First, the evaluation form:
1. Application:
The application materials are all filled in and submitted online. You need to register in the candidate service system of the corresponding MBA program in official website, and you can see the complete application process and application materials. The application materials include three parts, generally basic background information, self-reported essays and other auxiliary materials.
1. 1 Background information: generally presented in standard form. Take Tsinghua University MBA application form as an example to show you:
Educational experience:
Foreign language proficiency:
Work experience:
If you have entrepreneurial experience, you will get corresponding points:
Other information: such as professional qualification, social experience and international experience.
1.2 self-report essay: each school will set up 1-4 open-ended questions, and the number of words in each question will generally be controlled at 500- 1000. Take the MBA application composition of Tsinghua University in 2020 as an example to show it to everyone (the content of the composition varies greatly from school to school, so only the form is shown here, and the specific assessment elements will be developed below):
Please describe your value and contribution to the organization. It is suggested to use the actual case of personal work to illustrate. (within 1000 words)
Please explain the impact of scientific and technological progress on your personal career development and how you will deal with it. You can choose a field that is most relevant to your career development. (within 800 words)
How do you define your beautiful life and how will you realize it? (within 500 words)
1.3 auxiliary materials:
Resume: focus on the work experience, as an effective supplement to the background information, it is recommended to control it to 1 page as much as possible;
Transcript: which academic qualifications are applied for, the corresponding transcripts will be provided. The original transcripts are generally kept in the archives. If it is lost, it is suggested to apply for a replacement in the original institution in advance and affix the official seal of the issuing unit;
Organization chart: Generally, schools with organization chart are required to give a template, and pay attention to clearly mark the location;
Letter of recommendation: What kind of person can be a referee? The first principle is to know the applicant, whether it is the direct leader, the partner or even the customer. You don't have to have a big coffee table, but you must have close ties in business cooperation;
Graduation certificate or degree certificate: the online application stage does not need the original, but the electronic registration filing form of Xuexin.com degree certificate (different from the student status, you must read it clearly), and the overseas degree needs to provide a scanned certificate of residence service in China;
Some colleges and universities will require proof of income: bank running water, tax payment certificate, etc. According to the requirements of the school, the only principle is authenticity.
2. Interview:
When the application materials are passed, congratulations, you will enter the formal interview. Generally divided into personal structured interviews and leaderless group discussions, referred to as personal interviews and group interviews. Different schools will take different interview forms. Here is a brief explanation:
2. 1 Personal Interview
We can understand personal interview as verification interview. The application materials you submitted have passed the examination of the examiner, and you are invited to the school for an interview to verify whether the people described in the materials conform to your actual situation. Therefore, in the process of personal interview, most of the examiner's questions come from your application materials (so whether the materials are solid or not is very important, which is related to whether you can enter the interview, and secondly, the interview is to fill holes in the materials. The less holes are dug in the materials, the easier the interview is).
The time is generally between 10-30 minutes, and the questions focus on the applicant's learning objectives, career planning, work performance, industry cognition, etc. It is involved in all the materials, but it is described to the examiner in the form of stories in the interview examination room. Of course, for some top business schools, it will also set difficulties. For example, you will ask some detailed questions (which may be more interesting to the examiner) about the access path of your work results; Another example is the views on the development of the industry, or the management of scene setting, and so on.
2.2 Group interview
Group interviews are usually 4- 10 people, and the time is also 30-60 minutes. First give a case (usually a hot topic of enterprise management or business), and give everyone some time to discuss, analyze and solve the problems existing in the case. The whole discussion process will be graded by the examiner. Some schools just discuss, some schools need to state their views or solutions after discussion, and some schools will ask each other in AB group. But no matter what form it takes, the two most important points are: to do role-playing well, or teamwork, it is necessary to choose a leader in the group to lead the whole discussion process, and each member can analyze and state from his own role, and it is forbidden to say it all at once; In addition, it should be noted that in the process of analyzing and solving problems, some existing theoretical frameworks can be applied, which can not only reflect their own management literacy, but also ensure clear logic and avoid turning a discussion into bargaining in the vegetable market.
2.3 Oral Listening
Oral listening is a concern of many candidates. After all, I'm not an English major and I don't work in a foreign company. After graduation, listening and speaking ability degenerated to preschool age. Here is a dose of reassurance for everyone. First of all, if you are not applying for an international class, the examination of English ability is not the key point, which generally only accounts for 5-10% of the whole interview score; Secondly, the examiner also understands the difficulties of students and will not set too high a threshold here. Generally, as long as you dare to speak, you will get basic points. Students who are really worried about English can prepare a self-introduction If you ask an English question, you can also introduce yourself to the examiner, at least to show your attitude of preparing for the exam seriously. Of course, it is suggested that students with ability prepare some simple questions in advance.
3. Application batch (application time):
Most business schools will announce the early interview policy in April and May, one of which is the interview batch, which is the so-called interview time.
Generally, each school will have 3-6 batches to choose from, with summer vacation as the dividing line, with May-June as the first half, 9-65438+ 10 as the second half, and July-August will be less, because schools are on holiday. It is recommended to participate in the first half as much as possible. First, there are enough OFFERs in the last batch, and the examiner may be more relaxed. Second, get the offer as soon as possible, and you can invest in the preparation of the written test as soon as possible.
There are two important time nodes that must be noted. The first is the deadline for submission of each batch of materials, and the second is the time for formal interview, which is often only 1-2 weeks apart. Therefore, in the process of preparing the application materials, it is suggested that the preparation and exercise content needed for the interview should also be put on the agenda.
In addition, many students will choose to apply for projects from multiple schools at the same time, try to stagger the time and arrange strategies. Especially if you apply for 2-3 top business schools at the same time, if you concentrate on a certain period of time, the preparation period of a single institution is short, and you can't reply in time from the last interview, which is not conducive to the overall interview strategy arrangement.
Second, the evaluation elements:
Above, briefly introduce the interview process from the form. Let me talk about its assessment elements first.
Through years of experience in MBA application counseling, we have summarized several dimensions that business schools value: education, work background, management experience, leadership potential, logical thinking, communication and expression, innovation ability and goal path.
We need to understand the logic behind these assessment dimensions, not only why, but also why, so as to make targeted preparations.
Education: In fact, it is a very important manifestation of learning ability, including education, language achievement, learning experience after work, etc. Business schools, especially those of top prestigious schools, attach great importance to learning ability for the following reasons: First, the academic pressure of prestigious schools is relatively heavy, and examiners will also worry about what to do if students with weak learning ability can't finish their studies; Secondly, the business school classroom is not a complete indoctrination, but arouses people's thinking, hoping to arouse more sense of * * * in the classroom, which may greatly reduce the real gains for students who lack the learning ability and thinking ability, and also have a negative impact on the classroom atmosphere.
For students with short academic background who want to apply for a prestigious school, you need to prove to the examiner that you have learning ability, such as having participated in systematic training after work and having your own thinking and gains, or having passed a difficult certificate, or having the habit of reading and thinking.
Work background: The introduction of work background is actually fully presented in the application materials and resume. I want to emphasize the following points:
First of all, what the examiner wants to see is a career track with certain growth. For some fluctuations, if there is no reasonable reason, there is no need to present them. We need to understand the truth that we are not showing our true selves, but what the examiner wants to see, and strive to tap our own characteristics and highlights to win the favor of the examiner in a short interview time, which is enough. Not only business school interviews, but also workplace interviews.
Secondly, in the description of each work experience, there should be not only jobs and responsibilities, but also achievements. What the examiner cares about is not what you are doing, but what you have done. When describing the work results, try to give quantitative figures, and try to include both absolute and relative quantities: for example, what is your score, how big your team ranks in x%, and where are you in the same industry; Another example is that your scheme has helped the organization improve its efficiency by x%.
Finally, if there are problems in describing the results of your work, such as describing the most successful things and the things that can best reflect your personal value, then you need to master basic narrative skills (because the essay is basically telling stories), such as the commonly used 5W 1H and the star principle. And presented in the form of storytelling. Applicants are advised to dig up more materials, put on different labels and show their highlights from different abilities.
Management experience: when writing materials or formal interviews, you will not be directly asked theoretical questions such as "what is management". Applicants need to first understand the core of many questions raised by examiners or just mentioned in the self-written composition. When the examiner asks you questions about your work, such as "how did you do the xx project" and "the most successful thing", it is actually to see if you have basic management literacy. We can't directly reply to the examiner's theory that management is planning, organizing, leading and controlling, but we need to present it in the form of stories. Combined with the above-mentioned storytelling principles, describe the dilemma you faced at that time, what your goal was, what your solution was, what kind of results you finally achieved and what kind of positive impact you had on the organization. In the process of description, try to fully embody the management elements such as planning, organization, leadership and control.
Leadership potential: In fact, leadership potential can be completely attributed to the description of management experience. The reason why it is extracted separately is to highlight the two factors of "leadership" and "potential".
"Leadership" is more people-oriented, and business schools are looking for and cultivating "super individuals", future business leaders, so we need to spend more time shaping people-oriented characteristics, such as your charm, influence and the key role you play in the team. Of course, for the current applicants, most of them don't have that obvious ability, but at least you should have such potential, which is why business schools want to admit you.
Speaking of "leadership potential" or "management potential", we can understand it from another angle. As mentioned in the previous column, the higher your management level, the less you need specific knowledge, but the more you need the ability to analyze and judge complex problems. When the applicant lacks sufficient management experience and leadership, we can further demonstrate our potential by analyzing and disassembling complex problems.
Logical thinking: in the face of complex problems, it needs to be dismantled. Then the applicant must have strong logical thinking ability, or structured thinking ability, which is the bottom ability when analyzing problems. In an interview, when you encounter a problem that is outside your cognitive field, or a relatively large and complicated problem, you need to disassemble it according to a certain logical level, so as to catch the examiner's ear in a short interview. Of course, it doesn't matter what the answer is when encountering this kind of problem. The examiner is looking at your thinking logic.
In addition, when writing application materials, you need to pay attention to your own logical level, so that the theme is clear, the classification is clear, and the logic is progressive, otherwise your materials will appear chaotic, and the examiner will not be able to grasp the main points you want to express.
Communication and expression: In fact, logical thinking will also affect the communication and expression of candidates. When you meet a person with a confused mind, you will feel very tired because you have a lot to say, but you just don't know what he wants to express. How to avoid such problems in the interview examination room? This may require us to do some daily training. One minute on stage, ten years off stage. Of course, doing such logical thinking training and expression training is not only to cope with an interview, but also plays a key role in helping your career progress.
In fact, clear thinking is only a shallow requirement for communication and expression, but the previous article mentioned "20% core", which is the core of communication. Make sure others can understand it first, and then think about further improvement.
Innovative ability: Business schools are demanding more and more innovative ability or innovative consciousness of applicants. Of course, this is not to encourage everyone to start a business, nor does it mean that you can show your advantages by doing scientific research. In fact, in a broad sense, as long as your contribution helps the organization break the old model and evolve into a more efficient or profitable state, this is the embodiment of innovative behavior. For example, redesign the organizational structure to make the uploading and publishing of information smoother; Another example is to open up new markets and increase profit points.
Goal path: Examiners will be more concerned about whether the applicant has a clear goal and whether he has his own thinking in the process of getting the goal. The goals here include both academic goals and career goals. I'm not shy about it. The questions are very direct, such as why you took the MBA, why you took the MBA in our school, and what your career plan will be like in the next 3-5 years or even longer.
Why do you want to take the MBA? In fact, there was a special article before, which summarized what value MBA can bring to applicants. However, it must be noted that students who apply for an MBA from a prestigious school, in particular, cannot copy it directly! This is obviously not thinking, or even thinking after thinking will make the examiner "feel" that you are not thinking. It's a simple truth, because that's what others write and say. What shall we do? We must describe the actual management problems or business problems you encounter at this stage in combination with our actual demands, and then tell our own stories in combination with the curriculum and training mode of your target business school.
3-5 years of career planning, in fact, you just think about this problem. For the time being, MBA applications are the main ones. This question 100% will be encountered in materials or interviews. What would your answer be? "I'm an accountant now. I want to be a qualified financial manager for three years, the company's chief financial officer for five years, and an industry expert or entrepreneur for 10." "I'm a sales supervisor now, a sales director for three years and an entrepreneur for five years." This may be your answer after careful consideration. Of course, this answer is correct, but it is too easy to be submerged, just like the last question, it is too easy to be similar. In fact, you can try to stand higher, especially when applying for a prestigious school. If you can't discuss the problems of the industry from the height of the industry, you may not have a thorough understanding of the industry. In fact, when we see the pain points of the industry, on the other hand, this is an opportunity. Taking this as the direction for the next 3-5 years may make it easier to stand out.
Above, the assessment forms and elements of MBA early interview are generally introduced. According to the above dimensions, ordinary MBA programs should be able to hold. If the applicant is a top business school, it can only be called an introduction, hoping to arouse the applicant's more thinking, and it needs to be accompanied by polishing materials and interview training.