Group Case including a Presentation - How to show initiative

Hello!

I completely relate to the challenges of doing group interviews when you are quite introverted. Unfortunately, there is no way around it than to get your game face on and actively participate. If you are passive, interviewers won't have much to go off to assess your candidacy. 

Here are some of my tips for group interviews:

1. Prepare yourself mentally - as a fellow introvert, I find this step to be very important. Remember that you are not there to make friends, you are there to get a job, and so you should feel free to “perform” and behave in a way that is a little different to the way you would normally interact in social situations. Consulting firms value leadership and teamwork, so being active will be key here.

2. Direct the process - there are many ways of showing an “active” side in group interviews, but one of the most effective ones is to play a part in leading or directing the process. The suggestions you make fall into this category - making sure your team is all on the same page about the task, showing initiative by suggesting you divide and conquer the tasks, suggesting a process for working individually for a certain amount of time and then getting together to discuss. This will show your strengths as a leader.

3. Remember to be inclusive - while leadership is certainly important, interviewers don't like candidates who are overly domineering. If your natural tendency is to be more passive, you are unlikely to fall into this trap, but it always pays to remember that this is a group interview and so the interviewers want to assess all the other candidates too. If you are leading the process, make sure that all your teammates are included and participating. It can be helpful to frame your thoughts as suggestions, rather than commands - e.g. “How would you guys feel about dividing these tasks and working on them individually?” instead of “Right, now let's divide these tasks and work on them individually”. If you notice that someone in the group is being more passive, bring them into the conversation by asking them what they think. If you are putting together a presentation, make sure that more than one person is doing the presenting. This will show both your leadership and your teamwork skills.

4. Don't forget about content - it is not enough just to manage the process, you want to make sure you are contributing good content too. In other words, you are not just the person at the whiteboard asking the group to brainstorm ideas and writing them down - you also need to be suggesting great ideas yourself, actively making slides for the presentation, and so on.

Group interviews can seem daunting, but do your best to conjure up an image of a good leader and emulate it. Push yourself to show initiative and don't be passive. Your specific behavior will depend a lot on the context - as a good leader, you should read the room and react appropriately (for instance, in a group where most people are passive, you'll be directing more energy in encouraging others to speak up, however in a group with a lot of domineering personalities, you'll direct more energy towards managing the conversation). But generally, my advice would be to prepare yourself mentally, seek to direct the process while also contributing great content, and make sure that everyone in your group is included in the work.

Best of luck with your interviews!