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MBA Interviews: Tips and Must-Knows

- Sound energetic, positive, confident. An MBA candidate low on energy is assumed a clear misfit.

- Give meaty answers; avoid one-word or one-sentence answers; they can be a clear turn-off.

- On the other extreme, avoid telling stories or beating around the bush- that can be a bigger turn off; be concise,
to the point, and speak with conviction. Assume ~60 seconds as an ideal span for most answers.

- Never interrupt the interviewer; let him/her complete the question, take a pause to collect your thoughts, and
then begin your answer.

- Ensure that the technology bit is in place- internet connection, Skype, camera, microphone, speaker must be
tested before; such glitches during the interview shall suggest that the candidate is not ‘organized’- a must-have
quality for a potential business leader.

- Ensure a well-lit room, neat appearance, clean background, proper dress-up.

- Ensure preparing a couple of worthy questions for the interviewer; avoid banal questions around placements,
chances of selection, seeking career advice etc. Also avoid asking information that is blatantly available on the
school’s website. The best questions are those that dig a bit deeper into the program- specific offerings, learning
resources/centers etc.

- Crucial: Send a “Thank you for the opportunity” email to the interviewer, after the interview.

FAQs

Write your likely answers you intend to give in your actual interview. Email us the duly filled document and schedule
an appointment for mock interview.

1. Run me through your resume (should be able to do so within 60-90 seconds)

 I did my schooling from The Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehradun as my childhood dream was to be a
fighter pilot, but I was declared medically unfit for the Air Force due to my eyesight. Post that I completed my
engineering in 2013 and found my life’s passion - entrepreneurship. I built and sold a startup while I was still in
college.
 I started my professional career at Oracle as a software developer, but was soon selected by Techstars, which is
a top USA based startup accelerator, to build its startup ecosystem across South and Central Asia. After that I
was selected as one of two entrepreneurs from India by Inmotion Ventures, the venture capital arm of Jaguar
LandRover UK, to launch a mobility solution in India. That was a great experience but Inmotion India operations
were eventually shut down due to change in leadership at the UK headquarters. After Inmotion, I was in a
leadership role at Olacabs, India largest ride-hailing aggregator, for ~4 years and grew 3 different business
verticals from scratch. I had unparalleled experience how to help create a unicorn Startup at breakneck speed. I
moved on from Ola to Crowdera as I wanted to work at the intersection of impact and technology. At Crowdera,
I digitally transformed 2000+ nonprofits globally and helped them amplify their fundraising by 10X. Since
October 2020, I have started a social enterprise named Groundata where I am enabling livelihoods and financial
inclusion in slums with the help of data intelligence. So far, we have mapped 1500+ slums, enabled livelihood for
200+ slum dwellers, and currently host 20,000+ blue-collar jobs on our platform.
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 I am professionally certified in Six Sigma Black Belt, Financial Risk Management and HSK Level 2 in Chinese
proficiency.
 Lastly, I strongly believe in the philosophy of giving back to society and have been running a nonprofit focused
on rural healthcare since 2014 that has helped more than 5000 people till date. All in all, my journey has been
all about walking the path between ideation and execution.

2. Why an MBA at this point in your career?

 I want to scale up my social enterprise, Groundata, across geographies outside India. While we have mapped
1500+ slums and enabled livelihood for 200+ slum dwellers, my goal is to I want to scale my venture to the
next level to impact 200,000 lives within 5 years. An MBA from the right institution will help in my personal
development as well as the growth of my startup.

 An MBA will help me build the required global network which would be helpful in my goals as an
entrepreneur

 Owing to my experience in startups rather than in the corporate world, I have much to learn in terms of
fundamentals of business such as corporate finance, accounting, marketing, etc.

 I am also interested in networking into Angel Groups and Venture Funds in the Shanghai/other schools
ecosystem and establishing long-term relationships with them.

3. Why don’t you continue in your current position?

 I wish to continue working on my present startup Groundata before the MBA program starts as well as during
the MBA program and I want to leverage the program learning, ecosystem and Centers-of-excellence to further
scale Groundata. During the MBA, I want to explore synergies with fellow cohort members, other entrepreneurs
and successful thought-leaders in the CEIBS community for my social enterprise, Groundata. I am also interested
in networking with Angel Groups and Venture Funds in the Shanghai ecosystem.

 Being a part of reputed startup incubators in India gave me access to thought leaders, philanthropists, and CEOs
who helped me take my venture ahead on several fronts and I want to scale my venture to the next level to
impact 200,000 lives within 5 years with the support of CEIBS MBA.

4. What are key takeaways you expect from an MBA?

 The MBA program should act as an incubator for my personal growth as well as for my startup’s growth.

 Mentoring to make me a better entrepreneur and business leader

 Enable access to a versatile and highly accomplished peer group, from whom I can learn experientially and who
can become future collaborators of my venture.

 Owing to my experience in startups rather than in the corporate world, I have much to learn in terms of
fundamentals of business such as corporate finance, accounting, marketing, etc.
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 I am also interested in networking into Angel Groups and Venture Funds for my startup and establishing long-
term relationships with them, and I want to leverage the strong MBA brand for the same

5. Why this particular school?

 During our initial POCs, we realized a lot of low-income households in China and SE Asia face similar problems of
access to livelihood opportunities. CEIBS focus on entrepreneurship will enable me to treat the MBA as an
incubation program for my growth as well Groundata’s helping me understand how to do business in China.

 I will gain immense entrepreneurial mentoring from the program and can leverage clubs like the
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Club.

 I found the electives in Entrepreneurship and Decision Sciences very related to my learning interests which I can
use for scaling Groundata. In addition, I like that the program gives a chance for overseas electives as well in
entrepreneurship and innovation

 An MBA from a reputed brand like CEIBS will help me build the required global network, especially across China.

 I love cultural immersion and Chinese culture in particular and want to experience learning from a versatile peer
group

 I have been fascinated with China and how it has become the global leader in edge computing and I want to
leverage the time at CEIBS to get a deeper understanding of that ecosystem.

 Lastly, CEIBS is the best school in Asia and since Asia is a major focus for me post MBA, CEIBS is on top of my list.

6. What are your plans immediately after MBA?

 In the years after my MBA, I wish to scale up my social enterprise, Groundata, across geographies outside India.
With vast experience in leveraging technology in the social sector, I wish to use my practical business learning
from the CEIBS MBA to extend Groundata’s objective of enabling livelihoods and financial inclusion in slums with
data intelligence. China and Southeast Asia (other regions depending on school location) have a significant
population of low-income households and I will continue to leverage my skills for benefiting those at the bottom
of the pyramid as my own path of self-discovery and awareness has made me empathetic to them. I am also
interested in networking with Angel Groups and Venture Funds in the Chinese (or other school) ecosystem by
leveraging the strong brand of CEIBS (or other school) to scale Groundata.

7. What are your mid-term plans?

 The intended impact I want to have over the next 10 years are to:
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1. Facilitate opportunities in livelihoods, financial inclusion and affordable housing 500,000 slum dwellers and
low-income families via our platform.
2. Build the largest open-source technology platform across South Asia, SE Asia, Africa and LATAM, having
comprehensive secondary and primary data on slums
3. License the technology IP to various geographies globally.

 Such plans stem from my beliefs that equity of opportunities is possible in slums as those available in cities,
solving this problem will impact hundreds of millions at the bottom of the pyramid globally and this problem is
solvable within the next decade

8. What are your long-term plans?

My long-term career goals would be to explore technology consulting roles and contribute to the establishment
of other technology-driven ventures. China has created one of the best ecosystems globally for AI-on-edge
computing, a keen interest of mine, and I would also like to explore opportunities in this domain. The cross-
cultural experience I had during my visit to China in 2018 encouraged me to take the HSK exams, and I was also
able to improve my Mandarin proficiency while interacting with Chinese entrepreneurs during my work stint at
Crowdera Singapore. Over my career, I intend to collaborate with global bodies such as governments/the United
Nations and venture labs to help foster the culture of overcoming social challenges through entrepreneurship.

9. What field in MBA? Why?

 Concentration in Finance, Marketing,

 Elective either in Strategy & Entrepreneurship OR Economics/Decision Sciences

10. How will you describe yourself in five terms?

 Impact Focussed Entrepreneur: In my multi-stint entrepreneurial journey, I have sold a startup, failed miserably
at another, helped scale up an on-demand ride-hailing aggregator across multiple geographies, fostered
healthcare to thousands, skilled 2500+ people for livelihood, digitally transformed fundraising for thousands of
nonprofits thus allowing them to stay afloat during COVID, organized one of the largest philanthropy summits
globally, and consulted 30+ startups on ideation and product-market fits.
 Leader:

o Led the global growth of Crowdera across India, SE Asia and North America successfully
o Led the growth of three business verticals, two of them to profitability at Olacabs
o Led the growth of Techstars community programs across South Asia as the first full time hire in the
region
o Manage a nonprofit that has impacted lives of 5K+ people in village via primary healthcare intervention
 Multicultural perspective
 Mentor
 Community and ecosystem builder:
 People management and team skills: Have successfully scaled ideas from 0-1 several times and managed teams
as large as 110
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11. How will your colleagues describe you in five terms?

 Project management expertise and an eye for detail

 Take Initiative and ownership

 Dynamic personality with strong leadership skills

 Unorthodox way of problem solving; thinking out of the box

 Fun loving while having strong work ethics

 Great adaptability

 Subject matter expertise

12. What is your greatest achievement?

 Digitally transforming 2000+ nonprofits and helping them amplify their fundraising by ~10X

13. Describe a professional challenge you faced and how you faced it.

Raising $280,000 for Kendriya Sainik Board

14. What is the biggest challenge that your current industry is facing?

 Groundata:
First customer segment would be governments and philanthropic sector who use manual & operationally
intensive techniques and past data to work on slum-related projects. However slum demographics and insights
keep changing yearly and they mostly don't have access to updated data to make data-driven decisions.

Our second customer segment are markets i.e companies requiring blue-collared workforce, and in skilling,
financial inclusion and affordable housing. For them we connect job/loan seekers with providers and reduce the
acquisition cost. We also help them build case studies on impact created in slums.

The slum and its associated problems are largely handled in a manner which has not seen technological and
process disruption for some time, which we are addressing.

 Crowdera:

~5% of Nonprofits use digital ways/intelligent fundraising tools

They don’t treat fundraising as a repeatable process

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15. For the last question, what solution do you propose?

 Groundata:

Turn slum mapping into a process by using both top-down approach using machine learning and remote sensing
as well as a bottoms-up approach using crowdsourcing.

Create a technology platform connecting slum dwellers with markets and government

 Crowdera:

Digital transformation of charities globally

Syndication and team fundraising. Effectively leveraging the power of networks and automation to amplify
fundraising.

16. Describe a moral dilemma.

 Olacabs: I have strong work ethics. I once turned down a senior’s instruction to poach a competitor’s human
resources/supply to fuel our startup’s growth. This three pronged approach – going from pay-per-hire to MBG,
scouting new supply and deal with bus manufacturers - helped us grow our fleet size by 4X within 3 months
without drastically increasing the burn rate and also increased bus routes.
The final outcome was that we increased our market share from 40% to 63% within 6 months. I gained respect
from our CEO, who would later entrust me with leading other verticals as well. Having an ethical compass
allowed me to think outside the box and led to business growth and a significant salary hike for me.

 Groundata:

Data usage of the crowdsourced data for business purposes.

17. Describe a failure and what you learned from it.

Second startup

 In retrospect, I should have created a sustainable business model, evaluated product-market fit, conducted more
customer interviews and taken more calculated risks.

18. If given a chance, what is one thing that you would like to go back and change in your life?

 While my 20-year-old self might be excited to know what an amazing decade of impact-creation lay in front of
him, I would strongly advise him to master the art of effective networking and put more efforts towards his
professional relationships. I would tell him that as he chased his bold entrepreneurial dreams, he would be able
to achieve 10X more if he networked with the right people and took the effort to create a tribe of mentors to
guide him. I would share examples from his future where better outcomes would have been possible through
the power of authentic, mutually beneficial connections. Lastly, I would advise him to read books to learn
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authentic networking techniques that can drastically improve his personal and professional lives and put them
to regular use.

19. Who is your idol? Why?

 Elon Musk – for his perseverance, ability to predict the future and take massive action for success and ability to
manage several startup successfully

 Sun Tzu – for the timeline philosophy in the Art of warfare that is very relevant to businesses in modern times

20. How have the recent economic trends affected you and your thought process?

It’s a wonderful time to startup and build meaningful products to help those at the bottom of the pyramid. I will
expand on it……

21. In your opinion, how does a global perspective helps a business manager in today’s world?

 Makes him a manager with a higher EQ

 Knowledge about various geographies and markets enables him to make a better data-driven decision

 Implementation of successful case studies across other geographies tweaked for relevant problem at hand

22. Which recent global phenomenon changed the way you perceive leadership? How?

COVID

It has shown everybody can be a leader provided one is willing to take ownership and has a mindset of
contributing to the society.

23. What impact do you wish to leave on your industry / functional area?

The intended impact I want to have over the next 10 years are to:

1. Facilitate opportunities in livelihoods, financial inclusion and affordable housing 500,000 slum dwellers and
low-income families via our platform.
2. Build the largest open-source technology platform across South Asia, SE Asia, Africa and LATAM, having
comprehensive secondary and primary data on slums
3. License the technology IP to various geographies globally.

24. What is your USP?

 My superpower is scaling ideas from 0 to 1. In my multi-stint entrepreneurial journey, I have sold a startup,
failed miserably at another, helped scale up an on-demand ride-hailing aggregator across multiple geographies,
fostered healthcare to thousands, skilled 2500+ people for livelihood, digitally transformed fundraising for
thousands of nonprofits thus allowing them to stay afloat during COVID, organized one of the largest
philanthropy summits globally, and consulted 30+ startups on ideation and product-market fits.
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25. How will you describe leadership?

Leaders give back to society

Leaders take extreme ownership. They get things done and not give excuses

26. Describe a situation where you exhibited leadership.

Fundraising is the biggest survival challenge for non-profits in India. At Crowdera, attempting to empower social
enterprises by leveraging technology, I onboarded the strategic account of Kendriya Sainik Board (KSB), a
government body responsible for the welfare of ex-servicemen and war widows of the Indian armed forces.
Addressing the board’s deficit of $20 million via crowdfunding was a challenge of unforeseen scale.

As I strategized the campaign, I decided to approach the masses to leverage the emotional appeal of patriotism.
To this effect, I devised an outreach plan to engage socially-conscious Indian celebrities. Simultaneously, I
worked on reaching out to corporates and high-net-worth individuals. Additionally, I networked extensively
inside the Ministry of External Affairs and sought help from the Indian diaspora in Singapore. Solving challenges
as they came along, I was able to raise a substantial $280,000 and change 9,745 lives via the campaign. KSB,
seeing a successful pilot, extended the contract for another $20 million fundraise.

I consider this experience a landmark achievement not only because it was a means of giving back to our
defense forces but also because I introduced a fundamental shift in the fundraising attitude of an apex
government body.

27. According to you, what are the key strengths needed in a successful business manager?

 Strong analytics and business aptitude; he should be knowledgeable about core business topics.

 Some kind of a subject matter expertise

 Effective and dynamic leader

 Good people management and team building skills

 Strong work ethics

 Ability to mentor

 Should operate on lean methodology and have first principles thinking

28. According to you, what are the key strengths needed for the role you wish to assume immediately after MBA?

 Clarity in fundamentals of business such as finance, accounting, marketing

 Having access to world-class domain experts in each field to fast-track learning of each area

 Support of a strong alumni base and MBA brand to help in fundraising

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 Experience in scaling startups fast across multiple geographies

 Leadership quality and the ability to mentor

 Subject matter expertise

29. For the previous question, in your opinion, what skills you already have and what skills do you need to
develop?

I need to develop:

 Clarity in fundamentals of business such as finance, accounting, marketing

 Having access to world-class domain experts in each field to fast-track learning of each area

 Support of a strong alumni base and MBA brand to help in fundraising

30. How will you contribute to the MBA class?

 I am aware of the importance of peer contribution and hence, from my side, I wish to share my many ups and
downs, insights about social entrepreneurship and scalability challenges, and, most importantly, the idea of the
fortune at the bottom of the pyramid.
 My venture, Groundata has been incubated at four of India’s top startup incubators and being a part of reputed
startup incubators gave me access to thought leaders, philanthropists, and CEOs who helped me with invaluable
insights to scale better. I believe I can help fellow entrepreneurs in Mendoza College of Business to establish
effective processes right in the beginning, reduce their product-market fit cycles, conduct better customer
interviews, build their Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) faster and thus scale their ideas faster.

31. What is the first thing a person will notice about you when he meets you?

 My dynamic and helpful personality

32. If you are not successful in achieving your desired profile after MBA, what shall be your plan B?

 Technology based consulting roles

 PE/VC industry

33. If you do not get selected, what shall be your alternative?

 Continue working on my startup

 Apply to Chinese accelerators like China Accelerator and MOX to expand across China

34. What questions do you have for the admissions committee member interviewing you?
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 I would want to know more about the shorter, 1 year version of the program. Do I have to come back to
my country if I opt for that or can I still leverage China ecosystem for my startup. Secondly, does opting
for the option significantly diminish my chances to get a job offer post MBA via CEIBS?

 What is the process/evaluation criteria to get into eLAB? Can I network with CEIBS Alumni for growing
Groundata and fundraising during the program?

 I want to better understand the choice between focussing on general business management or choosing
one of four concentrations in Finance, Marketing, Digital Business or Entrepreneurship.

Important

To ensure the best takeaways from the mock, please do your homework well.

- Before the mock with us, practice answering these questions while looking into a mirror. If possible, record
yourself and hear your answers to improve your performance.

- In mock, conduct/behave/speak/dress the way you expect yourself to- for the real B school interview.

We look forward to hearing from you!

All the best!

Experts’ Global Team

isss@babson.edu

You are a product manager at a firm with a video-conferencing platform. During the pandemic, managers in your firm
have watched and rejoiced as your business grew. You have been reading articles in both the popular press as well as
the business press about ‘Zoom fatigue.’ As PM, what would you suggest your firm do to: a) catch up with Zoom in
market share during the pandemic and b) stay in business once the pandemic is over.

The case study is not meant to test your domain knowledge or your ability to get to a particular “right” answer. Instead,
what we will look for is:

1. Problem-solving abilities - what approach do you take to start to address the question/challenge presented in the
case study

2. Analytical and creative thinking

3. Presentation of qualitative and/or quantitative data or evidence or logic to support your analysis and
recommendations

4. Communication skills
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Millions of people chose Zoom over other platforms, driven by its ease of access and good user experience. However,
the rapid growth in popularity has revealed some security flaws, including a vulnerability that allowed an attacker to
remove attendees from meetings, hijack shared screens, and spoof messages from users. As a result, Zoom has been
banned by governments for use on official business in Canada and Taiwan and numerous organizations including SpaceX
and Nasa.

user email addresses and photos have leaked, calls aren't being end-to-end encrypted, and flaws found in the Zoom
installer allow an attacker to gain root access to computers that run a malicious version of it. Even Zoom CEO Eric Yuan
admitted the company moved too fast and made missteps.

Security researchers found that those authorized to attend meetings on Zoom cloud meeting app were able to carry out
malicious activity
The research found that uninvited guests can gate-crash a con-call on Zoom video app and the technique was
technologically named as “Zoombombing”

allowing access to hackers to access the camera and microphone of Zoom Video Communication app users. Zoom
meeting app loaded devices can be used in Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks.

In April 2020 over 500,000 emails and password of Zoom app users were leaked and dumped on the dark web for sale
due to a flaw in ‘Company Directory’

Step 1: Select a Platform: web-based and native.

 Initially, while web-based application is preferable for ease of use and scalability, in order to increase market
and increase MAC, as a PM, I would plan launch of native applications for laptop and mobile for better security
issues, give the software more power and support legacy devices which don’t support certain (WebRTC) APIs,
native is the road to take.

 For native applications, you should take into account which mobile platform you wish to support. I would
recommend using frameworks like React Native which allows to build native apps that runs on both Android and
iOS devices to save time and resources and go-to-market faster

 Explore partnerships with laptop and mobile companies to bundle in the VC platform.

Step 2: Focus on security-related features

 B2B and B2G segments would be the area to focus on to augment revenue and market share. Zoom has been
banned by governments such as Canada and Taiwan and organizations including SpaceX and Nasa for its security
flaws which make it easy for hackers to exploit.
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 To define technical features, I would first conduct a secondary research to understand the issues faced by
market leaders like Zoom such as hijacked shared screens, removal of attendees from meetings by hijackers
spoof messages from users.
 I would work with the tech team to build a product roadmap to ensure such security issues don’t occur for us
since our TG is B2B and B2G
 End-to-end encryption to ensure security and platform stability and also focus on ensuring data leakage is
absent. One of the issues about Zoom app is that it uses LinkedIn data surreptitiously allowing participants to
access LinkedIn profile data about other participants without their knowledge.
 Protect user privacy and security so that access the camera and microphone cannot be used in DDoS Attacks by
hackers

Step 3: Regularly update the features

 Conduct customer interviews with existing or new corporates and if possible local governments to understand
their business needs and accordingly build a product roadmap.
 Create a priority matrix of features in order to align the tech team for focussing on features that can lead to
growth in revenue.

Step 4: Know the tech stack

 Helping create a tech stack from the beginning where processes are optimised towards automaton for faster
iteration, scalability and keeping the internal team lean. For example, there are two ways to develop video
conference application - On-premise and using a CPaaS (Communication-Platform-as-a-Service) provider.

 On-premise means that you are responsible for both developing the application and managing the required
server infrastructure.

 On the other hand, using a CPaaS means that you only take care of developing the app while using the
infrastructure of a provider, usually paying a monthly fee for it.

Step 5: Focus on customer success and NPS

 Have regular calls with our beta users.
 2 min Questionnaire to rate features and incentives via 3 months of free access to premium features

Step 5: Startup Program

 Launch a startup program to provide free/deeply discounted platform offering and tie up with major bodies in
various countries which foster startup ecosystem such as NASSCOM or Startup Chile.
 Tie up with Incubators/Accelerators globally via a community driven approach

As a good PM, must first figure out who the customers are and what problems the customers have. They must know
how to set a vision, finding the right opportunities by using both data and intuition and define success, for the customer
and the product, by prioritizing doing what is right over doing what is easy. They must know how to work with engineers
and designers to get the right product built, keeping it as simple as possible.

They must know how to work with marketing to explain to the customer how the product fills the customer’s need
better than a competitor’s product.
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Sometimes, this even means a PM getting coffee for a team that’s working long hours to show appreciation. By the way,
PMs manage products, not people, so they must achieve everything using soft influence, effective communication,
leadership, and trust—not orders.
Ironically, the thing a PM does the most is say “no