How to answer "free-flow questions" at a partner interview?

Hi there,

They may indeed ask these questions in partner rounds - I had a similar experience in a partner interview with OW. In terms of your questions:

Q: What would be a good approach to answer the above questions? How should I balance being structured but at the same time sound natural, engaging, and driving a “client dialogue

Here are some tips:

1) BEFORE THE INTERVIEW

• Prepare in advance. Try to get a broad range of “fit” questions and prepare accordingly. If you work with a coach, he/she most likely can help to prepare specifically for that company. If you prepare on your own, you should do your research on that. Once done so, you will likely have a good answer ready for most questions.

2) DURING THE INTERVIEW

• Use icebreakers at the beginning – eg “That’s a great question”
• If you get a very unusual question, ask for time. This is not ideal for fit questions you should have prepared (eg “Why us”, “What do you do on weekends” or “Why should we hire you”), but it is fine for a question like “How would the world look in 30 years”. Assuming you have not thought about this before, it is unlikely you can provide a great answer on the spot
• Structure an answer for the question. You have to adapt this according to the question, to avoid being too rigid:
  • Present the first level, then the second level: "So given XXX, I think we could look at 3 main areas: first ABC, second DEF, third GHI"
  • Use numbers/clear points when presenting levels: "In the first area there are a few things we may consider: First‚..., Second..., Finally..."
• Interact with the interviewer. Once you answered the question, you may have the option to start a conversation with the interviewer on the topic. If you studied his/her profile (see bonus point below) this is going to be easier and help you to leave a better impression

Bonus tip: Most senior interviewers write articles / research papers on the topics they focus on. If you can study them and refer to something they published, you will definitely score points as: (i) you will show you have done your research and (ii) you will be able to naturally connect more with the person on one of his/her favorite topics.

If you want to check new trends in consulting which may appear during the discussion, you can find an article on that below:

▶ New Consulting Trends

Best,

Francesco

Hi there, 

great question - thanks for sharing!

What a partner is looking for here is really to understand whether you have solid business judgement, strategic thinking ("bigger picture") and the smarts (IQ as well as EQ) to navigate through intellectual conversations with senior clients and other stakeholders.

In essence, to tackle these kinds of questions try to keep it conversational, engaging and, most importantly, natural (as you rightly pointed out)…  

1. Show structure: organize your thoughts in a high-level structure to talk through the key dimensions / areas you want to cover. But key is also to not overdo it - 1-2 layers enough.
2. Actively listen & engage: this is massively underestimated by most people and key to keeping it natural! Don't just agree to everything you hear and move on. Ask follow up questions, augment the partner's view and challenge it, when it's obviously off. Don't be afraid to disagree, but when you do, make sure its communicated in a soft and objective way. Executed well, this can actually land big plus points (as usually nobody does it).
3. Demonstrate thought-leadership: pro-actively share your views & perspectives, personal experiences, your outlook on the topic  whenever possible.
4. Establish rigor and credibility: back your thoughts up with data points (partners are consultants after all), when you can, even if these just stem from personal experience / analogies (that's exactly what they do all day)
5. Keep it light: try to inject light fun / jokes into the conversation, but only do so when it comes natural. Interviewers are also just humans - charm works.

Some further thoughts on structure: as you said - key here is balance. A basic, high-level framework (1-2 layers max) will still be useful to structure the conversation. However, make sure you don't overdo it, as that would come through as mechanical. Focus here will not be on whether you can mechanically run through hypothesis-driven problem-solving (for which you'd require detailed structure) but just to organize your thoughts, which will help you communicate in a top-down, structured way. 

Hope this helps - feel free to reach out to me or other coaches for further questions or to run a simulation, if you have more partner interviews coming up. There are many small nuances one can work on to master it and maximize chance of success.

Regards, Andi 

Hi there,

I hope this didn't throw you off too much. A very typical situation in a Partner interview and also you response to the challenge, which is “being natural” vs. “being structured”.

In an ideal world, these two things shouldn't be at odds. However, a lot of people don't know how to communicate top down in “free flow”. Hence, at some MBB, interviewers are trained to be non-biased about this, the idea being that top down communication can be learnt on the job.

Hence, a very simplified answer would be to prioritize sounding natural and being a pleasant and natural conversationalist, as opposed to being a walking structuring machine.

Hope this helps a bit! Best of luck!

Hi there,

You've said it exactly right here “balance being structured but at the same time sound natural, engaging, and driving a “client dialogue""

The above is exactly what you need to do. With brainstorming questions you still need structure/organization (i.e. you need to group your ideas to the largest extent possible). I'm not sure why you say “balance” - there's no balance here as that's exactly what's required! (All of the above).

In terms of how, that's very hard to get down on paper. Feel free to reach out and I can support you in this. Essentially, it requires you to train you “frameworking” skills so to speak to think more quickly and come up with initial themes/groupings right off the bat.

Hello!

If you want to deep dive on the topic, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB" has been recently published in PrepLounge´s shop (https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/integrated-fit-guide-for-mbb-34)

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 it helps! 

TL:DR answer:  you have to practice top-down communication and how to present an argument. (start with the headline, and then follow up with the supporting ideas, based on facts and data/evidence). 

You are right - it has to be natural - so you should practice. A lot. So it becomes second nature to you. This is expected from a consultant.

Other than that, you have to know what's going on in the world, in your country, in the business world - so you have background content to support an answer.