Consulting Network » Management Consulting http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:39:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Management Consulting Interview – Beyond the Case Interview http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/management-consulting-interview-beyond-the-case-interview/1816/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/management-consulting-interview-beyond-the-case-interview/1816/#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:49:11 +0000 Blake McNaughton http://consultingnetwork.co.in/management-consulting-interview-beyond-the-case-interview/1816/

people in a general business scene meeting and...

Whilst case interviews are considered the more challenging side of the consulting interview, it is important to be aware of other types of interview questions that you will inevitably face when interviewing with a top management consulting firm such as Mckinsey, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain, Booz Allen Hamilton, Mercer, L.E.K Consulting, A.T. Kearney, Roland Berger or others. A case question is often only 30 minutes of a 1 hour interview. This is especially true in long interviews (one hour or more) and later round interviews once you have proven your abilities in answering case questions.

Below you can find some common behavioral interview questions that you may be asked in a management consulting interview as well as some additional consulting specific interview questions. Try to think how you would answer these interview questions if they were asked to you!

Behavioral Interview Style Q’s

  • Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills.
  • Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem.
  • Tell me about a time when you had to use your speaking and presentation skills to influence a groups opinion.
  • Explain a situation when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done.
  • Have you ever had too many things to do and you were required to prioritize your tasks.
  • Give me an example of a time when you had to make a split second decision.
  • What is your typical way of dealing with conflict? Give me an example.
  • Have you ever had to motivate others? Tell me about such an experience.
  • Give me an example of a time when you used your fact-finding skills to solve a problem.
  • Highlight your top achievements accomplishments?
  • What is the most important thing that you have learned in the past year?
  • What has been your biggest setback?

Common Consulting Interview Q’s

  • Why do you want to work in consulting? And why this firm?
  • What do you believe a consultant does? What would you consider to be the three most important qualities of a successful consultant?
  • How is our practice different from other consulting firms?
  • If I was to review your performance after six months, what do you think my evaluation of you would be?
  • Which firms are you interviewing with? How have you gone?
  • If given an offer, how will you decide whether or not to accept it?
  • What do you think are the differences between your current company and this firm?
  • What do you think you’ll add to this firm?

Author: Blake McNaughton
Article Source: EzineArticles.com


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]]> http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/management-consulting-interview-beyond-the-case-interview/1816/feed/ 0 The Consulting Life http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/the-consulting-life/709/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/the-consulting-life/709/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:04:56 +0000 Rohit Jain http://consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=709 There are just as many myths about consulting as there are innumerous intriguing facts. One gets interesting view points when you talk to people connected to consulting in different ways: young aspirants, clients, consulting firms, seasoned consultants. This article attempts to look at consulting from eyes of various stakeholders and in the process understand this black hole a bit better.

Young Aspirant:

  • Consulting is about a glamorous role and a glamorous lifestyle
  • Consulting is about understanding management concepts and rocket science
    frameworks
  • Consulting is about working late nights and brain storming sessions
  • Consulting is about talking a lot of jargon and using terminologies that makes
    people sit up and notice
  • Consulting is about having knowledge far greater than clients
  • Consulting is about travel and meeting high profile business people.
  • Consulting is about high salary packages and an early retirement

Experienced Consultant:

  • As much as it’s about being a business generalist, you need deep specialism in some business aspect
  • Consulting is not about finance, technology, human resource etc. Its about business solutions, a particular function may be the trigger point of a problem. The solution often lies across functions and hence very strong business acumen is a perquisite.
  • Jargons and frameworks are only for internal use. Clients don’t understand them nor do they want to go through a tutorial from the consultant to understand them.
  • Top of the mind or even research based advice is not enough…you need to be
    willing to dirty your hands and show them just how it’s done. Implementation is just as important as strategizing.
  • Traveling is not always glamorous. It has its advantages and high but trust me it can get tiring physically and emotionally
  • No consulting is not just late nights…consultants have a life too

Client:

  • Being so close to the drama they sometimes need an outsider to look at things from a distance
  • Consultants have often gone through similar situations in different client situations and hence bring in value add of having seen and experienced similar situations before
  • Consultants are in business of doing constant research, creating point of views around some of these issues, testing them and further implementing them.
  • Some matters just require an independent view
  • They need deep content specialists who have spent their careers dealing with certain content areas in resolving some matters

Consulting Firms:

  • People with extremely high teaming abilities
  • Strong business acumen and business sense
  • Content specialism is some area or strong content academic background in case of a fresher
  • Match with basic skill sets required in consulting: Project Management, Business Development, People Management, Client Management and Content Management
  • People with high level of energy and adaptability to different situations
  • Comfort with ambiguity

Largely at entry and junior level firms look for folks who are bright and have skill set to team and learn quickly. At middle and senior level, entry level requirements become base requirement and they look more for value add around one or more of base consulting pillars: Client, Project, People and Business Management.

Fact that solving business problems requires various view points of business consulting firms often hire people with various skill sets and backgrounds. Successful firms are known to hire broader skill sets then just their functional domain area. Unfortunately many of the consultants forget that the biggest contribution they bring to the firm is their background and base knowledge. Instead many of them start to unlearn their backgrounds and wind themselves into frameworks created by firm. Not realizing that’s something the firm always had.


Views expressed by Authors/Users/Subscribers etc on this website are completely their personal views and in no way reflect the views of their employers or any connected parties. Please view our detailed Terms & Conditions.

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