How to prepare for Fit and how long to dedicate to it?

FIT McKinsey PEI PEIS Personal Fit
Neue Antwort am 23. Sept. 2020
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Anonym A fragte am 16. Aug. 2019

I Have accelerated recruiting for MBB. How long would you dedicate for fit? Feel solid on the case.

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Paul
Experte
antwortete am 17. Aug. 2019
PL-level BCG experience (6 years)|Interviewer at BCG| 6/6 personal + 95%+ candidates offer success rate

Hi,

an absolute timing is not particularly indicative (can vary according to many factors..), I would say 2/3 weeks full time ideally (does not include calling people from the firm and interviewing them).

My advice is not to take this as "second priority" or rush through it: it is your occasion to sell yourself and appear as a pleasant human being. Make sure you have nough time to make sure that your selling points shine through the interview

1) Master your why consulting and why xx firm via

- Hearing from people at your target office

- Reflect upon your REAL reasons to join the firm and what you CAN ADD thanks to your skills/talents

- Let them understand you have done your homework, talked to relevant people in your target offices, know the reality of doing the job and what you are getting into

2) Prepare for the other fit questions (behavioural, leadership etc....) having your matrix of "stories" vs. possible questions which have to be relevant and follow a logic framework (e.g. the STAR framework - Situation Task Action Results) - once agian please insert your selling points wherever you can

If you have been trough the US MBA application process you can find some similiarities: it is kind of an introspective journey :)

Hope this helps.

Paul

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Vlad
Experte
antwortete am 17. Aug. 2019
McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School

Hi,

1) Make sure that you've prepared everything: A story about yourself, motivational questions and the three main stories - one for each of the skills the company wants to test you on - Personal Impact, Leadership, Achievement. Also, don't forget about your questions to the interviewer - you'd rather have an interesting conversation and score some point instead of a simple Q&A session

2) Then go through each story and think of the additional questions the interviewer may ask. It’s important since additional questions will take up to 50% of the interview. Try to remember the main details and facts and make sure that you know how to explain the key concepts quickly. Test your stories with your friends, ideally consultants, and ask for their feedback. There can be multiple groups of additional questions:

  • The interviewer may be interested in details about the context
  • He may want to check whether this was your effort or more sort of a team effort.
  • “Have you faced any difficulties while implementing your solution?”- Typically an interviewer would like you to tell him how you’ve overcome those difficulties.
  • Your interviewer will check how real your story is. You should be ready to provide even more granular actions, key milestones and a breakdown of potential effects.

3) Now work on 3-6 backup stories. During your interviews, you can then use these stories or adapt these stories to the additional questions your interviewer asks you.

You may be interested, why you need to prepare several stories for each question? At the end of the day, it's not that easy to come up with all of these stories. I've answered here: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/repating-fit-interview-stories-927#a1813

4) Next step is talking to consultants. I recommend doing a couple of mock interviews, both case+fit. You can connect with consultants via friends, company events or even LinkedIn. Consultants are entirely opened to share their experiences, but the biggest problem will be the lack of time. Sometimes you’ll need to send a kind reminder to your request, but it pays off.

Best,

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Gaurav
Experte
Content Creator
antwortete am 17. Aug. 2019
Ex-Mckinsey|Certified Career Coach |Placed 500+ candidates at MBB & other consultancies

Fit preparation can be broadly devided into 3 phases.

1. Preparing the answer content

2. Structuring the content (in Headline + STAR method kind of format)

3. Practice the delivery

1. If your CV has been shortlisted by MBB, I am assuming the CV is well written and you have done good amount of dig-up on the work you have done till now and you have all the business metrics/numbers/outcomes etc. handy on the projects that you would done. Which means gathering the content should not take more than 2 working days

2. You should probably reserve 2 working days + a couple of expert sessions for this phase. You structure your answers, get it validated by expert, do some twiking if required etc.

3. Sky is the limit for this phase. Practice is an ongoing process that takes you to perfection. However, do ensure you include FIT part in at least 5 of your mock practice sessions to achieve a good level of comfort.

Hope this helps. All the best!

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Astrid
Admin
antwortete am 19. Aug. 2019
PrepLounge Head of Product & Marketing

Hi there,

Welcome to PrepLounge and thanks for asking your question on our Consulting Q&A.

Have you already checked out our new feature Self Study Mode?

You can find a number of personal fit questions such as "What do you consider to be your weaknesses?" including best practice answers by our experts.

Maybe this helps you for your fit practice.

We wish you a great case prep!

Best,

Astrid

PrepLounge Community Management

PrepLounge Consulting Q&A Forum

Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | twitter

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Clara
Experte
Content Creator
antwortete am 1. Mai 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

On top of the insights already shared in the post, next week will be pusblished in PrepLounge´s Shop material related.

In concrete, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB". It provides an end-to-end preparation for all three MBB interviews, tackling each firms particularities and combining key concepts review and a hands-on methodology. Following the book, the candidate will prepare his/her stories by practicing with over 50 real questions and leveraging special frameworks and worksheets that guide step-by-step, developed by the author and her experience as a Master in Management professor and coach. Finally, as further guidance, the guide encompasses over 20 examples from real candidates.

Hope you find it useful!

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Anonym antwortete am 23. Sept. 2020

Dear A,

Usually FIT part is quite underestimated by many candidates and dedicated to that not so much time. I would recommend you to prepare your stories and practice them out loud in front of he mirror (to follow your face expressions).

Until you feel comfortabble and convinient with them - you are ready. I would recommend you also to take one-two session with a coach to make interview simulation and get structured feedback.

Best,

André

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Kieran
Kompetent
antwortete am 16. Aug. 2019

Hi,

Not sure I would assign a specific amount of time to spend preparing the fit.

I personally would see it more around the examples you have for different scenarios and how well you can articulate them & their relevance.

This would be through having:

  • Multiple flexible examples that can cover multiple compentency areas (Leadership, Conflict Resolution, Adaptability, Perserverance etc.)
  • Using the STAR or similar approach to articulate why it shows the qualities mentioned above (spending more time on your specific action and the result from this).

Once you have a good number of examples covering many compentencies then you should feel well prepared.

That would my 2 cents on the matter, however I am sure someone more experienced can add/edit the above comment.

Kieran

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Paul

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