CentreCourt London: Leading Adcoms Spill The Beans

Symonds: David, you’ve read a record number of round two applications and a record number of letters of recommendation. How do they help you gain insight into what makes an applicant tick?

Simpson: Everything we ask for, we use and we look at very carefully. I think with recommenders, we can get a couple of less obvious things out of it: Who did you ask and why. Who you’ve asked and why can say a lot about you. We’re very careful with the responses because there are patterns from around the world where sometimes your referee seems to take it easy on you or can be pretty tough. We’ve noticed those patterns. Because we’ve asked the referee what your weakness is, most of the time it will be, “Works too hard.” It’s another data point and it’s perhaps a good point to start a discussion rather than something to really give you positive points or negative points. Like everything, we’re careful, but they’re useful. Otherwise, we wouldn’t ask for them.

Symonds: Are you then sensitive to culture? Perhaps an American recommender might use very enthusiastic language versus a Norwegian who might say, “This person’s performance is quite satisfactory.”

Simpson: To some extent, yeah. We will perhaps knock the edges off the positivity or the negativity with that in my mind, but I think it would be very clumsy to do it automatically. I know the Brits are pretty tough on the people they recommend, but I think on the whole careful use of recommenders is very worthwhile.

Symonds: Right. As one of the top U.S. business schools, Tepper will receive thousands of applications. How do you determine if a candidate has really taken the time to get to know Tepper well?

Cecchetti: We certainly understand that you can’t come to visit our campus at times, but we have students that are available to talk to any prospects or applicants and answer any questions that they may have. Oftentimes, I see applicants addressing that, their knowledge of Tepper, whether they are speaking to current students or alumni. It does show in their application. Also, we want to know if we are the right program to help you achieve your MBA goals.

Symonds: Do you read the top of the CV that features education and job titles, or the interesting stuff down at the bottom in the extracurriculars? Where do you start?

Michels: The most interesting stuff is at the bottom of the CV, in my opinion. You go through the CV looking at geography and maybe some brands that you recognize. You try to see what the functions are, but then your eyes linger when you see the karate black belt, the professional dancing, or mountain climbing. Whatever it is. Then if there’s nothing there, you travel back up and you dig a bit deeper. Generally, if there’s something really fun and interesting, that’s also how I will tend to start the interview. ‘Hey, I saw you climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Is there snow at the moment? Was there snow when you climbed it? What do you think about climate change?’ Then you can lead to interviews that are completely off the beaten track simply because there was something juicy in that part of the CV. Now if you don’t have anything super interesting to put there, don’t invent it. That would be a disaster.

Symonds: Okay. My follow-on question from that comes from an article in the New York Times last week. It explored whether someone should consider putting a failure on a resume. When you look at applicants to the top business schools, they diligently put together their accomplishments. Is there room for failure in the application?

Michels: It makes me a bit angry actually that you tell me this because I’ve been thinking about writing a post about what would be an honest CV with strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failures. I think it would be an absolutely amazing CV to review and I think we could get so much out of it. In the last 50 to 60 interviews I’ve done, I always ask candidates what makes them unique. Invariably, they talk about their strengths, which is not answering the question. What’s interesting is that nobody ever mentions a weakness. A weakness can perfectly well be the one thing about you that makes you unique. Then you have the whole philosophical debate about whether uniqueness in itself is something positive. So I think it’s an under-utilized prism through which it would be a very interesting way to look at candidates.

Symonds: Laurel, is there a place for failure in the whole dialogue that an applicant would have with Yale?

Grodman: Absolutely. I think we sometimes get an honest view of it from a recommender. One of the questions that the recommender has to answer is around feedback and oftentimes that will at least indirectly get at a failure. It’s very informative to see how an applicant responds in the face of that. Obviously, we’re looking for individuals who are resilient because we’ll all face failures in our professional lives. To get another’s perspective on how gracefully, hopefully, the applicant has responded to something that was challenging is an important view. There are points within the application process at Yale as well where we ask that question a little bit more directly and hear it from the applicant as well. Of course, it’s going to be relevant in the business school setting as well because everyone has successes and failures while they’re in a program as well as in their careers beyond.

Symonds: David, as you look at an applicant, are you also thinking about qualities that will serve them well in the subsequent stages of their career?

Simpson: We got a lot to do in assessing someone for the immediate and the long-term, and that’s what we must do. But let me go back to the conversation about weaknesses or failures. It’s like any question. You can prepare for it. Those who are best prepared give a really good, thorough answer. I think it’s far more useful to dig deeper and see where the conversation takes you. That can show more about you as an individual, which in turn will lead to a good conversation about the long-term as well as the short term. I think with any interview situation, whether it’s alumni or staff, you have to cut through all the things that can be polished and practiced. You want the person to do well or make the best of it, but you want to get to know them.

I’m very cautious of candidates who are really just showing us what job they want to do post MBA. Of course, it’s important. We want really good employment stats from very employable people, but we want people who are about to invest a significant amount of money and time, energy and passion to be doing it for the long-term, for the rest of their lives, and thinking, maybe it’ll lead to this in a year, maybe it won’t. It comes back to self-awareness, open-mindedness, and the ability to expect the unexpected, to take opportunities when they come, to take different turns during your MBA journey. Whether it’s a one-year or two-year program is irrelevant. There are opportunities put in front of you. Explore them. If you stick doggedly to one post-MBA goal, you maybe get it, but then you’ve missed out on half the good stuff. Or you don’t get it, and then you’ve got a lot to do very quickly. Are you going to be strong and brave to be open-minded, to kind of flow with it during the journey of the MBA?

Symonds: Gina, David talks about the unexpected. As we look at AI, the impact of robotics and data analytics on the future of work, what are some of the skills that you see emerging for MBA students that will prepare them for tomorrow’s unexpected, uncertain job market?

Cecchetti: I definitely think the analytic skills that we teach you. If you feel that that is not your strong suit when you enter, when you leave you definitely will know your numbers. We’ve had students say that math is just not their strong suit, but we offer math skills workshops throughout their time in the program and really prepare students to know the numbers and the data so that they’re able to present in business meetings. Then it’s the other skills around leadership. Our accelerated leadership coaches work with you one on one throughout your time there, combined with the teamwork skills. We hope that you leave more mature with the overall package, everything combined to be the business leader.

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