Ok so it’s been quite a while since I last posted. Since then I graduated (walked across the big stage and everything), had a graduation open house, and finished working at my student job. After all that I took the time to read a couple of books for fun instead of school … it was nice. I was originally going to write a post about my senior slide and goofing off during the last semester of college. Then two things happened. First Finals week, or actually the last 3 weeks of the semester, most of my finals were worth 50% of my grade so I stopped goofing around and studied really hard, finishing the semester with a 3.6. Second all the student newspapers ran articles on this very same subject, so I decided this blog was for my experiences in consulting not my experiences messing around at college. So I thought I would write this post on my experiences – as best I can remember – of my interviewing experiences last fall for consulting jobs.
Interview season is stressful for everyone. A typical week consisted of two or three information sessions and two or three interviews. Each of these events requires one to two hours of preparation and then another hour for the event it self, so you spend about eight to eighteen hours a week on top of your studies and part time job. At the information sessions you try to come up with questions that will make the presenter take notice of you. Afterwards you then stay after and ask them more questions hoping for them to give you their card and express an interest in helping you. Hopefully, this behavior helps your chances of getting the interview – probably not but you can hope.
If you are selected to be interviewed you next stay up late the night before scouring the internet on news, career, and corporate sites to learn as much about the company, this will allow you to show interest in the company when you interview; hence improving your chances of that second interview. The morning of the interview you pick out your lucky shirt (you know the one you fixed the button on instead of replacing because it is so lucky – imagine you sewing!), get your professional looking leather binder/notepad ready and show up exactly two minutes early (enough time to be early but not so early you’re a kiss ass and showing you have other things going on), you make small talk with the greeter (because they could possibly sink your chances of getting hired) and you try to give the perfect, spontaneous answer to all of the interviewers questions (though no answer is spontaneous you have prepared, modified, and rehearsed them all a dozen times).
Consulting interviews are somewhat different than those for a large or major corporation. Most major or large corporations have a formula for hiring (if you are not related to someone important or previously was an intern) , they ask you different questions in the same five categories and all of these questions start with the phrase can you tell me a time when. These questions require you to stretch real life experiences to show … well to show that you are a superman who handles all situations according to the general rules of corporate folk lore. That is in all these situation that are described you took the bull by the horns, while being sensitive to everyone’s needs, took care of the company and its clients, and solved what ever the problem was. At twenty-two you should have done this at least five times, once when something unexpected happened, once when someone in your group was impossible to get along with, once when you had more to do than you could handle, once when you the earth exploded, and the last is usually a wild card. If you get through the first interview, you get to be interviewed by someone in the company that is more important than the original interview for twice as long, but the questions and are the same. If you get to move on then the process repeats and so on.
I interviewed with four consulting firms. Only one of these firms used the above mentioned formula. Another firm had the freest interview I ever participated in. In this interview I was interviewed by a senior manager who simply wanted to go over my resume and talk for a while. The second interview was a series of three interviews in the same day conducted with a mix of the first interview and using some of the questions from the above mentioned formula. The third and fourth firms’ first interview was a screening interview looking solely to see if you were willing to deal with the quantity of changes and the level of travel needed to be a consultant. Then they had case interviews.
The case interview is interesting because you need to think on your feet. You can prepare for them by doing practice cases but you can not pre formulate answers as you can with a typical interview. Cases can be difficult or easy, it all depends on you talents, training, and the job you are interviewing for. I was interviewing for systems analyst positions, these job basically deal with IT project management. Business or General analysts would get very different cases. My cases generally dealt with two different areas failure and project management. The first set of cases asked what you would do if the project was behind, when you would cut and run, and how you would deal with stakeholders. The second dealt with how you would run a project. What deliverables are involved, how you would get resources, how you would keep on track, and the various stages of the project. These interviews I found were actually fun, I took my time and thought about it.
Talking to others that received job offers and those who have worked in consulting there are a few things you can do to improve your chances. Show an extreme willingness to travel and relocate. They are looking for people to send where they need when they need, so any time they ask how much are willing to travel on questionnaires, web forms, or any other way select a high level of travel. Be a people person, these firms are looking for people who like to work with a lot of different people. Being energized by working in groups and enjoying social settings is important. Be flexible, they need people who can switch up what they are doing at a moments notice. You need to enjoy change and express this in interviews. Keeping up with changes in your field of expertise is also important. Make sure they know you are interested in say finance or IT developments and that you keep up with current trends. Grades, experience, and the typical criteria on your resume still apply but these other items are just as important. More specific advice would be to prepare to talk about times you failed and how you dealt with it (of course adding a positive spin) and bone up on the SDLC and other project cycle methodology paying particular attention to deliverables (if you are interviewing for an IT related position).
