Leland+ Content Library

How to transition from college to corporate [8/26/2026] (Recording)

Are you a recent graduate or soon-to-be graduate looking to make a seamless transition from college to a corporate career in AI? Join me, David, for an insightful session on how to navigate this pivotal phase of your career journey. With extensive experience in talent acquisition at top companies like Meta, Intuit, and Andreessen Horowitz, I have a deep understanding of what it takes to stand out in the competitive AI job market. In this event, we'll cover essential topics such as networking strategies, skill-building, and interview preparation to equip you with the tools you need to succeed. Whether you're aiming to land your first job or looking to enhance your career prospects, this session will provide valuable insights and actionable advice. Spaces are limited, so be sure to RSVP and secure your spot today. I look forward to helping you kickstart your corporate career in AI!

Winning Essays from My HBS Admits [7/17/2026] (Recording)

Many applicants find a way to write at least one strong essay. But those who really maximize the essay-writing process develop clear narrative through-lines that connect the dots of their life, and articulate how they'll contributions to their target brand. Their two-dimensional writing brings out a three-dimensional personality. They have a “brand”. You know what they’re all about. This event will draw from example essays written by successful admits who I've personally coached, and helped land a spot at one or more top MBA programs. These essays were particularly strong in how they spoke to one another—how they created a holistic applicant who admissions committees could envision on campus. Their professional and judiciously placed personal experience offer evidence for why they’re the kind of person who will make a specific, meaningful difference in the world. During this session, we'll analyze these essays alongside you so you have a clear view into how you can apply what you've learned to your own writing, and put your best application forward for HBS.

5 Strategies For Interview [9/15/2026] (Recording)

Getting hired isn't just about doing great speaking. Hirings are influenced by performance, and honesty, that many people still find it hard to navigate. In this 30-minute session, you’ll learn how to handle the interview process and key points and how to strategically position yourself for your next promotion.

What They Ask, What You Ask: A Complete Guide to MBA Behavioral Questions [9/24/2026] (Recording)

Once you're past the opener, the MBA interview becomes a conversation — and most candidates are only prepared for one direction of it. Behavioral questions are harder to predict and easier to fumble than the standard tell me about yourself / why mba / why here, and the questions you ask at the end of the interview are evaluated nearly as much as the answers you gave. As a Ross admissions interviewer, I've sat through countless interview conversations. The candidates who finish strong treat the full interview as a two-way exchange, not a performance. This session covers how to handle what comes after "tell me about yourself" — and how to close in a way that reinforces everything you just said. How MBA Behavioral Questions Are Different From What You'd Expect: These aren't job always interview questions. The framing and evaluation criteria are distinct. -What MBA programs are actually assessing in behavioral questions: self-awareness, leadership style, how you handle ambiguity -The most common behavioral questions and what interviewers are listening for beneath the surface -Why the STAR format produces flat answers — and what structure actually works better Telling Stories That Hold Up: A good behavioral answer doesn't just answer the question. It reveals something. -How to choose experiences that show what you want the interviewer to take away about you -How to be specific without over-explaining, and concise without underselling -What to do when the question doesn't map cleanly to an experience you've prepared Adcom vs. Alum Interviewers — What Changes: The interview format is the same. The dynamic isn't. -How adcom interviewers and alum interviewers are trained differently and what each is evaluating -Why alum interviewers often ask less predictable questions and how to stay grounded when they do -What each type of interviewer is most likely to flag as a concern — and how to address it before they have to ask What to Ask Your Interviewer (And Why Most Candidates Get This Wrong): The questions you ask are part of your evaluation. Most people treat them as an afterthought. -What your questions signal about your preparation, your priorities, and your fit -The difference between a strong question for an adcom interviewer and one for an alum — and why the distinction matters -Questions that land well, questions that fall flat, and what the interviewer is thinking in both cases

Home for Ambition #27 — Weekly Live Show [10/21/2026] (Recording)

Home for Ambition is a weekly live show, hosted by Leland CEO, John Koelliker, for people trying to stay ahead as work, learning, and opportunity keep changing. Each episode tackles a handful of timely, high-signal topics across AI, careers, education, and the future of work. We expect thoughtful debate, unique perspectives, and practical takeaways you can actually use. It is not a typical interview show or a generic news recap. It is a live roundtable built to help ambitious people make sense of what is changing, understand what matters, and leave with a sharper point of view on how to navigate what comes next.

Why Banking, Why This Firm, Why This Group [9/1/2026] (Recording)

Swap the word banking for consulting. If your answer still holds, you have not answered the question. That is the test, and most answers fail it. Fast paced, smart people, steep learning curve. All true, all interchangeable, all heard forty times this month by the person across the table. Three questions, scored separately, proved three different ways. Why banking is proved by your past. Why this firm is proved by your conversations. Why this group is proved at desk level, by someone who actually sits on it. One structure underneath all three. Claim, reason, evidence, impact. Sixty seconds. The evidence slot is the one that decides the answer, and it is the only slot you cannot write at your desk. That is why this session sits here in the run and not at the start. You do not walk into the chats with these answers. You walk out with them. What we'll cover: - The swap test and the name swap test, and how to run both on the answer you already have - Claim, reason, evidence, impact, and why evidence is the only slot with lead time - Where firm evidence comes from: named conversations, one deal known properly, platform, direct experience - Coverage versus product, and why a group answer that never names an industry is not an answer - How the bar moves at a bulge bracket versus an elite boutique versus a regional office - The failure that costs the most, which is being specific enough to be interesting and thin enough to collapse on the follow up Want to solidify your whys and be done with them? I run a popular 90-minute session where we go deep and construct a strong, personal story. Book a free 15-minute intro to learn more. Part 5 of Coffee Chat Ready, a six part run on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Each one stands alone, so jump in anywhere. I'm the founder of OFFERGOBLIN and ex-Centerview tech.

Nailing the Med School Interview: What Interviewers Actually Look For [9/30/2026] (Recording)

A strong med school interview can bring your application to life, but knowing what interviewers actually want to hear is key to making a lasting impression. This session is for medical school applicants preparing for interviews who want to communicate their experiences, motivations, and strengths in a way that feels authentic and compelling. You’ll learn how to approach common interview questions, position your stories effectively and strategically, and communicate your experiences in a way that strengthens your overall candidacy. Join live to hear from a med school admissions expert who has coached 100+ applicants into medical school, consistently helping students earn acceptances to competitive programs even when their MCAT scores or GPAs fall below institutional averages. The speaker will share practical strategies for positioning your stories effectively, answering difficult questions, and making your experiences resonate with interviewers. Bring your questions and leave with a clearer strategy for making your med school interview count.

Your 2026 IB Networking Playbook [10/12/2026] (Recording)

Breaking into investment banking is rarely just about submitting an application. The right networking strategy can help you build relationships, get on the radar of the right people, and create opportunities that would otherwise be difficult to access. This session is for aspiring investment bankers who want to network more strategically and build a stronger path into the industry. You’ll learn who to reach out to, how to start conversations that actually go somewhere, and how to turn networking into real recruiting opportunities. Join live to hear from an IB expert who formerly worked at Centerview and successfully recruited into investment banking from a different career path. The speaker will share firsthand lessons on building relationships, navigating the recruiting process, and avoiding common networking mistakes. Bring your questions and leave with a practical networking playbook you can put to work immediately.

AI at Work: What's Already Possible [8/10/2026] (Recording)

After this session, you will have a clear picture of which AI tools are already producing real results in professional workflows, not in theory but in practice. We will cover how to use AI to accelerate specific tasks like drafting, research, and ideation, how to recognize where AI output needs human judgment, and how to build a personal system that compounds over time. Attending live gives you the chance to ask about your actual situation, whether that is a specific tool, workflow, or use case you are trying to figure out, and to hear how those questions get answered in real time. The coach works inside AI-driven workflows daily and will be sharing the patterns and decision points that show up consistently across the builders and professionals they work with.

Idea to Draft: The Art of the Law School Personal Statement [10/8/2026] (Recording)

Most law school personal statements stall at the same spot: a strong opening anecdote that never connects to an actual reason for choosing law. This workshop covers the harder, earlier step: turning a scattered list of experiences into one throughline, then structuring the draft so it reads as reasoned judgment rather than just a story. Andrew works with applicants on personal statements regularly, and has a clear sense of which openings and phrases show up in draft after draft until they stop standing out. That pattern recognition is useful for catching what is hard to see in your own writing: where the reasoning goes thin, where a sentence describes an experience instead of examining it, and where the two pages of space are being spent on the wrong things.

How AI Can Transform Your Product Marketing [9/25/2026] (Recording)

AI is changing how product marketers research, position, launch, and grow products, but knowing which tools to use is only part of the equation. The real advantage comes from integrating AI into the workflows and strategic decisions that drive better marketing outcomes. This session is for product marketers and business professionals who want to use AI to work more efficiently and make smarter marketing decisions. You'll learn where AI can have the biggest impact, how to incorporate it into your existing workflows, and how to move beyond experimentation to practical, repeatable use cases. Join live to hear from the current Director of Product Marketing at GoFundMe, with 15 years of experience in product marketing and strategy and deep expertise in AI-driven marketing strategies. The speaker will share practical frameworks, real-world applications, and actionable ways to integrate AI into your product marketing strategy. Expect ideas you can start testing immediately to work smarter and create more impact.

GMAT Strategies for Deconstructing Critical Reasoning Arguments [10/7/2026] (Recording)

Critical reasoning questions on the GMAT aren't really about logic in the abstract: they're about spotting the specific gap between a premise and a conclusion that the question is built around. This session breaks down how to read an argument the way the test wants you to: find the assumption, then decide what would strengthen or weaken it. Sergey has spent years working through thousands of these questions with students and has a good sense of where people actually get stuck, usually not on hard vocabulary but on rushing past the structure of the argument itself. If critical reasoning has felt like guessing more than reasoning, this is worth the half hour.

The AI-Powered Acquisition: How to Buy a Small Business [9/30/2026] (Recording)

You don't have to start a business from zero. What if you could skip the hardest part and just buy a great, existing business instead? And what if you could use AI—like ChatGPT and other smart tools—to help you find it, run it, and grow it fast? That's exactly what we're breaking down in this free event. We'll cut through the hype and show you the real, practical steps to becoming a CEO by buying a small business.

Essays: Learn from Past Admits & Elevate Your Writing [10/2/2026] (Recording)

Part 5 of 6 — Build Your Best MBA Application: One Piece at a Time, a free series (5:00–5:45pm ET). The essays are won before you write them. We'll start with the reflection work that saves weeks of revision later — show, don't tell; specifics beat adjectives; go deep, not wide — and why the anchor essay (Stanford's "What matters most to you, and why?") gets written first, with everything else flowing from it. Then we'll look at real essays from my clients admitted to top programs — full essays, not excerpts: what they wrote, why it worked, and the specific, repeatable moves you can bring into your own drafts. Plus how strong applicants differentiate across schools instead of copy-pasting one narrative, and the v1 → v3/v4 revision ladder my clients run. If you're heading into R1 or R2 drafts, this is the fastest way I know to calibrate what "great" actually looks like.

Becoming an AI-native PM [9/29/2026] (Recording)

AI is changing what it means to be a great product manager, and simply knowing how to use AI tools is no longer enough. AI-native PMs know how to incorporate AI into product thinking, workflows, and execution from the start. This session is for product managers who want to build AI fluency and stay ahead as the role evolves. You’ll learn how to use AI to move faster, think differently about product development, and bring AI-powered ideas from concept to launch. Join live to hear from a PM on the New Products team at GoFundMe who has shipped multiple AI-powered features end-to-end. The speaker will share practical lessons from building with AI in a real product environment and strategies for becoming a more effective, AI-native PM.

Top 5 Tips for Your Law School Apps by Indrani, Former SLS Admissions Officer! [7/20/2026] (Recording)

Join Indrani, former Associate Director of Admissions at Stanford Law School, as she goes over her top 5 tips to help you put your best foot forward as you apply to law school! A great law school application requires research, authenticity and hard work, and Indrani will help you strategize. She will go over the importance of the LSAT, putting together a thoughtful school list, who should submit letters of recommendation, how to go about writing your essays and the optimal timeline for getting it all done! The session will end with ample time for questions and answers.

Get into T-3 Law Schools | Harvard Law School Admit [8/17/2026] (Recording)

Join me in conversation about getting into HLS and the T-14! Come with any questions you may have as you compile and prepare to apply this cycle.

From Background to Business School: How to Build a Credible MBA Narrative [10/22/2026] (Recording)

Most "Why MBA" answers fail before they start, not because applicants can't write, but because they're answering the wrong question. As a Ross alum and admissions interviewer, I can tell you: the goals essay isn't about where you want to go. It's about whether adcom believes you'll get there, and whether an MBA is the logical next step for someone like you. This session breaks down how to build a goals narrative that's specific, credible, and connects your past to your future in a way that doesn't sound manufactured. What Adcom Is Actually Evaluating When They Read Your Goals Essay: It's not the goal itself, it's whether your story hangs together. -The three questions every adcom reader is asking while they read your answer -Why "I want to develop leadership skills" and similar answers kill otherwise strong applications -The difference between a goal that's ambitious and one that's believable The Architecture of a Strong Why MBA Story: Most applicants lead with too much context. Here's why that doesn't work and what to do instead. -How to connect your past experience to your post-MBA goal in a way that feels inevitable, not invented -The difference between a career change story and a career progression story, and how to tell yours -Why specificity is the single most important thing you can bring to this essay Where Applicants Lose Adcom's Trust: A weak goals essay doesn't just lose points, it raises questions about your whole application. -How vague goals undermine even a strong resume and work history -How to handle "why now" when there's no clean answer -What to do if your goals have shifted since you started the application Making It Concrete: A framework you can use immediately to test whether your story is working. -How to gut-check your narrative before you put it on paper -What a strong vs. weak Why MBA story actually looks like, side by side -The one question to ask yourself before you finalize anything

Co-thinking with AI: Beyond the Hype, Into Your Edge [7/6/2026] (Recording)

AI isn't a search engine — and treating it like one is costing you. In this 45-minute working session, we tackle the cognitive dependence trap head-on: the quiet habit of letting AI generate, decide, and summarize while your own critical thinking atrophies. Leaders and employees who thrive in the AI era aren't the ones who use it most — they're the ones who use it right. You'll leave with practical co-thinking prompts designed to sharpen your judgment, accelerate your best ideas, and position you as someone who leverages AI without being leveled by it. Reserve your spot today!

Ace Your EY-Parthenon Interview [10/11/2026] (Recording)

Ace your EY-Parthenon interview with an insider view into what the firm looks for and how successful candidates stand out. We’ll break down key evaluation criteria, common case themes, and what to expect across both behavioral and case interviews. You’ll leave with practical strategies to structure your thinking, sharpen your stories, and avoid common mistakes. Whether you’re early in prep or approaching interview day, this session is designed to help you perform with more confidence and precision.