My IESE Interview… OY VEY!, or, how I lost my VC virginity + ROJO© Magazine Party & Why it’s a Good Idea to Network Before Arrival

Well to start off I’m not Jewish, but I do live in NY which apparently makes me an honorary Jew, or so I was told once by a Cohen. Anyways, I don’t think any expression better describes my sentiments after the IESE interview than oy vey! And that’s an understatement.

Being the responsible human being I am I was at the VC place at 9:30 a full half hour before the scheduled call. Good thing too as they were doing work on the wiring and couldn’t get the door open (seriously, what was wrong with keys, why do we need magnetic cards).

So we set everything up and waited, waited, 10:10 waiting… they’re not calling… ok? I call them; it turned out I sent them the wrong ISDN No. Steeerike 1. (BTW, I double checked and it was the VC place that sent me the wrong number, bastards!) Then we can’t connect sound and video together, so the tech guy from our end gets on and in that “tech guy belittling voice” tells them to up their rate. Great!!!! Could this start out any worse.

By the way, I should mention that by now I’m somewhat freaking out as IESE is my No. 1 choice, and I really wanted for everything to sail smoothly. So we finally connect, and the admissions director tells me about the wrong No. thing and how it was weird as the wrong number was another VC place, and she thought I was running late, etc… etc…

Anyways, the interview did not go much better. Mind you I was anticipating being asked about my career record, and prepared for it by highlighting certain things on my application the night before that I wanted to point out. As it turned out this was exactly what she asked, and even though I was prepared I started stumbling over my words, using them out of context, umm umm... umm… ing along. Basically, I was a wreck, Steeeerike 2.

Then as if everything else wasn’t going badly enough, the feed would cut out, and come back, specifically at moments when I was about to, or summing up a point, or getting on a roll. Then it’d cut out, my nerves would shoot up, and I wouldn’t finish the question, point etc… in the manner which I’d wanted. Also, I got the feeling that the admissions director thought my future plans were full of it, as being a Pole, living outside of Poland for 20 years, and wanting to involve myself with politics (and yes I know it sounds absurd), and eventually be the nation’s president is no easy task to accomplish. Thing is, I know I can do it, or at least give it my best shot, which will probably leave me as Prime Minister or something ;)

Well… c’est la vie I suppose, if I don’t get in I don’t get in, I go to ESADE instead. Bigh whoop, the school’s been flying through the rankings, and I want to leave my imprint in Barcelona anyway, and it may just be easier to do at ESADE, and truth be told, the school’s been flying north in the rankings. But one thing I recommend, is if you have the option, do not, and I mean DO NOT, interview via VC, face to face is much better, and I’m sure if I was interviewing in BCN, I would have scored plenty of brownie points. Anywho, only two strikes, there’s still a glimmer of hope.

On the bright side of things, I went to Gallery MC for a ROJO© Magazine party last night – see my interests are much broader than simple MBA stuff, and apparently it seems that I’ve started to build my social network in Barcelona a bit early. I met a bunch of people from ROJO©, Raquel Sakristan, and a bunch of people with whom I exchanged contact info who often got o BCN, and/or have friends there. Finally, I got to speak Espanish for most of the evening, which was fantastic, and I was told I have a very minimal accent in the language, and if anything I sound more like an Argentine, or Uruguayan the anything – finally, I will most likely be having my “la vida me llama para salir de Nueva York” party at the space, with the same DJ from last night, the guy was amazing!

And this is my friend Genevieve by one of the works ...