Bain & Company scheduled a coffee chat meeting for me. Please someone who has the experience should elaborate on what coffee chat is all about. How do I make it a means to my success?
Thanks a lot on this
Bain & Company scheduled a coffee chat meeting for me. Please someone who has the experience should elaborate on what coffee chat is all about. How do I make it a means to my success?
Hi Anonymous,
a coffee chat in consulting is an informal interview, usually to understand if you have the motivation and background for consulting. Rarely, it could evolve in a small case to also test your case skills. If you receive a case it will be normally a short market sizing.
The preparation for a coffee chat should be similar to the one for the fit part of the interview. I would actually recommend to prepare in advance for the questions you are going to get – this from all points of view is the first step in your assessment and you should be prepared accordingly. Some of the key questions to prepare will be:
To prepare, I would suggest the following steps:
One thing many candidates neglect to do is to prepare their own questions. Relevant questions at the end are a great way to show your interest in the company and get additional points. In the first reply at the following post you can find some more information on the ideal type of questions to ask at the end of your call:
https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/open-house-at-bcg-311
The key for a good question is that they should not be related to the firm per se (eg how is XYZ in Bain), but to the experience of the consultant (how did you find XYZ in your experience as a consultant? Which challenges did it bring to you?). This will make your questions far more interesting.
Best,
Francesco
(edited)
Hi,
Coffee chats have 2 goals:
Hopefully this helps.
Jorn
Dear A,
It's great that you have a chance to talk with Bain partner.
Well, in general, you need to be lightly person on order to do so you need to google the most relevant information about your partner with whom you are going to talk about his background, his competence and focus, past projects. Maybe, you can even find any publications where he was an author. Through this, try to ask him the questions and find similarities with yourself: maybe you cam from the same school, town, or interested in the same topics. This will help you to establish both profesional and personal link.
Listen more than you speak, be an active listener. Partners normally like those person who are smart and listen to them. So make the partner feel great during this conversation. And I'm pretty sure that afterwards he will be eager to help you to get into the firm, which is your ultimate objective.
Hope it helps you,
If you need further tips, just drop me a message,
Good luck,
André
Hi,
There may be 2 options:
In the first option, it is mainly about your questions to the interviewer, thus try to ask the following:
Don't ask the following:
Group coffee chat is much easier since you just have to ask several questions. Although try to demonstrate your intellectual capacity sharing your experience and relevant facts
Be prepared and good luck!
Hey anonymous,
I think you're seeing things using the wrong angle, you shouldn't focus on what questions to expect, but actually on what which questions to prepare (based on information you want to gather and clarify, image you want to convey) in order to have an fruitful coffee chat.
Bain representative is not going to be there to interview and you should aim to lead the conversation.
Best
Bruno
Thanks a lot on this
In general in a coffee chat the consultant will try to gauge (and report back) the following things:
Since this has still to be a conversation I would, as other suggested, focus on what questions to ask vs. what questions you will be asked but make sure that doing so you give an opportunity to the interviewer to assess you in these areas. Also would strive to ask questions on things you can't find the answer for online or on forums and to keep questions very positive (e.g. don't ask what makes McK different from other consultancies? but ask what is unique in McK culture and what is the flair in your office?)
Hope it helps,
Andrea