Finding a job after your MBA - for international students

You graduated from your MBA degree - and two years of hard work finally start to pay off! Congratulations! If you are a US Citizen or resident, your only worry is to find a job.
However, if you are an international student on an F1 visa, your next challenge is to find an employer who is willing to employ you on your OPT and who is willing to sponsor your H1B visa so you can continue working beyond your OPT.

This is is a big challenge for many reasons:

• It is very costly to file an H1B for you: there are filing and legal fees that the employer needs to cover on your behalf
• You can only start working 6 months from today, of you file the H1B today. So there is a 6 months lag. Most employers are not willing to wait for you that long
• Most importantly: there have been historically more applicants that availabla visas and as a result, there is a random H1B lottery that decides whether you get a visa or not.

So even if you are able to find an employer who is willing to sponsor you, you might still not get past the lottery. This is a major turn off for companies and fewer employers are willing to take on that risk.

What does it mean for you? There are a couple ways you can counter attack that. Here are some sources that how you can get an H1B visa:

• Get a visa from a non profit. Non profits are no subject to the cap and as a result can file any time without the risk of you not getting it
• Get a visa from multiple employers: you can try to get multiple job offers and have each company file your H1B for you. However, it might be difficult to coordinate and it may burn bridges that will lead to adverse effects on your career down the road.
• You can ask Indian H1B consultancies in the US, who file your H1B and subcontract you to clients. They take a cut from your paycheck and that is how they make money. Hence, they have a strong incentive to file for you and it actually might be the easiest way to get someone to sponsor you. Here is a list of H1B Consultants which are located in the SF Bay Area and which are approved vendors by top tier tech companies like PayPal an eBay.

Good luck

Short Term Goals - MBA Interview

This post shows examples of how to answer short term goals questions in MBA interviews. The answer of this question should show how the MBA will help you achieve your short term goals, which in turn will help you achieve your long term goal. You should think of the MBA as a link in the chain of events that brings you from where you are to where you want to be.

Your Past --> You Current State --> MBA --> Short Term Goal --> Long Term Goal

Throughout the entire MBA interview process, your goal is to make the connection of the above flow., You have to show how everything is well aligned to eventually help you arrive at tour long term goal.

Good Luck!

Why MBA interview question

The "Why MBA" question is the key question of the interview and in many cases also in the essays. It is a central question to determine your goals and your ability to reflect upon yourself. It is important to provide a very sound and persuasive answer to that question.

Answer Pattern / Formula for "Why MBA" questions

Your goal in answering this question is to persuasively align your career goals with the need for an MBA. You should demonstrate that you have thought about your career and that you have clear and definite short and long term goals. This is the first step in answering the question.

The second step is to demonstrate what is currently holding you back from achieving your goals, in particular your long term goals. And you might have guessed already - the factor or missing link for you to accomplish your short term goal is the MBA. The logical chain of reasoning that you should present to the interviewer is as follows:

Your current career progress and experience --> Your long term goal --> Your short term goal that will help you to obtain your long term goal --> Demonstrate how the MBA will help you to achieve your short term goal

The bold faced sentenced is the core of this answer! Your job and mission in answering this question is to demonstrate how an MBA will help you obtaining your short term goals that are directly linked to your long term goals.

So your answer should be structured as follows:

1. Career ProgressState your current career progress to date, what you have learned, what you are interested in an link them to your career goals.
2. Career Goals
   State your career goals (long term) and how you want to achieve it (short term goal).
3. Identify your GapState what it is that holds you back to achieve this career goal (e.g. lack of understanding of business terminology and functional areas).
4. Show that the MBA will fill the Gap
   Point out that through the skills, curriculum, network (or whatever your gap might be) the MBA has to offer, this Gap can be closed and your short term goals can be achieved!

Comunicate that the MBA is the first step towards achieving your long term career goals!

The more convincing your case is the stronger your response will be.

> Come back for Why MBA Sample Answers!

Good Luck

> Learn More : -->  Common MBA Interview Questions !

MBA Interview - Tell me about yourself

The "Tell me about yourself" question is similar to "Walk me through your resume" in terms of contents but requires a slightly different structure and formula when answering this question.

Following are the most important take-aways.

Objectives of "Tell me about Yourself"

The answer to this question should not take more than 2-3 mins and should contain a concise yet strong overview of your career choices and your take aways in each of these choices. 

Your answer to this questions should

• be between 2 -3 mins long
• highlight your employers & your positions
• point out how each position has contributed to your development (in other words: take aways)
• explain the reasons why you changes positions
• end with describing your current position and explain your motivation for pursuing an MBA

Many people say you should also highlight strengths in your answer. This is totally up to you. From my point of view you indirectly highlight your strengths by explaining what you have learned. It is great to mention you learned skills such as "Communicating effectively", "Working in cross-functional teams", etc. If you make sure your take-aways match these type of answers, you indirectly highlight your strengths.

And even if they don't, there is always a question that asks about your strengths and weaknesses.

Common questions in MBA interview

The MBA interview is a chance for the committee to get to know you better and to give you a chance to present yourself in the best way possible. The types of questions at the interview can be divided into regular and behavioral interview questions. 
Regular MBA questions talk about who you are while behavioral questions aim at examining your behavior in certain situations, i.e. find out how you would behave in certain situations, such as a conflict at work.

Here is a short list of the most common interview questions:

< Click on each question to receive detailed instruction of how to answer each question >

1. Walk me through your resume / Tell me about yourself
2. Why MBA? Why now?
3. Short Term Goals for MBA & Long Term Goals ?
4. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
5. How can you contribute to the program ?
6. What other schools did you apply to?
7. What attracts you to our school?
8. Questions to ask in MBA interview!

This is by far not a complete list of questions but these are the questions that you MUST prepare extremely well as I have been asked this set of questions in every single interview I went through.

Apart from these regular questions there is usually a set of behavioral questions that can be considered standard for each interview:

1. Can you give me an example of when you took a risk?
2. Give an example where you applied leadership?
3. Teamwork: What do you do if one of the team members does not  carry his burden?
4. Give an example when you acted entrepreneurial  
5. Tell me about a time when you worked in a team

A great starting point for your preparation is to make sure you can answer each of these basic standard interview questions perfectly. By doing so, you are all set for 80% of the questions and ready to leave with a good impression. It is all about transmitting a sound and successful image of yourself.

Here is a valuable video talking about answering each of these questions and I urge you to watch it and take notes. It will give you a great idea of what to say and what to look out for when preparing for other questions.

I will write a review about this video soon with takeaways and comments from my own experience. Here is the video, enjoy!

Feel free to post your questions below!

How long to prepare for MBA interview

How long to prepare for the interview depends on how well you know your story. Assuming you took your time to write your essays you should know your story by heart. Now it is all about finding examples for the most common mba interview questions.

You can increase the quality of your responses by adding an "... for example ...." to each of your answers! Examples are king and the more you can give the more credible and convincing your answer will be"

So the how long it will take you to prepare for an MBA interview depends on your ability to think of examples and take aways. The more interviews you go through throughout your admissions process the ess time it will take you to prepare for each of them!

I would say you should plan between 1-2 weeks for the MBA interview preparation. Less if you are good at bringing examples and you can reuse your essays. More, if you have trouble finding examples and your work experience is rather limited.

The MBA Interview Preparation

Welcome to my MBA preparation blog!

If you are looking for ways to prepare for your interview: Congratulations! You are one step closer to your MBA. The interview is an important part of the admissions process and gives the committee a chance to get to know you better and vice versa.

This is the only time when you have the chance to make a personal impression and back up everything you have said in your essays and resume. Preparation is key and thinking of behavioral questions for an MBA interview is a key factor that determines whether you make or brake the interview

In total, I went through 6 interviews and completely different schools, and practiced hundreds of standard MBA interview questions! This blog documents my experiences and offers strategies and resources to answer the most common MBA interview questions in the most efficient manner!

Enjoy & Good Luck!