So my first interview was on 24th April and second on 25th April, 2025. The first interviewer graduated back in 2009 when she was already 35+.
She mentioned initially that the interview would be quite conversational, but because she was majorly in Corporate Social Responsibility, it was very difficult to help her understand my career motives and ST/LT goals. We had a nice chat, but her questions seemed out of place and were not specific questions. She was trying to ask a question and then digress the topic in a different direction. This made me meander in multiple direction as well in my responses. However, the vibe was positive overall.
My second interview was more taxing and apparently one of the most stressful interviews I have had for any b-school. This guy was a 2008 graduate and a veteran in private equity. It was already clear that he wouldn’t be an easy guy to deal with when he did not respond initially to setup the interview timing and later told the INSEAD adcom that I had not reached out to him.
But, my interview experience was next level. I drove for 2 hours to meet him in his office at Nariman Point, Mumbai. The interview started 30 mins late. He came and did not even greet me. Typical PE guy (wearing a tailor-stitched shirt and cuff links with his initials). He straight away jumped into my application. To my surprise, he had color coded my entire application and scrutinized every single aspect of my application, including my essays.
He was not convinced as to why I have switched roles in the sector and why I have recently switched to IB.
I kept my stance firm, but it seemed he was already prejudiced. He kept on questioning and throwing bouncers at me. For example, “your essays say that you will bring impact in healthcare, but your CV does not reflect that and is more focused on profits.” I responded, ‘why can’t both objectives be achieved at the same time’ and gave him examples from my international experience. He was still not convinced and said I don’t think it can happen in IB, so let it be…
He questioned a lot about my extracurriculars (EC) as well. I asked him to at least help me understand which aspect of the application he was referring to as he was pointing to some specific words. He repeated the words again and then I was able to share the context behind my EC. Not sure if he was trying to put me under stress again or wanted to check if I was just fluffing my application.
In the end, he asked me if I had any questions for him. I asked him a couple and his response was not at all satisfactory as if he was not interested in responding. Again, he asked if I had any more questions. To this I volunteered and said, I don’t have any further questions, but I would be happy to answer any more questions pertaining to M&A that I have done (in my mind, I was thinking that I have not impressed him enough and we did not even touch this topic). He asked me a question from a product that I had launched in 2017 for a fintech company. He again scrutinized the word I had written: pioneered. The entire discussion revolved around the fact that I launched the product and did not ‘pioneer’ it and he asked me to not use such word in my CV.
In the end we greeted each other and I thanked him for going into such detail with every aspect of my application. He responded, “No worries. That’s my way of giving back to the community. I do it all the time. You will do it as well one day.”
That last line again threw me off guard. I thought my interview was a disaster. What did he mean by that last line. I am still not sure what to make of it, but as per my experience this interview can augur bad news (given INSEAD was my top choice.)
