How is the final selection decided ?

Question

I have my final round interview with Strategy& middle east scheduled in the coming weeks.

Based on your network and insights please let me know as to what criteria are considered to select an experienced candidate with 5 years of experience with Accenture. Is it mandatory to perform excellently well in both the partner interviews or an average + excellent would be enough to sail through with success.

My first round interviews with prinicipals where relatively straight forward with no real challenge.

Also I havent been communicated the level that I am being interviewed for. Should I check this with the partner or wait for the final offer ?

Answer 1

Hello there,

Congratulations for getting through to the final round!

As experienced hires, typicaly there are 5 aspects that the partners would focus on during the interviews:

Details of your professional experiences, e.g. types of projects you were involved, what is your role and specific tasks you were working on, your client / stakeholder interactions, deilverables, and impact / results
Leadership experiences, whether in project settings or office initiatives
Alignment of your industrial and functional expertise with the current need within the firm
Culture fit, e.g. communication style, logical flow & structure, mobility, working norms
Correlation between your mid and long-term career objectives with the firm's growth trajectory

One of the key to excel interviews in consulting firms is consistency. Hence, it is always better to have smaller deviation in your performances across different interview sessions. For example, performing well enough in both interviews would be preferable compared to having a distinctive result at one but completely bombed the others. Of course, in the case of having a combination of average + excellent as well as excelling both interviews are an even better case, but it is not an absolute requirement.

Just be yourself and present yourself as a real person, describe your experiences as detailed as possible during the sessions and let the flow take over.

On the level / role, it is perfectly acceptable to inquire this if the topic is not brought upon by the partners themselves beforehand. This can be asked in the Q&A session.

Hope it helps and all the best for your incoming interviews!

Kind regards,

Nathan

Answer 2

Hi

Absolutely, you need to perform well across all interview discussions to maximize your chances of selection. This is extra important for candidates with experience, because you have been shorlisting for discussion keeping in mind your relevant experience and competencies.

As an experienced candidate you will be measured across the following :

1. Your Expereince

- You will be assessed on your leadership, client management, and team skills

- Structure your communication to highlight your strength and keep it brief and to the point

- Leave feeders/ stress on your experience areas where you want the interviewer to pick on and ask you questions. Eg. Digital Transformation, Customer Exeperience esp. is you have worked on those with Accetnture

- Be tactical and highlight the impact created by you very objectively

2. Communication & Contexualization

- Exhibit confidence in your communication by not stickying to a Q&A but taking things at a discussion level with the interviewer. This would help you strike a rapport and engage the partners well

- Share your expereince examples with clients and industries to substantiate your views. They want to hear those references from you becuase that would help them identify what incremental value you may bring to their team and firm

- You may also get scenario based question based on your expereince. eg. you are meeting the CEO of a retail chain planning to inititate a Digital Transformation, what will you tell him ? Such questions are targetted to determine your industry or functioanl competenies along with your approach.

3. Case : Analysis and Problem Solving

- Partners usually have measured a candidate in the first 10-15 mins of the disucssion.

- Cases with partners esp. for expereinced hires are not the straight forward. Most likely you will get a case that has been picked from one of their real world engagements. Something that might be aligned to your expereince. eg. We are working with the CEO of a telecom company and he wants to revisit the bonus structure of his enterprise sales force to drive new revenue streams/product offerings. What will you suggest him ?

In short, you will need to leverage your expereince to give them the confidence that your experience will add value and they can put you in front of the C-Level clients as a subject matter expert or as an expereinced candidate.

Hope this helps and all the best.

Answer 3

Hi Anonymous,

unlike what has been stated in other answers, you will NOT necessarily be tested in McKinsey dimensions (leadership, impact, drive) in your fit interview at Strategy&. This could happen, but it is not the norm (I helped several candidates for Strategy& specifically for the Dubai office and they shared the questions received with me).

The bar to get an offer depends on several factors:

Demand for candidates
Performance of other candidates
Your specific background as experienced hire

Partners are also likely to ask about your general experience in your previous sectors and your client management skills.

I would not recommend to discuss the position with the partner, rather wait to receive an offer and then potentially negotiate.

Best,

Francesco

Answer 4

Hi,
you will be assessed through 4 different dimensions during your fit interview and business case: personal impact, entrepreneurial drive, problem-solving skills, leadership abilities. I have supported tenths of experienced professionals in crafting impactful stories and enhance the case resolution abilities, happy to deep dive it in chat to understand if can I help you.

Regarding the doubt about the position I recommend to ask to HR and not to partners.

Best,
Antonello

Answer 5

Hi,

With strategy&, especially for experienced hires, the process is not well structured. You need to get good reviews from both partners, and it will not be really formalized

Again, since it's more informal, I would recommend defining the role with the partners here

Best

Answer 6

Dear A,

I also got and offer form Strategy& Dubai couple of years ago as an experienced hire, but I rejected to take this.

From my experience, you need to perform very good in both interviews with partners.

Regarding your Q2, yes, just mention, clarify and negotiate you future position and financial package with a patner. There are some rooms for negotiation. But the pay is really-really good.

I was proposed for a manager position smth about 220K all in.

Hope it helps,

Good luck,

André

Answer 7

Hi,

As a rule of thumb, you need to perform well in each of your interviews in order to secure an offer. For experienced hires, there is also another element of "fit", and thus even if you performed well during the interviews, you may still fail because of the fit (whereas this is not very common for graduate hires).

Best,

Deniz