原文载于Poets&Quants, 链接：https://poetsandquants.com/2019/09/23/imd-assessment-day-mba-admissions/
For These Jittery MBA Applicants, It’s The Ultimate Game Of Thrones
BY: JOHN A. BYRNE ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
“What’s the most interesting thing about yourself?” The deceptively simple question lands on the young professional like a punch to the gut. Though it is asked with a warm smile, the 27-year-old man who receives it is visibly shaken, as nervous as someone about to undergo surgery. An engineer, he works in industrial sales for a company in Denmark, and he is here, in Lausanne, Switzerland, in his dark blue suit and tie because he wants to be in the next MBA class at IMD, the International Institute for Management Development. A discomforting pause fills the conference room as the man fiddles with a pen in his hands. He is twisting the pen this way and that, clicking the ballpoint in and out of its white plastic case as his questioner waits patiently for an answer. SECONDS THAT FEEL LIKE AN ETERNITY The five seconds of silence feels like an eternity. Finally, the answer comes but not before he stares at the ceiling, then out the window and finally faces Anna Farrus, the head of MBA admissions at the school. “I would say my personality,” he says haltingly. “I am a happy person. I am good with people, and I like to make people laugh.” The question may well be the easiest he will face that day from Farrus, who has the instincts of a prosecutor drilling a courtroom witness yet the appearance of a welcoming grammar school teacher. Her questions are unpredictable and often relentless, particularly when there’s an opening to dart down with a series of penetrating follow-ups that leave the jittery candidate down a path of highly revealing remarks. IMD’S ASSESSMENT DAY IS A GRUELING SET OF CHALLENGES He is here with five other candidates for what IMD calls Assessment Day that some might regard as the quintessential Game of Thrones for an MBA aspirant. It’s an entire day in which the school tests candidates who have made the first cut and received an invitation to interview. The Q&A is just one part of a challenging series of exercises the include a case study presentation before IMD Dean Sean Meehan, an evaluative lunch with alumni, an individual test in which each applicant draws a question that must be answered on the spot in two minutes or less, and finally a stressful blind-folded exercise in team dynamics. Throughout the day, the applicants will be closely observed by a trio of admission officials as well as the school’s dean. They will watch and interpret body language as much as they will listen to every spoken word, judge how the candidates interact with each other, and ultimately draw conclusions about each person’s drive, intelligence, confidence, assertiveness, leadership potential, and their ability to work successfully with others. Last year, 430 candidates applied for one of 90 seats in IMD’s MBA program, recently named the best one-year MBA in the world in the latest return-on-investment ranking by Forbes which also found that MBA graduates from IMD also rack up five-year compensation gains of nearly $170,000 after the expense of getting the degree. That total exceeds every other business school, including Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. MBA APPLICATIONS ARE UP 11% THIS YEAR WITH ONE MORE DEADLINE LEFT Of the 430 candidates, only 164, or 38%, were invited to Assessment Day last year. Some 129 were ultimately given an offer of admission. Once you’re invited to the day’s grueling, anxiety-ridden challenges, the chances of getting into IMD are high (roughly eight of ten applicants are admitted) but rejection is bruising for those who have made it this far. And this year, the hurdle rate is higher because MBA applications are up 11% with one more deadline left on Oct.1 before the January start of the new class. Most business schools, of course, interview applicants before admitting them. Some enlist alumni or second-year MBA students to do those sit-down sessions, such as Stanford, while other schools, including Harvard, have their own admission officials do the interviews. But bringing applicants in for a full day of tests as IMD as done for more than 20 years is certainly unique and nerve-wracking for candidates. It’s a major investment for the school which puts on a dozen of these challenges off-campus in locales as varied as Cape Town and Singapore and New York and New Delhi as well as 16 to 17 on IMD’s pastoral campus nestled close to Lake Geneva. WITH JUST 90 STUDENTS A FEW ADMISSION MISTAKES COULD IMPACT THE ENTIRE MBA EXPERIENCE With only 90 students, a few admission mistakes could alter the entire MBA experience. The small group breeds deep loyalty to each other and the school. So IMD wants to make sure that it is admitting people who will fit into its highly collaborative, supportive culture and its full embrace of cultural diversity. Some 39 nationalities make up the current crop of MBA students at IMD who tend to be slightly older at 31 with an average of seven years of work experience than many other top schools. IMD seeks students who also will contribute to the experience in ways that demand students be completely open, even vulnerable to each other. Among other things, it is the only MBA experience in the world in which students receive 20 hours of Jungian therapy sessions. “It’s important for us to see how they react to each other,” says Dean Meehan. “It’s interesting to see when one struggles, do they try to rescue the candidate or do they think it’s one less to compete against. We are bringing them in on the basis that they can do the work. We’re trying to select the best group of 90 we can find. If we get the selection right, the rest of the year will be easy.” At its heart, adds Meehan, IMD’s MBA experience is “a personalized leadership development program. It’s not a how-smart-are-you program. A company wouldn’t hire someone without a series of long interviews so why should we accept anyone without a more thorough assessment? After all, we are triaging on behalf of our recruiters.”
IMD's Admission Stats for the Class of 2019Applications to IMD's one-year MBA program are up 11%, with one more deadline to go on Oct. 1. Last year, the school admitted 30% of its 430 candidates. Those who survived the first cut and were invited to participate in Assessment Day had a 79% chance of getting an invite to the program.
‘IT’S A LONG SIX HOURS OF UNCERTAINTY YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH’ MBA students who have gone through the process recall it with a measure of fear and relief. “You’re constantly on edge,” says Peter Kalet, a current IMD student from Los Angeles who had been a plant manager for Danaher. “You’ve made it pretty far but you’ve got to get over this hurdle. It’s a long six hours of uncertainty you have to go through.” Yet for some, it’s oddly an attraction. “It’s one of the reasons I chose IMD because they really select the best,” believes Jaime Charad, another current student from Chile, “It’s not just a half-hour interview with alumni like it can be at many other schools.” Today, on Sept. 20th, there are a half dozen candidates who will be tested, each of them from a different part of the world. IMD agreed to allow Poets&Quants to observe and report on the challenge as long as the identity of the applicants was kept confidential. Besides the slim young man from Denmark, there is a 33-year-old extrovert from China who works in Dubai, a 29-year-old American employed by a tech firm in New York City, a 30-year-old business development manager who works in her family business from Turkey, a 29-year-old female chemical engineer woman from India, and a male consultant from Germany who would be sponsored by his employer. JET-LAGGED & JITTERY, CANDIDATES ARRIVE IN SOMBER BUSINESS ATTIRE All six arrived in Lausanne the evening before. Some jet-lagged; all are jittery. They came to campus for an 8:30 a.m. tour before reporting to a sparse conference room in one of the campus’ eight buildings shortly after 9 a.m. They sit ramrod erect around the table, all outfitted in somber business attire when greeted by Farrus who assumed the top admissions role at IMD last year after a nearly dozen-year stint as head of admissions for Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and six years in admissions at IESE Business School in her native Spain. “Today’s objective,” she says, “is to get to know you a little better. But it’s also an opportunity for you to get to know us. It’s not only an assessment day for you. It’s an assessment for us. So enjoy yourselves, be yourselves. I can promise you this: by the end of the day you are going to be exhausted.” Then, each of the three admission officials escorts a candidate out of the room and into a nearby office for their interviews. Farrus chooses the young Dane in his dark blue suit, white shirt and blue tie. Before the man sits at the table, he buttons his jacket, opens a pad of white paper in front of him and takes out a pen. ‘WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU’VE HAD TO FACE?’ The rough start to Farrus’ interview is merely a harbinger of what’s next. Her questions come fast and furious, with no let-up over the next 45 minutes, causing many uneasy, bedeviling moments. “Can you think of what has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to face?” The young professional recalls an expat assignment in London who concedes he felt alone and isolated during his stint in one of Europe’s most vibrant cities. Unable to connect with others, he threw himself into his work, racking up 12 to 14 hours a day at a desk. “It was hard to meet people and make friends and my colleagues were okay.” THE GENTLE PROSECUTOR AT WORK Farrus digs in deeper, with a flurry of questions that often bring exasperating answers. “How did you deal with it?” “Why were you lonely?” “The best-case scenario is you get admitted and come. Will you be lonely here?” The applicant assures her he wouldn’t be. “First of all,” he says, “I will bring my partner and there are a lot of people here. I am sure I will find someone to get along with.” “Why do you want an MBA?” ‘WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WERE ANGRY OR FRUSTRATED?’ The candidate hesitates again, the sound of the clicking pen breaking the room’s silence. “Maybe it sounds a little cheesy but I would like to impact the world,” he says in all sincerity. “I want to advance to a place in the corporate world where I can have more influence and to do that an MBA is essential.” “Why do you want to make an impact?,” asks Farrus. “How do you think an MBA will help you impact the world?” And so it goes, on and on. “When was the last time you were angry or frustrated?” she asks. The question surprises the candidate who is visibly unsettled by it. To soften the impact, Farrus volunteers that she had been angry only that morning with her son. ‘WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR ANGER?’ “What do you do with that anger?” Farrus asks in a follow-up. And the queries continue. “Can you think of a time when you had to motivate someone to do something they didn’t want to do?” “One of the things that your recommender said is that you are very impatient.” The Dane seems frazzled by the comment but concedes it is true. “Yes, I am impatient if I am bored.” ”So you get bored easily?”
‘TELL ME WHY WE SHOULD OFFER YOU A PLACE AT IMD’ As the minutes tick away, Farrus gets to the final inevitable questions that just about every MBA applicant can expect at any business school in the world: “Why is right now the time for you to do an MBA?” “Why IMD?” “Have you talked to alumni?” “What did they tell you?” “Are you applying anywhere else?” When the candidate says he has no plans to complete an application elsewhere, he is asked why not. “Tell me why we should offer you a place at IMD?’ To finish off the session, Farrus asks if there a question that he anticipated but did not get. “You didn’t ask me what I was bad at,” he says. “This is a hard question. I get impatient. My thoughts wander and I am competitive. I have a tendency to think that a lot of things are competitive. I judge people on first impressions and I want to stop that.” A CHALLENGING CASE STUDY ORCHESTRATED BY THE DEAN When all the one-on-one interviews are complete, the candidates are back in the room and handed blue folders with a three-page case study in each. They’re asked to read the case about a construction equipment company that is trying to develop a new global strategy that would increase profitable growth. The task: to prioritize the firm’s three existing market segments and plan how to reach and serve each one. Dean Meehan, a marketing professor who has spent 22 years at IMD, opens the session. “On paper, all of you could get through this program,” he says. “Whether this program makes sense for you is something else. With this case study, we want to see how you work together to solve a problem.” The six candidates are divided into two teams and given 25 minutes to prepare for the discussion and presentation. First up at the whiteboard is the American from New York who was chosen to represent his team. Instead of focusing on the company’s upper and middle markets that cater to large construction companies and building subcontractors through direct sales, the team recommends going into the do-it-yourself market to sell its products to plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. The American explains that the company could piggyback on a decision by another building materials company, TE Habitat, to open eight retail stores over the next two years. “It requires no capital investment,” says the applicant. “It gives us better reach for our products.” PEPPERING THE CANDIDATE WITH QUESTIONS Meehan quickly interrupts the presentation, peppering the candidate with questions about market share and profitability in each market segment. The interruptions are unexpected and disconcerting. Then, Meehan begins to openly disagree with the presenter, partly to see how confident the applicant is in his team’s recommendation. “I would ignore this segment and not invest in it,” he says, “because the profitability is elsewhere. We have optimized the upper and the middle segments, and the rest we’re getting without even trying. Do you still think the rest is the number one priority?” The ensuing discussion does not make the presenter change his mind. Undaunted by the barrage of questions, the candidate retains his cool and his reserve. When the next team is up, represented by the woman from India, it reaches the exact same conclusion. Meehan cuts her off. “Can you explain, given our strategy, how we ended up in these market segments? How do you explain our market share?” ‘I KNOW THE NUMBERS!’ Instead of answering the questions directly, she simply recites the market share numbers in the case study. “I know the numbers!” insists Meehan. “What does their strategy seem to be?” The presenter is struggling with the answer and, tellingly perhaps, no one on her team is coming to her rescue. “If we go into the rest sector, we can improve our sales,” she says. “We don’t have to invest in infrastructure to do it. We can take advantage of their (the retailer’s) brand value if we get associated with them.” Asks Meehan, “Do they exist as a brand?” “They’re a major manufacturer of building materials,” she responds. “So it’s a manufacturer,” retorts Meehan. “What is the brand value? Why are we piggybacking on a manufacturer’s brand?” “That is a plus if we use their resources,” she says. “Did you make an estimate of the market size?” asks Meehan. “They are going to open eight stores in the next two years. What kind of revenue would you expect from eight stores?” The young woman doesn’t have an answer. “We don’t have a way to validate that point,” she says flatly. “Okay,” says Meehan. “Thank you very much.” ‘I NEED TO UNDERSTAND HOW IT WON’T WRECK OUR BRAND’ Once she sits back down with her team, the dean opens a general discussion on the case, further challenging each applicant. “I’d like to focus on to the delivery model Can you explain how the partnership with TE Habitat might work? Sean asks. One of the applicants reiterates a point already made in the presentation that using a new distribution channel, even though it is different from direct sales, would expand the company’s reach without any investment in capital. Meehan points out that the company is positioned as a premium provider. “They use direct sales and have total control over price and how their product is presented,” he says. “We scratch our heads as to how the rest get our product. But how do we ensure that our positioning isn’t corrupted when we go into a shed? One of the founders’ pillars is direct sell. We do not want to sit on a shelf against a competitor. Why on earth would they pay a premium for it? I need to understand how it won’t wreck our brand.” ‘YOU EXPLAINED DEMAND BUT HOW DO I PROTECT THE BRAND?’ The Indian attempts an answer, again repeating that it will give the company access to a market it is not currently serving. “You explained demand but how do I protect the brand?” asks Meehan. “How do we ensure there is no arbitrage between the price point we end up with at TE and the overall market?” “We can give them guidelines for selling our products,” she replies. The Dane on her team offers another solution, test stations in each of the retail stores. Instead of selling the actual product at retail, it would gather customer leads that would be followed up by the company’s direct sales staff. “Is there anything you’d like to say in conclusion?” the dean asks. LUNCH WITH ALUMS, BUT ALWAYS UNDER EVALUATION A few more comments are made before the group breaks for lunch. While Meehan does not disclose what the company ultimately decided, the company’s management did exactly what both teams of applicants recommended. His questions were meant to test the group, see how individuals would respond and how team members would support each other or just fold. The candidates go off to meet with two nearby alums who have come to campus for an hour’s lunch. Reassembled in the conference room, Farrus places a stack of cards on the table and asks each applicant to pick one, read the question on the card aloud and then spend two minutes giving an answer to the group. There’s not a second of time to prepare the answer. It has to be spontaneous. On its face, the challenge provides a glimpse into each candidates’ depth, how articulate they are on their feet, a glimpse of their professional presence and presentation skills, and a look at how the group responds to each other. DINNER WITH ANYONE IN HISTORY: STEVE JOBS The German consultant is seated closest to the pile of cards and volunteers to go first. He reaches across the table to grab a card from the top of the pile. “If you could have dinner with anyone in history who would it be and why?” “Steve Jobs,” he says, explaining that his IT background gave him a special appreciation for the co-founder of Apple Computer. He mentions the iPhone but little else. “What makes him special is that he put design and marketing first, before technology, and that was key to the company’s success.” The consultant uses up less than a minute of his time, offers no other details or explanation in support of his choice. Yet the nervous energy in the room is broken when his fellow applicants applaud him for so confidently answering the question. POLITE CHAPPING FROM APPLICANTS ON EVERYONE’S RESPONSE The woman from Turkey is next. She reads her question to the group: “If you didn’t have to work what would you do with the rest of your life?” She doesn’t miss a beat, saying she would travel but not for vacation but instead to live like a native in each locale she visits, learning the language and the culture, making friends, and gaining a deeper appreciation for the life others live. There’s more polite clapping from the applicants and then the American draws what everyone will later agree is the toughest question in the pile: “Imagine a pen that could do anything and sell it to us.” The room falls silent, eager to hear what this reserved yet confident young man will do with his task. He says he would turn the pen into whatever it is a customer wants and needs, and he haltingly provides a pair of quirky examples. More applause, yet more apprehension about how difficult the next questions are going to be. PARLOR GAME QUESTIONS FOR APPLICANTS It turns out, however, that the three remaining questions are the kind you’d expect in a parlor game. “You have two minutes to talk about anything you want.” “On your 75th birthday, someone close to you does a tribute. Please describe what this person would say about you and your life.” “Who do you admire most and why?” More revealing than the answers is the debriefing that follows the exercise. Farrus asks the group who they think got the easiest question and the hardest. She asks how their answers would change if they had more time to think about the question. And finally she makes a statement. ‘WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?’ “No one stood up to answer the question,” she says. “All of you sat down. Why is that?” The consensus was that they were following the lead of the German who failed to stand. Farrus drills down once again, poking and prodding the group. “If you had more time to prepare would you have done a different or better job?” “Do you think there was one of you who was amazing?” “Did you learn anything about the other candidates through the exercise?” With each answer, she is gauging the degree of self-awareness in each candidate, their ability to support one another, and what takeaways they’ve gained from the challenge. THE BIGGEST SURPRISE OF THE DAY OCCURS WHEN APPLICANTS ARE BLINDFOLDED The biggest surprise of the day is left for last when the admission officials toss on the table six blue blindfolds and each applicant is asked to put them on. Some nervous laughter fills the room. “We are going to put a few things in front of you,” advises Farrus. “Please don’t touch them until we tell you to.” Then, she explains that each candidate has a set of plastic shapes in different colors before them. Two of the shapes have been removed and the group’s task is to determine the shape and color of the missing pieces. It’s not an easy assignment. None of the shapes are simply squares, rectangles or circles. Instead, they are in complex shapes that look somewhat like butterflies, mountain tops, and odd triangles. They come in a variety of colors, including black, green, red, blue, and orange. An applicant can hold up a shape and ask an admissions official to identify the color of the piece but nothing else. APPLICANTS ARE BLINDLY REACHING TO TOUCH THE PLASTIC PIECES IN FRONT OF THEM The second the challenge begins, the candidates are blindly reaching in front of them to find the plastic pieces, fingering them to determine their shape and calling out to each other on what they think they’ve discovered. Not everyone has the same number of shapes, and some are extremely hard to identify. The German consultant thinks they are puzzle pieces. They are not. There’s some initial chaos in the room until the American begins to take some leadership over the challenge. “Does anyone have two shapes that are the same?,” he asks the group. “I just discovered that three of my pieces are the same and have three different shapes among my five pieces.” The rest of the participants answer his question, one by one. “Does anyone have a crescent moon shape?” he asks. There’s some confusion over the shape, but the team appears to be working well together, with the American and Turkish woman emerging as leaders. By the time the game is up, the group gets only one of the missing shapes and none of the colors. Jennifer Bachelard, IMD’s admissions staffer for the Americas, walks to the whiteboard and scribbles three words: Team, Strategy, and Result. EACH APPLICANT IS ASKED TO GRADE THE RESULT OF THE EXERCISE Each applicant is given a trio of Post-It notes and 20 seconds to grade how they think the group did on each of the game’s outcomes. Ten would be the highest score with zero the lowest. When the grades are posted, they are all over the map. Assessing their teamwork, the grades range from a low of six to a high of ten. For strategy, they range from a four to an eight. The lowest grades came in for result, ranging from a low of three to seven. Farrus explores the differences among them, asking why the Dane gave the highest seven score for result when the group only got one of four right. “We had never met each other before and I think we worked well as a team,” he says. “I think one out of four is pretty good, given the circumstances.” The American explains his strategy, to count how many pieces each person had and what shapes they were but concedes that no one was assigned to keep tabs on the total and no one could remember what each other had said. Besides, he added, there was no common vocabulary to describe the pieces which made it more difficult to identify the missing parts. The group is told that it took them 11 minutes before anyone asked an admissions person to identify a color. ‘THE COMMUNICATION WAS CHAOTIC’ “The communication was chaotic,” says the German consultant who said that people were talking over each other and that he had a difficult time following the discussion. The big takeaway? Someone should have immediately emerged as the leader and put some structure into the exercise to allow each player to understand his or her role in the game. Asked how the group could have done that, the New Yorker says he would have asked if anyone was confident to be the leader. If not, he would have then volunteered to assume that role. The takeaway for the school officials, however, was deeper. They observed who attempted to take a leadership role and didn’t, who became less engaged by the exercise and gave up, and who made the most valuable contributions overall—judgments that none of the candidates were willing to make. After a presentation on career development by Natalia Milani, career services direction, Dean Meehan then walks back into the room for a final debrief. ‘IT’S ALL ABOUT A GREAT FIT’ “I hope you had a great day,” he says to the group, relieved it was over. “As I said before, it’s all about a great fit.” He takes two questions, one from the Dane who asks if there will be any major changes to the MBA program over the next year (there won’t be) and the American who wants to know what an admitted student can do before coming to campus to set him or herself up for success. Meehan explains that each admit will receive a package of materials by mid-October for their January start. Only one assignment is required—a personal identity statement—and all the rest are optional but highly advised. “You will have to learn two languages: accounting and finance. You need to get to a level where you understand those languages. So the thing to get your head around is the quant material.” ‘YOU DEVELOP WHEN YOU STRETCH’ “Leadership development has to be experienced, and you develop when you stretch. The situations you are in have to with your chemistry with other people. It’s a simulation. People are often entrenched, not so open, and hard to change. You have to deal with different levels of experience, culture and sophistication. I don’t think you can prepare for that. The learning takes place by being conscious of what is going on around here. Have a great time before you come because we expect you to work hard when you are here.” “The world is changing beyond recognition. Our agenda has always been to focus on leadership. And in ten years time, people will depend on you. You will make significant decisions for your company and your people. That is the moment you’ll be tested with no safety net. Up until then, I feel you’re preparing. We have to think about what we can do in a one year program to prepare you for that moment in time.” If you want to be the king or queen of finance, I can think of three other schools that would be better for you. If you want to be a consultant, I can think of one other European school you should go to. But if you want to become a leader of consequence, that’s what we are here to do.” While the testing day has ended for the applicants, it is certain that the day will linger for a long time. | 
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发表于 2019-10-1 20:06:51
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