For Your Full-Time MBA Interview

Use the STAR interview format. It’s the gold-standard of behavior-based interviewing and it helps you structure your answers in a way that makes it easy for the audience to understand. This keeps the focus on you and your outstanding accomplishments! Extra tip - be sure to spend the majority of your answer on the Actions + Results sections.

Part of interviewing is thinking on your feet, so we don’t want to give everything away, but you should think about it as a job interview. Why do you want an MBA (job)? Why do you want to be at Carlson (the company)? Do some research on the unique opportunities within our MBA, like the Enterprises and our Global Experiences, the University of Minnesota, and our Twin Cities Community. 

Be prepared to answer questions about how your experiences, the MBA, and your career goals all align. Be able to draw out relevant or transferable skills, clearly articulate your career goals, and make the case for yourself that you’ll be marketable to employers. 

Practice pitch, pace, and pause. Try recording yourself so you can hear how fast you’re speaking and if you’re taking conversational pauses. Don’t be afraid to take a mindful moment before answering. You want to be clear and concise with your answers, with no answer lasting more than 5 minutes. We have a lot to get through and you want to be sure you have time to answer all of our questions.

We are all human, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself - but show us you are invested. Show up on time. Make sure your technology works (and if you want to double-check, just email [email protected] to do a quick technology check ahead of time!). You don’t need to wear business formal - wear something you’re comfortable and confident in that helps you feel like your best professional self.