What is the expectation from the interviewer when asked "Walk me through your resume" question ? Is it okay to use Value prop to answer this ?
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Is Walk me through your resume same as Value Prop ?
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Hi,
I would recommend the following structure:
1) Start with a 1 sentence summary of your background, why you are relevant for McKinsey and what's your unique selling point
2) Talk about 3-4 of your roles (can be professional, education, extracurricular), 3 sentences each. The more experienced you are the more you should speak about professional roles. It can be also the distinct roles within the same organization. Typical structure:
- What was the company
- What you were responsible
- Greatest achievement in that role, that will stay in the memory of the interviewer (E.g. While working at Adidas supply chain I was personally responsible for the delivery of soccer balls to the Worldcup in Africa)
3) The main reason why consulting (or particular company if you were a consultant before) is the next logical career step for you
Best!
(edited)
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Hi,
The expectation is that you are able to walk them through your CV in 5mins-ish:
- Telling everything that you think is relevant
- Focus on leadership/impactful situations rather than details
- Make it a story: everything has to be one step towards the same end, even if you have programmed your whole life to arrive there since you were a toddler
- Something they will remember you for: I won't remember your brilliant project about brakes and steering wheels, but I would probably remember that you love dancing salsa or you founded that start-up that helps people to find cleaning ladies around the country
The value proposition is a totally different situation. With the "walk me through your CV" they probably want them to talk about it because they have not read it or because they want to hear some more "juice" out of all that lines :)
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Hi Shree,
There are a few approaches to "walk me through your resume." The standard approach which works reasonably well is to do a chronological walk through of your work experience, while highlighting/emphasizing elements you consider most relevant. These could be experiences where you felt you had the greatest measurable impact or ones that you think will be most interesting to the interviewer given their background or the role that you are applying for (e.g., those that demonstrate industry expertise or specific knowledge of a challenging problem faced)
A variant of this approach that I quite like is to pick 3 things on your resume that you want to talk about. Ideally these are things you are passionate/excited about and where can communicate the excitement in an engaging manner through the use of stories. What I have found works well is to talk about 2 work related projects such as times where your input helped drive the end output in a meaningful way, and 1 personal achievement. This could be anything from sports to music to adventure, but ideally something memorable, unique and meaningful.
Hope this helps and all the best with the interview process!
Udayan
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