Fit Interview Workshops
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This document provides guidance for an MBA interview workshop focused on consulting. It discusses developing a personal brand, preparing for fit and competency interviews, and crafting cover letters. Key points include developing a concise personal brand statement, preparing evidence-based examples to demonstrate competencies, and tailoring responses and cover letters to reflect the individual's brand and motivations for pursuing consulting.
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Fit Interview Workshops
- 1. + MBA2012 Fit Interview Workshop Gavin Crouch, AD Consulting Careers Stuart Jagot, AD Career Services Learning & Development J-P Martins, AD Consulting Careers Personal Brand, Interviews and Cover Letters for Consulting
- 2. + Who’s done the prework? 1. Read key sections of the Case Book 2. Create a list of your relevant, differentiating strengths 3. Outline your answer to the request “tell me about yourself” 4. Create an evidence table to prepare yourself for competency based fit interview questions
- 3. + What’s today about? What is consulting and is it for me? Who are the consultants and to which would I be best suited? How do I tailor my CV for [strategy] consulting? Detailed CV reviews and feedback Introduction to problem solving ½ day workshop Consulting Club crack a case programme What is my personal brand? How can I reflect that… At interview Tell me about yourself Competency answers In cover letters Previously Today
- 4. + Brands
- 5. + Valuable brands Convey rich meaning clearly and simply Are relevant to target segment Are distinctive
- 6. + What’s your brand? In pairs – tell your partner what is your personal brand? In one short sentence, phrase, or even word! Clear and simple? Relevant to a consulting recruiter? Distinctive from others in this room? Exercise 1 5 mins
- 7. + [Good] brands are backed by distinctive characteristics What are three key characteristics1 of the brand? Are they consistent2? 1 Eg product, service, image 2 Eg cars, trucks and vans, A-class vs S-class
- 8. + What are your relevant, differentiating strengths? Relevant, differentiating strengths Differentiating but not relevant Relevant weaknesses Irrelevant weaknesses How strong are you relative to your peers? Very strong Very weak Average VeryNot at all Average How important is this strength to your specific recruiter?
- 9. + What are your strengths? In pairs – tell your partner what are your top 3 personal strengths for consulting? Are they: Distinctive from others in this room? Motivated strengths? (ie you are interested in them as well as strong) Relevant to a consulting recruiter? Consistent with the high level view of your brand? Backed by evidence? Exercise 2 5 mins
- 10. + Interviewing movie Chapter 7 – “Karaoke Skills” Play until end of scene
- 11. + How to succeed at interview In pairs – tell your partner what ensured your success at previous interviews? What 3 things helped you perform well during an interview? Exercise 3 5 mins
- 12. + How are you being assessed? What? How? Can you do the job? Do you have the appropriate problem-solving and communication skills? Case interview will be the primary assessment mechanism* Will you do the job? Are you really motivated to do the job? Are you driven to excel in the job? Will you fit in? Will you fit into our culture? Will we enjoy working with you? Will you inspire the team? * For many consulting interviews, this will comprise 80-90% of the interview time
- 13. + Will you do the job? Questions to expect: Type of question Description Examples General/open Gives you a platform to introduce & sell yourself, for example Tell me about yourself Motivational Checks why this specific role and company for you, now in your career Tests understanding of role, company, sector Why are you doing the MBA? Why do you want to be a consultant? Why apply to Bain? What do you want to be doing in 5 years’ time? Competency Collects evidence of your achievements, that demonstrates your skills and behaviours What is the greatest challenge you have overcome?
- 14. + Would you fit in? Questions to expect: Type of question Description Examples Personal Your abilities and development needs, interests and values What excites you? Competency How you handle certain situations What’s the toughest problem you’ve had to solve? What would your classmates say about your communication skills? Give an example of where you’ve demonstrated great leadership What does it take to make you give up? Company Your understanding of the business, its culture and values How will you fit into Booz?
- 15. + Consulting competencies - recap Problem Solving Intellectual capacity Analytics/quants. Creativity Business judgement Comfort with ambiguity Personal Impact Presence Confidence vs. ego People skills Team player Sense of humour Leadership Maturity Track record (sporting, clubs) Integrity Inspirational Willing to take personal risks Drive/ Aspiration Driven by results – action oriented Enthusiasm Desire to excel Other interests Could I put you in front of a client on Day 1? Could I spend 24 hours flying from London to Sydney with you?
- 16. + How to prepare for a competency interview 1. Identify competencies for the specific job 2. Identify your evidence & achievements for each competency – see pre-work exercise 4 3. Structure your answer: Challenge – key business drivers Action Results – quantify where possible, include outcome & impact Note: Emphasise your role, and be specific about what action you took
- 17. + Example: Leadership Challenge Needed to transform an inefficient and ineffective global finance function in an FMCG business Action I led the process team of 10 company representatives from across the globe that designed 20 future blue-print global finance processes and implemented them within a 12 month timeframe I initially built relationships with each team member face-to- face, then lead the team via weekly conference calls Results I realised budgeted cost savings (30% reduction in OPEX) and delivered the client’s expected project value (IRR of 15%) Describe a situation when you had to lead a team to a achieve a challenging goal
- 18. + So tell me about yourself 60-90 second answer that covers… 1. Your key competencies or strengths, that reflects you & your brand 2. 2 or 3 summary key achievements, that you are most proud of 3. Your interests & motivations, that differentiate you 4. Close by creating a bridge between your strengths, motivations and the role / Company you are applying for …that reflects you, your brand and engages the interviewer!
- 19. + Breakout rooms – go directly there, and be back in 90 minutes
- 20. + Session 3: Reflect on your individual performance How did you perform during your interview? If you performed well, why was that? If you performed less well, how can you improve? What’s missing from your performance? What will the recruiter remember about you? Take a few minutes to reflect, and write down 3 or 4 specific actions you will take to improve after today’s session Exercise 4 5 mins
- 21. + Recruiter feedback Up to 80% of an impression comes from things other than what you say: Image Body Language Tone of Voice Eye Contact Builds rapport from the beginning Listens to questions and reads signals Speaks no more than 50% Engages in a dialogue and asks questions Your ‘fit’ is also based on the impression you make Speaks articulately and succinctly Stays calm under pressure Presents negative information clearly, concisely, with a positive approach Communicates they’re motivated to do the job Great grooming Good eye contact Firm handshake
- 22. + What questions are you going to ask them? Will they appear random, or reinforce your brand?
- 23. + Cover letters I haven’t got one of these
- 24. + Not all firms are the same Doesn’t want a cover letter Say it’s ‘optional’ What’s the upside of writing one? Downside? Does want a cover letter All about motivation: Why consulting? Why Bain? Why Paris, Kiev, or Timbuktoo? Note – not how great your problem solving is, or your leadership… Eg: McKinsey Eg: Bain
- 25. + If you do write one, please keep your brand! Dear xxx I’m at LBS and applying for a consultant job Consulting is interesting as you work in lots of different industries I’m quite interested in Bain as I met Bill, Jim, Suzie, Alex, Samantha, Igor and Tsusoko at LBS and they impressed me with how many different industries they worked in. I’m now passionate about FMCG I have what you’re looking for: Problem Solving: I once built a spreadsheet to work out our monthly sales and improved reporting times by 10 Personal impact: I’m really really good on this one and once climbed Mt Kilimanjaro Leadership: I led a team of three people to complete a complex, quant, market segmentation that helped clinch a $3bn deal Drive: I play basketball every week and won a state championship while at Uni Please consider my application and give me the job as I’m sure it will be great for me and my development Yours yyy Typical cover letter – do this only if you can’t think of anything else
- 26. + So how to reflect brand in cover letters? Why not consider… Organising your cover letter around motivations, as on the previous slide? Organising your cover letter around your key, relevant, differentiating strengths? Using your words, not those of my presentation or even the ad? Double-checking relevance Writing in a narrative rather than bullets? Generating a tag cloud – and check that the relevant ‘strength’ words dominate? Relevant, differentiating strengths Differentiating but not relevant Relevant weaknesses Irrelevant weaknesses How strong are you relative to your peers? Very strong Very weak Average VeryNot at all Average How important is this strength to your specific recruiter? Remember this?
- 27. + Final exercise – what do you recall? What do you remember about individuals’ brand statements at the start of the day? Think about – how much will a recruiter remember about you at the end of a solid day of interviewing? Exercise 5 5 mins
- 28. + Next steps Keep practising cases Individually Informal groups Club Crack-a-Case Refine your brand Slide presentation? Mock up some cover letters CL reviews 4-14 January Practise ‘fit’ Informal groups PLP Mocks with Career Services this term (22 November to 3 December) Practise ‘fit’ (contd.) Mock recalls 4 to 14 January Group practice 4 January to 28 February Super Saturday 8 January Attend OCR events Introduction to OCR, 29 November to 1 December Coffee chats November/ December Presentations begin CP Week, 4 – 7 Jan Apply CP deadlines start 9 January Other recruiter presentations start 10 January Interviews from 24 January This will happen sooner than you think!
- 29. + Appendix
- 30. + Prework: Create a list of your relevant, differentiating strengths Area of strength Strength relative to MBA peers Importance to my recruiting targets Ranking (identify your personal top 4, and order of strength) Problem Solving Personal impact Leadership Drive and motivation I’ve listed the mandatory ones - add other strengths here Very strong, strong, average, weak or very weak Very high, high, average, low or very low Fill this in! 1=strongest, 4=weakest
- 31. + Prework: Outline your answer to “tell me about yourself” Summary Tell me about yourself Recap Fill this in! What are you going to say Say it, and substantiate it (evidence – examples) Recap – to sum up, what were you trying to say!
- 32. + Prework: Create an evidence table Competency Challenge Action Result Problem Solving Personal impact Leadership Drive and motivation Prepare yourself for competency based fit questions using the challenge-action-result framework Fill this in!