HBS Interview Preparation: 10 Tips for Your Harvard MBA Interview

HBS interview invitation? Congratulations! This is big. HBS doesn’t offer charitable interview invitations. If you’ve received one, they’re serious about your candidacy and they want to get to know you.

Having prepped countless students for the HBS interview, I know the onslaught of internal questions that can arise: What will they ask? How much should I prepare? What if I freeze?

Take a breath. We’ve got this! Let’s focus your prep on where it’s really useful: understanding your experience more deeply and communicating it succinctly, compellingly and with infectious joy (more on that, read on!).

Here are ten tips that have brought my clients HBS victory and will get you moving in the right direction.

1. Get to know every single aspect of your application

Everything is fair game. HBS gives you the courtesy of an interviewer who has reviewed your application and cares enough about your candidacy to come prepared. Give yourself that same courtesy.

Get to know your essays, résumé and application answers inside out. Be ready to discuss the decisions, details and experiences behind them. For preparation purposes, treat anything publicly available about you as fair game too: your LinkedIn profile, published work, interviews or anything else someone could reasonably find online. That doesn’t mean your interviewer will search for all of it. It means you won’t be caught off guard if something comes up.

Your letters of recommendation are part of your application too, and questions may touch on experiences or feedback your recommenders described. If you feel comfortable, you could ask a recommender whether there are one or two shared experiences or areas of development they think would be useful for you to reflect on before the interview. Make it clear that you’re not asking to see their letter or disclose anything confidential. Total respect for their privacy, zero pressure. If they’d rather not discuss it, all good.

2. Understand the thinking behind your achievements

They want to understand how you approach and think about your challenges and choices. For each important example, ask: What was the problem? Why did I choose that approach? What did I personally do? Who else contributed? What happened? What did I learn?

An outcome becomes more meaningful when you can explain the judgment and effort behind it. Give colleagues credit while making your own contribution clear.

3. Practice follow-up questions

HBS is big on this. They’re after depth. Don't stop when you've delivered the polished version of a story. Ask a practice partner to probe: Why did you do that? What alternatives did you consider? What would you change now?

Notice where you become vague or the details are murky. Those moments can show you where more reflection would help.

4. Lead with the answer

Long introductions can hide your strongest point. Try answering directly, then offering the context needed to understand it.

If you're asked what you learned, begin with the lesson. If you're asked why you made a decision, begin with the reason. Leave room for the interviewer to explore further. Get the basics down, they’ll ask for the additional details they want. If there’s something truly compelling that you didn’t get a chance to mention, that’s the gift of the post-interview reflection.

5. Explain your work to someone outside your field

They want to know that you can be a teacher to anyone in your class, especially those from backgrounds completely different from yours (I’m looking at you, friends in PE). Your projects or deals may be complex. Your explanation should still be understandable to any reasonably clever person. Replace unexplained acronyms with plain language, and connect technical detail to the people, business or problem it affected.

Try explaining one project to a friend outside your industry. Do they understand what you’re talking about? Are they able to hold at least a basic conversation on the topic based on what you’ve shared?

6. Prepare for honest reflection

Confident humility is queen here (and, well, everywhere really). Choose examples involving a mistake, disagreement or difficult decision. Consider what you understood then, what you understand now, and what changed in your behavior.

You can acknowledge uncertainty without giving up ownership of your experience.

7. Use practice to identify changes

After a mock interview, select two or three improvements. Perhaps your answers need a clearer opening, more specific evidence or less background.

Give yourself time to integrate those changes. Repeating an interview without reflecting on feedback can reinforce the same habits.

8. Leave room to be present

HBS describes its interview as a 30-minute conversation with an MBA Admissions Board member. Take them at their word. They want you to have a great experience because they want to get the most out of the exchange. They’re crafting one of the most prestigious classes of MBA students on the planet. If you’re there, they think a lot of you already, so go in ready to share more of the good stuff that obviously worked for you in your application.

HBS also requires a post-interview reflection within 24 hours. Watch this space for more on that.

9. Find the stories that make your eyes light up

Pick five to ten experiences you’ve absolutely loved, that have meant something to you, or that still excite you when you talk about them. A project you cared deeply about. A person you helped. A problem you loved getting your teeth into. Something you built, learned or changed.

They don’t all have to be your biggest achievements. Sometimes the example that brings you to life is the one that tells us most about what matters to you.

Get to know these stories well enough to draw on them naturally when they fit the question. You’re not trying to squeeze all ten into the interview. You’re reminding yourself that there’s good stuff here, and you get to share it.

10. Go forth with joy and confidence

Speaking as a performance coach, I want you to pay attention to what happens when you talk about something you love. Your voice changes. Your expression changes. We get a glimpse of the person behind the application.

Joy is a precious human emotion. Let your interviewer see what brings you alive.

And there’s research behind the idea that emotions can be infectious. In a 2002 study, “The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and Its Influence on Group Behavior,” Sigal Barsade found that positive emotion spread among people in a group task and was associated with better cooperation, less conflict and more positive perceptions of task performance.

That study wasn’t about HBS interviews. My coaching takeaway is that the feeling you bring to a conversation can help shape the experience of the people sharing it with you.

So let yourself enjoy talking about the work and people you care about. There’s no need to manufacture enthusiasm or grin your way through a difficult story. When something makes your eyes light up, let it.

Go forth with joy and confidence, friends. You’ve got something worth sharing.

Want personalized practice?

I'm Charli Taylor, founder of EduVentura Global. You’ll find multiple students I’ve coached in HBS classrooms (and throughout the M7) in any given year. I’d love to invite you to be one of them! My expert HBS interview coaching begins with your application and focuses on your experience, communication and confidence.

Explore HBS interview preparation or email charli@eduventura.global with your interview date to check availability.

Source for HBS format and reflection requirements: HBS interview logistics

Independent coaching; no affiliation with or endorsement by Harvard Business School.

Photo credit: Ajay Suresh / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Resized for web.