage will be MBA Personal Interview with admission committee member to understand more about you and your achievements, career progression till date and also to evaluate your communication skills. My second stage was impromptu presentation where they gave me a business topic and asked to prepare 5 mins presentation. Next process was Case study wherein Professor from IMD leads a case study with other candidates. In this stage I got to learn teaching methods and got feel of IMD classroom setting.

First stage - My MBA Personal interview was very much friendly and nice. It went on for around 45 minutes. My suggestion and IMD interiew tips would be to be calm, get to know your co applicants, build on their points during the case, don't be aggressive in approach but be confident and not someone who will get dominated.

The interview questions which I remember were general questions like why MBA? why IMD? Why now? Few questions about my strengths and weakness, achievements at workplace. I replied to all my queries with realistic examples. Got sufficient time for this interview and prepared all my answers in sync with my application, so my suggestion would be to know your application very well and focus on the value you can add to the class.

Finally I made it, got admit letter from IMD after around two weeks. So overall my IMD interview experience was pretty good.

IMD Interview Experience 2:

Hi, I am Ritesh. I have given my IMD interview last year. Interview @ IMD is really a whole day process and its quite different from other b school interviews.

Part (A) MBA Personal Interview: First part of interview was personal interview which has been taken by the admissions committee. They asked me several questions, below are the IMD interview questions asked to me:

1. Walk me through your resume.

2. Tell me something you did challenging in your work life.

3. Why you have chosen IMD for your MBA?

4. Why do you want to do MBA and why you think now is the right time?

5. What is your plan if you don't get admitted in any of the b school?

6. What role do you take on in a team? How have you handled a team-based conflict?

Part (B) Impromptu Presentation: After the MBA personal interview adcom has given all the candidates a topic to give presentation on for about 5 minutes. Every candidate was given the same topic for the presentation.

They asked me to present my opinion of the European debt crisis or my opinion of the Euro. Adcom may also ask the question related to current issues like:

1.Should Germany have to bail out Greece?

2.Can countries that have different political systems successfully use one currency? Give it some thought and present a good argument.

Part (C) Lunch: Then after the presentation IMD provided us the chance to interact with the alumnus of IMD. All IMD alumni were very nice and IMD had assigned us the alumnus from the same nationality and same profile accompany to each of the candidates so that we can discuss about their experiences. It was really very interactive discussion with them. Alumni were also trying to get to understand how you will fit in with the culture of the school and they reported to the adcom what they learn.

Part (D) Case Study: Finally, we asked to present the "Case". Most applicants don't know how to tackle a case, but from an adcom's point of view, I believe offering the case is a stroke of brilliance. Adcom had already provided us the topic of case study 2 weeks prior to the interview and during the case, faculty were observing and moderating the case discussion as you and your peer group dissecting and presenting the case. They were looking for our analysis, teamwork, leadership and presentations skills during the case.

Part (E) MBA Class Observation: At the end all candidates got the chance to sit in the current MBA class and observe the IMD MBA Class being delivered by the renowned professors. Most applicants just observe and don't participate in class, however, if they are discussing a topic in which you are familiar, I suggest you raise your hand and add to the discussion. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, you should just observe the students and how they interact with the faculty.

IMD Interview Tips:

1.Be yourself (they are looking for the genuine you, will you fit in?)

2.Do not be defensive, even if there are "holes" in your application, show them why that does not matter and how you are still the ideal candidate

3.Show confidence that you WILL achieve your goals and IMD will want to be a part of it (confidence is not arrogance)

For IMD interview preparation I would suggest you t go through the IMD interview expeience mentioned above and the IMD interview tips.