The Wharton Interview

So...it happened finally...the much awaited Wharton Interview. It was a hub interview in Paris with Marilyn Yakowitz (yes she is the same lady from OECD when you google her name, which is so cool).

I arrived at the office of Bain and Company at 50 Avenue Montaigne (must say its a nice office, could see basilique mont martre and the louvre from the office over the Champs Elysse...ahh the sight) at 8:30 AM (1/2 and hour before my interview). The wait was interesting, as I was reading about the takeover bid by EON and the oil security crisis in Nigeria (in French). I glanced at my watch at it was 9:05....hmmm...running late...got me a little worried..so here is the first tip..if things run over a little...dont get nervous.

She came over an introduced herself and we walked to a small room for the interview. There was some general conversation to begin with. Then she explained to me what the idea of the interview was and what sort of things she was going to be looking for (which was kinda nice) and that we had 25 mins left from that point on.

1) Instead of asking me the "walk me through your resume", she said that it was a pretty standard question, so why dont i talk about my career progress. During my answers, she mentioned some interesting interactions that she has had in the past with my company (in the 90s) and was queried our company's current position on those topics. The cool part of the interview was that she was familiar with the oil business and its challenges so that made the conversation interesting. She asked me something targeted towards my field (and her interest), sustainable development and how i would implement it. I think i could have done better on that answer, since I gave her my current perspective only, as opposed to telling her what I would do 15 years from now if I became a leader in the energy industry

2) Next was, why an MBA....which is standard

3) Why Wharton, and after i mentioned the collaborative environment bit..and that its one of the more transparent B schools..she did chime in...saying thats the same impressions she has had being on the admissions comm. for the last 3 months

4) What is my leadership style

5) quickly (as we were running out of time), Strenghts and weaknesses...

then she asked me if I had any questions...and i asked her some questions which I have been pondering about...
she then gave me her card and walked me out...
phew....i was a little nervous..kept thinking about negatives after the interview...why did i lean back a little instead of leaning forward...aaaah i forgot to tell her about my latest performance appraisal..aaahh..i could have done better on the sustainable development question.....oh well....its over...id give the interview an 8/10..so now just have to wait till March 16th (1 day before the snowboarding week..so a pissup is guaranteed either way)....

thats the interview bit...two more things to add

A] Paris
My wife and I love going to France...the food..the wine..the shopping..the people...the country side....what was interesting on this trip however was the fact that we did it as non tourists for the first time and it was awesome..aalso this being the off seasons for tourists...everything was so not crowded and nice....we just doddled around...ate a lot of pastries and quiche Lorraine (my eternal weakness).....shopped....but here is where i found something interesting not done before and HIGHLY recommended...we went to the virgin music store on champs elysses...now when u r on this street..people goto sephora..LV..huge boss...etc (avoid the gap store)..but the virgin store rocked my world...its HUGE..and they have these cool machines..where you just need to scan the bar code of the music cd and it plays the tracks for you (do i sound like a small town person...but i have never seen that before)....we listened to a lot of old french music...and it was a lot of fun.....so next time you are in paris do that...ofcourse we then went to the supermarket and stocked up on all the cheese and meat (even though we get good stuff here in NL..variety is always fun)

B] Got an interview invite to Stanford today ! :D

phew...hows that for a long post?

cheers
Ash