10 trickiest questions that MBA students are asked during interviews

With ever changing markets, and constant pressure to deliver, it has become critical for new joiners to contribute to the organisation as soon as they join.

Hence, interviews have now become a challenging mix of technical and generic questions.

Technical questions include live case studies, for instance valuations, corporate finance or business underwriting. They test strong industry knowledge and business analytical skills.

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Case-based interviews are used now by a majority of companies, who would like to see the thinking process and are a favourite among recruiters. It’s fine not to have the answer, because often the companies are just looking for a logical approach.

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The generic questions are the ones that test your values. It's important for the students to be able to well articulate their experience and share their knowledge/ ideas confidently. Recruiters assess the confidence level, clarity of thought, positive attitude, energy levels, etc at the time of interview.

Here are some challenging questions interviewers ask.

1. If selected, what unique qualities do you bring to the organisation?

2. How do you measure success?

3. How do you bridge the gap between long term strategies and short term goals of the organisation?

4. What would be the one reason we should hire you?

5. Tell us about yourself?

This is very tricky. If you take the interviewer through a verbal tour of your resume, this could land you in trouble. It’s useful to discuss with your alumni and understand how they tackled them.

Questions 6 to 9 require some soul-searching.

6. Why did you apply for this job?

7. What value you think you will bring to the organisation?

8. What are your career aspirations?

9. What’s the biggest risk you've ever taken?

However, the deadliest one is number 10.

10. Any questions you would like to ask?

This is the most important question, which should not be taken lightly and this is the only time when the candidate can demonstrate the research and knowledge.

Recruiters love to have lively candidates who showcase great energy levels, curiosity (desire to learn), confidence and positivity and the best way is to ask intelligent/right questions when it is your turn.

At times, (very few) some of the consulting assignments/interviews expect candidates to challenge the interviewer (in a very subtle way) on the reasoning/assumptions.

Ultimately, the interview is for a specific job role and the minimum expectation is that the graduating students should have a fair idea on the subject/domain and basic technical knowledge required to perform the job.

(This article is contributed by alumni of SP Jain School of Global Management)

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