Alle Fragen zum Tag Recruiter - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hi there,

What is your goal when connecting with a recruiter? HR cannot refer you in any case.

I would rather refine the strategy to connect with consultants (who instead can refer you).

You can find more on how to do that at the following link:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/hey-everyonehope-all-is-well-3176

Best,

Francesco

Hi Anonym,

there are referral programs and of course it is always good for a candidate to be recommended.

However (from my experience), most of the invited candidates apply without a referral.

Best regards

Marco-Alexander

Hi there,

As you might expect, the answer varies quite a bit. For me, in particular, I'm headhunted about twice a month by headhunters/recruiters who value one of two things (or both): MBB brand and data/business analytics background.

About half of them are specifically looking for ex-MBB (i.e. won't accept tier 2s).

The amount of headhunting goes up based on 1) My toggle for looking for work status and 2) My location (i.e. far fewer when based on Melbourne than when based in NYC).

Furthermore, you're absolutely able to reach out to headhunters yourself. When looking to leave BCG, I directly reached out to a few placement agencies. They weren't amazing (I ended up following a former colleague to a strategy analytics company they had been in for a year), but they were useful and laid out some great Plan Bs for me.

Hope this helps!

Hi there,

1. What types of questions do recruiters ask?

Typical ones are the following:

1. Tell me about yourself
2. Why consulting
3. Why us
4. Give me an example of when you led a team
5. Tell me about a time when you had to convince someone not agreeing with you
6. What has been your major achievement so far when you started something
7. Why should we hire you

Questions about experiences (similar to 4, 5 and 6) are standard at McKinsey, but other companies may ask them as well. To prepare those questions, I would recommend the following checklist:

1. Understand the difference between, leadership, impact and drive areas. You can find a link with their differences here: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/mckinsey-pei-difference-drive-and-personal-impact-918#a1780
2. Identify good stories for each area. Ideally you want to have at least two stories for each area.
3. Use a structure for your story. I would suggest to use the STARR model (Situation, Task, Action, Rational for Action, Results)
4. Identify for each story one sentence clarifying what the story is about and start with it. Think of it as the title of a journal article.
5. Practice live, collect feedback from people listening to you, reiterate until when you get fluent and persuasive

2. How should my answers to the phone screening be different from those to actual FIT interviews with consultants?

You can answer in the same way

3. I'm an experienced hire (Financial Services) applying for the specific industry consultant role. Will I be tested in my FS industry knowledge either during the phone screen or case interviews?

You may be tested on that. You will very likely have FS cases during interviews, but not necessarily only them.

Best,
Francesco

Hi there,

This is great!

You've basically been referred and now HR is screening you as a candidate...if you "pass" this call, you'll be invited to interview (or take an online assessment).

You absolutely need to treat this like a screening. As such, be prepared with "resume walkthrough" "why consulting" and "why MBB". Furthermore, be sure to come off as personable and capable for the role!

Resume walkthrough

• Needs to be chronological
• Only keep important details that make you look good (i.e. I worked across 7 industries and rose up the ranks twice in the course of that role)
• Keep a theme of "why consulting"
  • I.e. at each step you need to show that you both got exposure to aspects of consulting AND thrived + enjoyed them
• Finish with: And that's why I'm here today looking for consulting with your company

Why Consulting

• You need to summarize what you did before along the theme of consulting aspects you liked and consulting aspects that were missing
• You then combine those two - i.e. I know I like + am good at x, y, and z which is required for consulting, and I really am excited to get a, b, and c
• You finish with a "mini" why x company

Why x company

• Start with a "mini" why consulting
• Then have 2-3 reasons why x company is your target
• Every "reason" needs to incorporate 1) That you know they value x 2) That you not only value x but have exhibited it and done it in the past
• Be very very mindful of what they want you to want

Sorry to hear about that, it´s time to touch base with HR I believe

Cheers!

Hi Anonymous,

Pretty normal, nothing specifically to worry about. The main idea of the phone screening is to investigate specific issues in more before proceeding to the interview stage.

McKinsey usually doesn't ask about comp expectations, since there is hardly anything to negotiate (for non-experienced hires). Either you take it or leave it, full stop. No value add to discuss something which is fixed anyway.

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

Robert

Hello there,

There is nothing unprofessional about contacting a person who have put up their profile on a public domain such as LinkedIn. Reaching out through people from Linkedin is a completely acceptable way to expand your network and engage in professional matters as the platform is tailored to provide such functions.

What will determine whether the outreach is professional or not is the tone and delivery of your message. General best practices such as utilizing polite dictions and be respectful of their time / not being pushy works perfectly.

Another note, actively reaching out would actually showcase your strong interest towards the firm and let them know you are someone who will proactively pursue things, a desirable traits of a prospective candidate.

Hope it helps.

Kind regards,

Nathan

Hello!

Indeed!

1. I agree with your approach overal: you should try to get the conversation into a knowing each other direction, not something transactional. The partner knows perfectly that a referral is what you are after, so there is no need at all to ask for it. It will come as something natural if the conversation goes well.
2. No problem at all. It´s quite usual, I would even say it´s the most usual thing to get referred by someone who is not in the office -at the end, these are global firms with a wide footprint-. I know about many successful referrals from people from other offices

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hi,
I also recommend to catch this opportunity and to clearly talk about your situation. It is totally fine to push the process to accelerate it

Best,
Antonello

Hi Shawn,

if by recruiter you mean the HR team, as Vlad said you should direct your focus on actual consultants. If instead you already contacted actual consultants, there are probably some issues in the way you are presenting yourself or connecting with the consultants in the calls - it is difficult to know exactly what you could improve without additional information though.

In terms of the general referral process, you can find some tips at the link below:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/hey-everyonehope-all-is-well-3176

Best,

Francesco