Washington Video Interview

University of Washington – Foster School of Business

Full-time MBA program – Video Interview Questions

Foster conducts video interviews online. These interviews are not live, and can be recorded at your convenience.

Before the interview:

• Infrastructure: Make sure your equipment works – mic, camera, speakers, Internet.
• Rehearse: Rehearse into the camera and then watch the recording to improve. Spend 2-3 recordings just rehearsing and reviewing.
• Dress: Dress neatly. Light formals are ok.
• Clarity: Ensure there is no background noise: visual or aural. Try to find a quiet, well-lit place, with a flat, light-coloured background.
• Height: Ensure the aperture of the camera is at eye-height for you. If it’s not, then adjust the height. Also zoom in enough so that there aren’t lots of distracting objects in the background.
• Lighting: Ensure your face is properly lit. If you have to, then use a table lamp in addition to the room lighting.
• Relax: Relax – you will come across better if you are relaxed.
• Smile: Don’t need to have a plastic smile pasted on throughout. But do smile from time to time appropriately.
• Time: Use your 30 sec thinking/prep time well to structure your thoughts. Practice timing yourself. Get a good sense (by practising sample questions below) of what 90 seconds feel like.
• Scope: In your thinking time, identify 2 (max 3) items you want to talk about. What kills most people in general questions is that they try to be exhaustive and talk about lots of things.
• No fillers: Think for a few seconds before you reply and then minimize pauses that we tend to fill with “ums” and “uhs.”

Some commonly asked questions are:

1. Describe a significant leadership experience.
2. Describe a significant cross-cultural experience.
3. What is the most important thing you learned in college.
4. Tell me about your typical day at work.
5. What do you enjoy most about your job? What do you find the most frustrating?
6. What are the key challenges faced by your industry?
7. What would u do if you have one more hour in the day?
8. Talk about a time you experienced stress and what you did to manage it.
9. Who is your role model and why?
10. What leadership ability do you appreciate in your current direct supervisor and what ability do you wish they would improve on?
11. Tell us about the last time you led a project. What was the outcome?
12. Describe a time when your work was criticized.
13. Tell us about an important piece of advice you have received and how it has helped you.
14. Tell me about a time when you had to work with a difficult colleague.
15. What is your ideal work environment?
16. What project did you take on without being asked to?
17. Tell us about an experience when you faced a boring project? How did you motivate yourself and your team to work on it?
18. What is the biggest challenge when working with a team?
19. What was your biggest achievement outside of work?
20. Tell us one thing you didn’t mention in your resume.
21. What 3 adjectives would you use to describe yourself and why?
22. If you could start a new venture to solve a major problem what would you choose and why?
23. What is a step you’ve taken in the last year to advance your career?
24. Why are some aspects of the Foster school that appeal to you?
25. What three things do you want to learn at Foster?
26. What are three strengths that you bring to the Foster school?

We can help with your interview prep. Contact us: