Invested money/undertook a task & lost money?

1st round interview interview prep
Neue Antwort am 16. Juli 2020
4 Antworten
980 Views
Martins fragte am 6. Juli 2020

Hello,

Please can someone help with instances a graduate student can use when trying to give an example of times when he/she invested money and lost it? (Or probably undertook a task and lost money?)

Also, I will kindly appreciate a further explanation on the WHAT & WHY that this question seeks to assess of the Interviewee.

Thanks for your anticipated responses!

(editiert)

Übersicht der Antworten

Upvotes
  • Upvotes
  • Datum aufsteigend
  • Datum absteigend
Beste Antwort
Ian
Experte
Content Creator
antwortete am 6. Juli 2020
#1 BCG coach | MBB | Tier 2 | Digital, Tech, Platinion | 100% personal success rate (8/8) | 95% candidate success rate

Hi Martins,

Fundamentally, they're looking to see: can you learn from your mistakes?

So, pick an example where you had a belief/convinction, took a risk, and turned out wrong. Then, provide the lesson you learned from this!

Personally, I would talk about a startup I launched that ultimately failed. I didn't understand a key part of the market (essentially big powerful companies that would block you). Waht I learned from this is to always consider how your competition will respond to your actions. Furthermore, before I started, I made sure to only pursue a low-capital idea. This is a view that was reinforced....if you're going to take a risk hedge/minimize risk by either picking something with low capital requirement OR getting someone else's money!

War diese Antwort hilfreich?
Clara
Experte
Content Creator
antwortete am 6. Juli 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

There are a few things the interviewer is looking for here:

  • Can you make bold decisions? (e.g., launching something yours, etc.)
  • Do you calculate risks?
  • Do you learn from your mistakes? Hence, don´t limit the story to the loss itself but also your learnings from it
  • etc.

I would pick a story regarding you betting for something (e.g., project, startup, etc.) that then failed.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

War diese Antwort hilfreich?
Robert
Experte
Content Creator
antwortete am 6. Juli 2020
McKinsey offers w/o final round interviews - 100% risk-free - 10+ years MBB coaching experience - Multiple book author

Hi Martins,

I personally never ask such questions since I expect rehearsed answers - but that's for another day.

The reason behind is two-fold:

  1. How well did you prepare your decision upfront - was it a structured, logical process on how you came to that decision.
  2. Once you understood in hindsight that it was not the very best decision which you could have taken - was your process to derive that decision (point 1) good enough nevertheless to stick with in principally, and in addition to that what are the key take-aways for your further improvement for such situations in future?

Hope that helps - if so, please be so kind and give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

War diese Antwort hilfreich?
Anonym antwortete am 16. Juli 2020

Hi Martins,

I can see tthat by your anwer you might be assessed on how:

• You take risky desicion and you calculate risks

• You ability to make conclusion out of mistakes

• How well your assess the given situation to take such desicions.

Hope it helps,

Best,

André

War diese Antwort hilfreich?
0

Ian

Content Creator
#1 BCG coach | MBB | Tier 2 | Digital, Tech, Platinion | 100% personal success rate (8/8) | 95% candidate success rate
1.088
Meetings
76.183
Q&A Upvotes
227
Awards
5,0
150 Bewertungen
Wie wahrscheinlich ist es, dass du uns einem Freund oder Kommilitonen empfiehlst?
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
0 = Nicht wahrscheinlich
10 = Sehr wahrscheinlich