哈佛商學院面試內幕


能夠走到哈佛商學院面試官的面前可以算是一只腳踏進了哈佛，但也有不少人倒在了哈佛的門檻上。哈佛的面試到底怎么進行？面試官都會問那些問題？怎么回答才會加分？穿什么衣服？住在哪里？這些問題的答案可能都會影響到最終的面試結果。現在，哈佛校報給出了內部的參考答案。

哈佛商學院（Harvard Business School，簡稱HBS）的MBA招生面試前整整兩周，亞歷克斯•克萊納每天晚上睡覺前都反復琢磨著一份可能被問到的問題清單。周日，和HBS招生官員約好的面試前一天晚上，他從康涅狄格州的父母那里驅車來到波士頓。     次日早上，那天剛過完感恩節，克萊納穿上了深藍色西裝、藍色襯衫、保守的領帶以及黑皮鞋。他回憶說：“穿著上沒有特別浮華的東西。”接著他到狄倫樓的一個小房間報道，屋內有兩位女士坐在他對面。一位負責提問，另一位奮筆疾書，做著記錄。     接下來的30分鐘里，所有的問題中只有一個是他完全沒有準備的：“你在大學里最自豪的時刻是什么時候？”     “這個問題讓我措手不及，因為在這之前的所有問題我都有所準備，”克萊納回憶說。     畢竟，那時距離卡萊納從耶魯大學（Yale University）畢業，拿到歷史學學士學位，已經有將近4年的時間了。畢業后，他在紐約的美林證券（Merrill Lynch）從事了兩年的投資銀行業務，然后去舊金山的私募股票公司Vector Capital工作了兩年。     他對HBS的招生人員講述了當年身為大學冰上曲棍球隊的主席和隊長的一段經歷，那時他幫助組織了一場對陣約翰霍金斯大學（Hopkins University）的比賽，以紀念第一場大學間冰球比賽。     “轉眼間我的面試就結束了，”克萊納回憶說。“走出去的時候我覺得才過了幾秒鐘，但我認為我表現不錯，很好地表達了我的觀點。這實際上挺令人欣慰的。兩位面試官都挺友好，善于接受觀點，在我們的對話中也很投入。第二位面試官雖然沒有說話，但她通過點頭以及面部表情向我表示，她在仔細聽我的回答。”     克萊納很快成為哈佛大學2014屆的一名學生。現在，作為MBA校刊The Harbus的主編，他帶領一組同學刊登了最新版的《哈佛商學院面試非正式指南》（Unofficial Harvard Business School Interview Guide）。     最新版的指南在以前的基礎上做了本質的修訂和更新——篇幅長達68頁（去年的版本只有40頁），是The Harbus史上出版的最長的面試指南。之前面試中最讓克萊納驚訝的問題，以及怎樣回答這個問題的建議，正是指南所刊登的96個問題之一。所有這些問題都是由成功通過HBS招生過程的學生提供的真題。克萊納還說：“我們在分析中深度剖析招生委員會提出的每個問題的目的。”     除了這些最常見的以及完全無法預測的問題，這本售價65美元的指南還增加了一個章節，介紹了成功通過面試的HBS申請人給出的最佳面試心得。（這本指南的所有收入用于支持The Harbus的刊發基金。）克萊納和他的MBA同學還開了一個時間安排章節，敦促申請者至少用兩個月時間準備研究生管理專業入學考試（GMAT），三個月時間單獨完成HBS申請。

For two full weeks before his MBA admissions interview at Harvard Business School, Alex Kleiner would mull over a list of potential questions every night before going to bed. He drove up to Boston on a Sunday from his parents home in Connecticut the night before his scheduled session with an HBS admissions official.     On the Monday morning just after the Thanksgiving Day holiday, Kleiner slipped on a dark navy suit, a blue shirt, conservative tie, and black shoes. "Nothing too flashy," he recalls. And then he reported to a small room at Dillon House where two women sat opposite him. One asked the questions, and one feverishly scribbled notes.     Over the next 30 minutes, he received only one question for which he wasn't completely ready for: "What was your proudest moment in college?"     "It caught me off guard because all the questions I had received until then I had prepared for," recalls Kleiner.     After all, it had been nearly four years since Kleiner graduated from Yale University with an undergraduate degree in history. Since then, he had worked for two years as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch in New York and for two more years in private equity at Vector Capital in San Francisco.     He told the HBS admissions staffers how, as president and captain of the university's club ice hockey team, he helped to organize a match against Johns Hopkins University to commemorate the first collegiate ice hockey game ever played.     "It went by in the blink of an eye," recalls Kleiner. "I walked out thinking it had only begun a couple of seconds earlier. But I felt I had done a good job getting my points across. It was actually pretty comforting. Both people were kind and receptive and engaged in our conversation. The second person didn't speak but she would nod and make facial expressions to let me know she was listening to my answers."     Soon enough, Kleiner would be offered a seat in Harvard's class of 2014. Now, as editor-in-chief of The Harbus, the MBA student newspaper, the 28-year-old has found himself leading a team of students who have just published the latest "Unofficial Harvard Business School Interview Guide."     The newest edition of the guide has been substantively revised and updated -- and, at 68 pages long, (up from just 40 pages last year) is the largest ever published by The Harbus. The question that surprised Kleiner -- along with advice on how to approach an answer -- is among 96 questions revealed in the guide. All of those questions come from current students who successfully navigated the HBS admissions process. "We try in our analysis to give insight to what the admissions committee is after for each question," adds Kleiner.     In addition to the questions, which range from the most obvious to the highly unpredictable, the $65 guide contains a new section offering the best general admissions advice from successful HBS applicants. (The money made from the guide goes to support the foundation that publishes The Harbus newspaper). Kleiner and his MBA colleagues, for example, tossed in a section on timing, urging applicants to give themselves at least two months to study for the GMAT and three months to complete the HBS application alone.

這些問題，或者至少是指南里所列出的近100個問題，涵蓋了大范圍的話題和經歷，輕易就能絆倒候選人。比如：“你這周所有的對話中最有趣的是哪個？”或是“跟我講一個你目前在跟進并且非常感興趣的新聞。”正是根據后一個問題，這份指南建議申請者從計劃招生面試的那天開始實行一個新的每日晨間安排：“瀏覽所有主流商業新聞網站的頭條，閱讀看上去相當重要的所有報道，然后確保看過所有報道你所在行業，特別是你所在公司的網站（在面試時你不該表現得太空泛！）。”     對克萊納而言，他的招生面試是逆序進行的。“面試官先問我現在的工作做了多久，喜歡它的哪些方面。接著，她問我在這之前的投行工作經歷。她問我為什么從銀行轉到私募股權公司。對這個問題我有所準備，然后我們接著往前談。我們聊了許多關于耶魯和我在耶魯的經歷，包括我為什么學習歷史專業以及我是否從中得到了預期的收獲。”     對他而言，最有挑戰性的問題是那些讓你“稍微自夸一下或者自省一下。要坐在面試官面前，對他們侃侃而談這些問題并不容易。整個面試是30分鐘，問題一個一個接踵而至。由于面試官想提盡可能多的問題，所以你沒太多時間去考慮自己的答案。這對許多人來說都很艱難，尤其是對那些兩三年里沒有換過工作的人，他們最近一次面試還是在獲得那份工作的時候。     關于領導力的問題通常也是面試的一大部分。“他們絕對會問你許多關于領導力的問題，”克萊納說。“你是什么類型的領導？你對領導的定義是怎樣的，而你自己該怎樣去達到這個定義的要求？在你的上一份工作中，是否跟真正非凡的領導共事過？請說出為什么你覺得他們很出色？”     今年的指南里最無法預測的問題是哪個？克萊納有幾個答案，包括“假設我是一個8歲的小孩，請向我解釋一件事，能讓我聽懂。”     “這個有趣的問題經常被問到，”他說。“問題的關鍵在于看你是否準備好去接受HBS的案例分析法。你自己的想法，無論多復雜，可能都要解釋給一個班90個學生。有些人是某個領域的專家，其他人卻可能還是新手。所以他們用這個非常簡單的方法去測試學生的這一能力。學會這個技能非常有用。”     另一個常見的問題是：“跟我說一件你想開始著手做的事，再說一件你想做得更多的事，以及一件你希望少做點的事。”     “教授也經常讓學生提供類似的反饋，”克萊納說。“這對你來說是一次機會，你可以站出來，誠實地評估自己。比起典型的優缺點問題，它要求你表達得更具體。”

The questions, or at least the nearly 100 shared in the guide, cover a fairly vast range of issues and experiences that could easily trip up a candidate. Consider: "What is the most interesting conversation you have had this week?" or "Tell me a piece of news that you are currently following and very interested in?" The latter question is the motivation for the advice to begin a new morning routine on the day you schedule your admissions interview. "Browse all the headlines of all the major business news sites, read any stories that seem particularly pertinent, and be sure to hit up any sites that cover your industry and employer in particular (you don't want to get broadsided during your interview!)."     For Kleiner, the admissions interview worked backwards. "I was asked about my time at my current job and what I liked about it. Then, I was asked about my experience in investment banking before that. She asked why I switched to private equity from banking. I had prepared for that and gave my answer and then we kept going backwards. We started talking a lot about Yale and my experiences there, including why I majored in history and whether I got out of it what I wanted."     As far as he is concerned, the most challenging questions are those that ask you "to brag a little bit or to be introspective. It's not always easy to sit in front of an interviewer and say that to them. The whole interview is crammed into 30 minutes and it is really rapid fire. You don't get much of a reaction to your answers because they're trying to fit in as many questions as possible. It can be very tough for a lot of people, especially those who haven't interviewed for two or three years since they went through the process to get their last job."     Questions on leadership often absorb a good chunk of the interview time. "They definitely ask you a lot of questions on leadership," says Kleiner. "What kind of leader are you? What is your definition of a leader and how might you fit that description? Have you worked with any truly exceptional leaders in your last job and tell me why you thought they were great?"     The most unpredictable question in the guide this year? Kleiner has a few favorites that fit that description, including, "Explain something to me as if I were an eight-year-old."     "It's a funny one that comes up commonly," he says. "The point of this question is to see if you are ready to participate in the case method at HBS. Your own thoughts, however complicated, may have to be explained to 90 people in a classroom, some of whom may be experts in a field and others who may be novices. So they are testing all of that in a very simple question. It's a really good skill to have."     Another common question: "Tell me something you want to start doing, something you want to do more of, and something you want to do less of."     "Professors often ask for similar feedback from their students," says Kleiner. "It's a chance for you to step out and give an honest appraisal of who you are. It forces you to be more concrete than a more typical strength and weakness question."

這本指南把問題分成6個部分：經歷型、當前事件型、領導力、情景問題、事業以及課程。同時，指南還提供了一些章節，可以讓你的波士頓之行更有成效：去哪里、到哪里吃東西，在哪購物和住在哪的清單。     當然，對穿著的建議也不可或缺：女士著裝，指南建議顏色為西裝顏色，款式建議簡潔經典。“裙子的高度至少要及膝，”編輯們建議說。“鞋子應是高跟的包鞋，鞋跟高度為1至3英尺。”男士建議穿紳士款式的西裝：“確保套裝合身。向裁縫或你母親咨詢一下……正式面試時穿著的顏色應為：黑、灰或海軍藍。你可以選擇單色或（有品的）條紋色。雖然一套好的西裝能確保萬無一失，備用的運動外套也是可以的。”     克萊納說，他的面試準備大量依賴于指南。“我從面試指南入手，列出了一個問題清單。然后根據我自己的申請和簡歷，加入了更具體的問題。在幾周的過程里，我每天睡覺前都會思考這些問題以及我的答案。     所以當坐下來面試的時候，他覺得準備已經很充足了。“直到快結束的時候，我還沒有機會問問題，”他回憶到。“不過她們的最后一個問題是‘在面試結束前，你還有什么想補充的？請說其中一件事。’我說：‘我真的很想到哈佛學習。這里是我的第一選擇，我能在這兒看到未來。’”確實如此。（財富中文網）     譯者：默默

The guide divides questions into six categories: experience, current events, leadership, situational, career, and curriculum. There also are sections to make your visit to Boston productive: lists of where to go and where to eat, where to shop and where to stay.     And, of course, there is the requisite advice on what to wear: For women, the guide recommends a suit color and style that is simple and classic. "Skirt lengths need to be at least knee length," the editors counsel. "Wear closed toed pumps and a heel height of one-to-three inches." For men, the guidance is Esquire-esque: "Make sure the suit fits properly. Ask a tailor (or your mom).... Suit color palate for the formal interview: black, gray, or navy blue. You may choose plain or (sensible) pinstripes. Reserved sport coat also works, though a good suit is fail-safe."     Kleiner says he relied heavily on the guide to help him prepare for the interview. "I formulated a list of questions, using the interview guide as a starting point. Then, I added more specific questions based on my application and resume. Over the course of a couple of weeks, I would think about them and what my answers would be before I went to bed every night."     So when it came to the sit down for his session, he felt prepared. "As it came to the end, I didn't get an opportunity to ask questions," he recalls. "But they gave me the last word. 'What is one thing you want to convey as your interview comes to an end?' I said that 'I really want to come to Harvard. This is my first choice. This is where I see myself.'" Indeed.

哈佛商學院招生主管詳解面試內幕


怎樣才能如愿進入哈佛商學院學習？GMAT高分自然不用說，但除此之外呢？我們不妨聽哈佛商學院招生主管利奧波德談談她認為申請者還應該具備哪些軟素質。

迪•利奧波德，哈佛商學院招生主管

你是否曾經思考過，成功申請哈佛商學院（Harvard Business School）需要滿足哪些條件？GMAT高分是毫無疑問的。哈佛每年招生900人，收到的申請數量卻超過9,000份，而且申請者的GMAT平均分都在700分以上。     那么，申請者怎么才能脫穎而出？迪•利奧波德1980年獲得哈佛MBA學位，已在哈佛商學院工作多年，近六年來一直擔任招生主管。我們不妨聽聽她高見。     利奧波德總有辦法讓緊張的申請者在最后一關、也就是面試中放松下來。她告訴他們，比如她到時候會查收一下電子郵件，因此請他們寫下3、4個問題，面試結束后她可以問他們這些問題。有一次，遇到一個特別緊張的面試者，利奧波德提了一個自認很容易回答的問題：“假設今天是新年前夜，你有很多新年計劃，你希望在新的一年能在哪些方面取得進步……”     結果，這一招居然不管用。可憐的家伙還是坐在那兒，如坐針氈。最后，他說：“我希望能做事更有條理一些。”     “好，”利奧波德說，當時她想：“接下來我該說什么呢”于是，她讓他舉個例子。     “我本以為這趟行程該帶的東西都帶了，”他說。“但昨晚我到了波士頓，住進酒店的時候已經晚了。時間已經是周日晚上的10點。我打開行李，這時，我發現居然沒有準備襯衫，而第二天一早9點我就得去哈佛商學院面試。”     利奧波德開始有了興趣。他當時正穿著一件襯衫，干凈雪白，熨得平平整整。“你怎么辦？”     “我穿上了我的大學生聯誼會T恤，”他說。“然后做了一塊廣告牌掛在身上：‘我愿意拿T恤交換一件正裝襯衫’。然后，我走到了街頭。”     錄取！“這就是我們希望在現實生活中看到的，”利奧波德解釋稱。“也就是能想出辦法的人。不抱怨，不裝腔作勢，就是這么簡單。”     那位申請者的年齡不到20歲。他參加的是哈佛商學院的“2+2計劃”，即在每屆MBA招生中為大三學生留出約100個名額，這些人會保留學籍，完成本科學業并工作兩年后在進入哈佛就讀。

Have you thought about what it takes to get into Harvard Business School these days? Stratospheric board scores, that goes without saying. Harvard receives over 9,000 applications for 900 spots, and the average score on the GMAT for the applicant pool -- the applicant pool -- is over 700.     So how does one stand out? Dee Leopold, who earned her Harvard MBA in 1980 and has been working at the B-school for many years, the last six as director of admissions, offers some clues.     Leopold has tricks she uses to put nervous applicants at ease during their final hurdle, the mandatory interview. She'll tell them, for instance, that she's going to check her email, and invite them to jot down three or four questions she can ask them when she's finished. Once, when faced with a particularly anxious interviewee, she tossed him what she thought was a softball question: "Let's pretend it's New Year's Eve and you're making a list of resolutions of what you're going to be better at this year…."     It didn't help. The poor guy sat there, miserable. Finally, he said, "I'd really like to be more organized."     "Okay," Leopold says she was thinking, "Where am I going to go with this?" She asked him for an example.     "I thought I'd packed really well for this trip," he began. "But I got to my hotel late last night, 10:00 on a Sunday night in Boston. I unpacked, and I realized I have a 9:00 Monday morning interview at Harvard Business School and I don't have a shirt."     Leopold perked up. He was wearing a shirt now. Clean and white and neatly pressed. "What did you do?"     "I put on my fraternity tee-shirt," he said, "made a sandwich board that said 'Will barter for dress shirt,' and went out on the street."     Accept! "That's exactly what you want in real life," Leopold explains. "Somebody who's going to figure it out. No fuss, no fanfare, that's it."     That applicant was barely 20 years old. He came in through Harvard's "2+2 Program," which sets aside about 100 slots in every class for college juniors who agree to postpone their enrollment until they've finished school and worked for two years.

哈佛和大多數一流商學院一樣，多年來一直希望MBA申請者至少應該具備一定的工作經驗。從十年前開始，哈佛商學院就已經停止了招收完全沒有工作經驗的本科畢業生。但利奧波德稱，為此哈佛損失了太多優秀的申請者，因為希望早日完成學業的學生們都申請去了法學院、公共政策學院和博士生項目。2+2計劃是“走進本科校園，匯聚學生人氣”的一種方式。利奧波德稱：“然后我們可以談談MBA學位，它不只是打開一扇門，而是讓很多門都保持開啟狀態。我們不想讓你現在就入學。但不妨從現在就開始考慮考慮？”     哈佛商學院最希望通過2+2計劃吸引“科技、工程和數學專業的學生。他們不太懂商業，但最終仍會從商，并且有所建樹，因為他們知道如何做事，如何制造，如何思考。”利奧波德稱，哈佛可以在這個基礎之上傳授商業技能，合作技巧和說服藝術。“有點像既會反手，又會正手。”     利奧波德和她的同事們每年到訪約60家本科學校，宣講2+2計劃，有些學校傳統上并非不是哈佛的生源地。（“我們喜歡位于密歇根州弗林特的凱特林大學（Kettering），”即前通用汽車學院（General Motors Institute），以工程學院和合作項目著稱）如果說有什么問題的話，那就是這個項目近年來太成功了，產生了利奧波德稱為“松鼠鉆進喂鳥器”的現象，也就是喧賓奪主的問題。     被利奧波德比作“松鼠”的是“那些還在娘胎里就知道自己將來希望成為投資銀行家的人”，他們把2+2計劃視為捷徑。倒不是利奧波德對投資銀行家有什么看法。（“我有一些最慷慨、最友善的同學就在華爾街工作。因此，我絕不會，你明白的……”）利奧波德說，只是松鼠雖然很可愛，但卻具有一定侵略性，它們最終擠走了鳥兒。接著，她講了另一個故事。     “故事發生在招生辦公室的樓下，”利奧波德說。“當時所有人都在樓下集合，個個都很緊張。他們在想，招生辦公樓簡直比牙醫診所還可怕。我下樓叫一個人，帶她上樓面試。遠遠地，我看到這位年輕姑娘在樓梯半道停住了。她說：‘稍等，我得下樓一趟。’她說，她剛才告訴坐在她旁邊的人，到了3點鐘就應該自己上樓去面試。“我必須得和他們說一聲，不是這么回事，到時候會有人帶我們上樓。”     “這些事情真的會觸動我，”利奧波德說。“這么年輕，在全力投入一件事的時候還能夠想到別人，真的很了不起。”錄取！     譯者：老榆木

Like most top-tier B-schools, Harvard has long preferred that its MBA candidates arrive with at least some job experience. It stopped accepting students straight out of college a decade ago. But according to Leopold, Harvard was losing too many fast-track candidates to law schools, public policy schools, and Ph.D. programs. The 2+2 option was conceived as a way to "get on a college campus and attract a crowd," Leopold says. "We could then talk about this degree that doesn't open one door, it keeps many doors open. We don't want you to come now. But what if you think about it now?"     The students Harvard wants to attract most through 2+2 are "STEM people -- science, technology, engineering and math. People that don't know a lot about business, but they're going to end up in business, and they're going to be really good at it because they know how to do things, make things, think through things." Start with that, Leopold says, add what Harvard can teach -- business know-how, collaborative skills, the art of persuasion --and "it's like having a backhand and a forehand."     Leopold and her colleagues promote 2+2 with visits to about 60 college campuses a year, not all of them traditional Harvard feeder schools. ("We love Kettering in Flint," the former General Motors Institute, known for its engineering school and co-op program) If anything, the program has been too successful in recent years, giving rise to a predicament Leopold describes as "squirrels at the bird feeder."     The squirrels in Leopold's analogy are "people who've known they want to be investment bankers since they were in diapers," and see 2+2 as a shortcut. Not that Leopold has a problem with investment bankers. ("Some of the most generous and kind classmates I have are on Wall Street. Therefore I would never, you know, geez….") It's just that, well, cute as they are, squirrels are aggressive, Leopold says. They crowd out the songbirds. Then she tells one more story.     "It happened downstairs in the admission office," Leopold says. "Everybody congregates down there. They're all nervous. They're all thinking this is worse than the dentist's office. I go down to pick someone up and bring her upstairs for an interview. And this other young woman I was watching from a distance, she stops halfway up the stairs and says, 'Wait, I need to go back downstairs.' She had told the person sitting next to her that she should just go up the stairs at 3:00. She said, 'I have to tell them no, someone will come and get you.'     "Those are the things that really get me," says Leopold. "Wow, when you're so young and self-absorbed and you can already think about somebody else, that's, like, really beautiful." Accept!

求職面試中哪些問題千萬問不得


“這份工作是干嘛的？”“你愿意跟我約會嗎？”，“我能預支工資嗎？”“每天都得上班嗎？”面試者提出這些問題時，主考官瞬間就清醒了。

有些人在參加面試之前就想好了一些明智的問題。而有些人則截然相反。最近，獵頭公司OfficeTeam對650名人力資源總監和招聘經理進行了調查，要求他們回憶求職者提出的最稀奇古怪或者最令人不快的問題。下面是其中一部分結果：     • “這份工作是干什么的？”     • “我每天都得來上班嗎？”     • “你愿意跟我約會嗎？”     • “你想不想坐上我的新車出去兜風？”     • “這間辦公室用的是什么顏色的涂料？”     • “能讓我丈夫替我完成這份測試嗎？”     • “這家公司的老板是單身嗎？”     • “你們這里有沒有適合我愛人的崗位？”     • “在這里工作的女人長什么樣兒？”     • “你們允許中午午睡嗎？”     • “我需要在工作中投入多少時間？”     • “我能預支工資嗎？”     • “我能把我的辦公桌搬到自助餐廳旁邊嗎？”     • “你們能幫我找一間公寓嗎？”     • “你能幫我完成雇傭測驗嗎？”     • “我能在每周二休息嗎？”     • “我最快多久可以有第一次休假？”     • “能每個月給我三周假期，讓我追求我的音樂事業嗎？”     • “我能在生日那天休假嗎？”     關于求職者的最后四條要求，OfficeTeam執行董事羅伯特•霍斯金解釋道，休假時間是福利的一部分，所以，“最好在雇主真正表現出愿意提供工作機會的意愿之后再討論”——當然，這種情況不太可能出現。（財富中文網）     譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

Some people arrive at job interviews with a well thought out list ofsmart questions. And then there are the other kind. Staffing firm OfficeTeam recently asked 650 human resources executives and hiring managers to recall the oddest or most off-putting queries posed by applicants. A sampling of the results:     • "What job is this for?"     • "Do I have to be at work every day?"     • "Would you go on a date with me?"     • "Do you want to take a ride in my new car?"     • "What color is the paint in this office?"     • "Can my husband finish this test for me?"     • "Is the boss single?"     • "Do you have a job for my partner?"     • "What are the women who work here like?"     • "Do you allow midday naps?"     • "How much time do I have to put in?"     • "Could I get a pay advance?"     • "Can I place my desk near the cafeteria?"     • "Could you help me find an apartment?"     • "Can you help me with the employment test?"     • "Can I get every Tuesday off?"     • "How soon can I take my first vacation?"     • "Can I have three weeks off every three months to pursue my music career?"     • "Can I have my birthday off?"     Regarding those last four, OfficeTeam executive director Robert Hosking notes that vacation time is part of compensation, which "is best discussed after an employer has expressed a serious intent to extend a job offer" -- however unlikely that might be.