First-year Foster MBA (Class of ’27) Tejash Bagri explains how he turned a stalled application into an interview by building a go-to-market prototype before reaching out — and what that says about standing out when every candidate has the same AI tools. A practical case study for anyone in a competitive recruiting process.
Tejash was part of the core organizing team for Foster’s inaugural AI Spark Day and leads the school’s AI and Data Analytics Society. Before his MBA, he worked as chief of staff for a group of organizations in a startup environment, where he built AI-driven workflows for research, marketing, and hiring. He reached the final sixteen of Foster’s Dempsey Startup Competition and is building a product focused on AI literacy in the classroom.
What you’ll learn
-
How to use a prototype to get past a resume screen when everyone’s resume looks optimized
-
Why AI fluency only matters once it sits on top of real functional or industry expertise
-
Why you should identify the two or three areas where you’re genuinely above average — and build from there
-
A staged model for AI maturity, and where most people stall
-
Where to keep the human visibly in control during a live interview
Resources mentioned
-
Luma and Meetup (for finding local industry events)
-
Lovable, Replit, Databricks, Claude Code (build/prototyping tools)
-
Company 10-K filings as interview-prep research
-
Ethan Mollick’s “jagged edge” framing of AI capability