How you ever wondered how to prep for the fit interview
portion of a consulting interview? Well, I've got
some great insight for you today. We've have three
main types of fit questions that we'll walk you through.
So that you can be ultimately prepared for what seems like
the sneaky piece of the consulting interview.
I'm Jenny Rae La Roux, the Managing Director of Management Consulted.
And the case interview always gets the most focus in the prep process.
Because, it's terrifying. You have no idea what they're going to ask,
you have no idea where to start, there's math, etc.
But the sneaky part of every interview, and ultimately
the deciding factor for your offer becomes, the fit interview.
So for fit interview questions, how do you prepare?
There are three main types that you need to prepare.
The first type, are direct questions.
The second type, story questions. And the third type,
tricky questions. Let me go through each one of those in turn.
First of all, direct questions.
These are the questions that someone is expecting you, if you're a top candidate,
to slam dunk.
These are questions like, "Walk me through your resume?"
"Why do you want to work for this company?", and,
"Why do you want to do this particular job? ...this type of consulting?", for example.
And in those questions, they're expecting you to have
perfectly thought out, clear, linear answers.
They are meant to be 2 minutes for "Walk me through your resume",
and 1 minute for all of the other questions.
And "Walk me through your resume", is meant to be a linear story,
that tells from the beginning to the end how you got to where you are today.
"Why the firm", is meant to be a re-telling of some experience that you had
who is incredible, inside the company.
And, "Why do you want to do this job?", well,
that's meant to really explain, how you came on the journey.
To deciding this is exactly what you want to do.
Firms are looking for you to have something prepared,
and for it to come across as clear and enthusiastic.
Now for story questions, we have a very specific recommendation.
We recommend that you prepare 15 stories,
inside your interview. When you prepare these stories
they are meant to be able to answer a variety of story-like
questions. Such as, "Tell me about a time when..."
...fill in the blank. Here is an example, tell me about a time when,
you demonstrated leadership in a team.
Tell me about a time when, you used data to solve a problem.
Tell me about a time when you faced an obstacle on a project
and how you overcame it. And those
series of questions all together, pull
out from you, the examples
the illustrations of how you lead.
We build stories from three different categories.
Academic, leadership, and work experience. And you need
to have a balance of all of them. We also build stories
from different parts of your experience.
Even if it seems like it's, not maybe as
professionally relevant, as some of the more recent experiences.
However, when you build stories
there is one key tip that we have, beyond just building the 15 stories,
it's that when in the interview, you do release
the most recent stories first.
Inside the interview. So you should have professional experiences
from the last 2 years,
that you use to answer your first couple of questions.
The final set of questions, are the ones that everyone fears.
The tricky questions. These are ones that you never enjoy answering.
Like, "What is your greatest weakness?"
or, "Tell me about a professional failure." or,
"Explain an obstacle", or, "Tell me about a difficult boss
that you've had, and how you handled them.
All of these are meant to demonstrate . your
ability to build trust in a stressful situation.
And they're not what you think they are. They are not meant to expose
your own self awareness. They are meant to illustrate
in your story telling, the way that you
faced a difficult problem. The way that you
sized it up. And, the way that you handled it
to improve upon it. They are not meant to demonstrate
perfection, and they're not meant to specifically set
the person at ease, that you're a perfect candidate.
They are meant to set them at ease, that when difficult
things come up, as they will,
in contending with issues that you'll face as a consultant,
you'll be ready to handle them.
In summary, if you want to prepare for fit questions,
there is a ton of work that you need to do. And if you at least
start with these three things, preparing for the basic direct questions,
preparing for the more advanced story questions, and
preparing for the ultimate tricky questions.
You'll at least have a good handle
on some of the key areas that you'll need to work on,
when you go into the final steps of the consulting prep process.
If you want some personal advice
based on where you are, and where you'd like to go in your career,
reach out to us, at www.managementconsulted.com,
or on social.