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Personal Fit preparation advices

fit interview personal experience interview Personal Fit Personalfit
New answer on Nov 27, 2020
4 Answers
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Anonymous D asked on Dec 27, 2018

Hi All,

I'll start to prepare in a while the personal fit part for consulting interview. I know what it is but I have some questions for you:

  1. Do you suggest me peculiar aspects I should particularly care of? Generally speaking, I would answer each question with the STAR approach. Is that a right approach?
  2. What's the best way to prepare this part? According to your experience, what's the path to follow starting from 0% preparation to get a 90/100% preparation?
  3. How much time should I dedicate of my time to prepare personal fit?
  4. Is there any material (videos, presentations, list of question) could be useful to ramp-up my preparation?

Thank you in advance :)

V.

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Anonymous replied on Apr 30, 2020

Dear A,

Hi A,

I agree with Vlad and his full and structure answer. The only thing I can add, that if you struggle with finding any "high" moments, situation or proof of your leadership skills, I would recommend you to hire a coach for that, who facilitate for pulling out all the diamonds out of you.

Hope, it helps.

Best,
André

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Vlad
Expert
replied on Dec 28, 2018
McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School

Hi,

  1. Only the questions that require stories - e.g. Leadership, Personal Impact, Etc
  2. See below
  3. It takes 1-2 weeks depending on the background
  4. Can only recommend taking a coach, since I have not seen any good materials.

Here is the approach I would recommend:

1) Make sure that you've prepared everything: A story about yourself, motivational questions and the three main stories - one for each of the skills the company wants to test you on - Personal Impact, Leadership, Achievement. Also, don't forget about your questions to the interviewer - you'd rather have an interesting conversation and score some point instead of a simple Q&A session

2) Then go through each story and think of the additional questions the interviewer may ask. It’s important since additional questions will take up to 50% of the interview. Try to remember the main details and facts and make sure that you know how to explain the key concepts quickly. Test your stories with your friends, ideally consultants, and ask for their feedback. There can be multiple groups of additional questions:

  • The interviewer may be interested in details about the context
  • He may want to check whether this was your effort or more sort of a team effort.
  • “Have you faced any difficulties while implementing your solution?”- Typically an interviewer would like you to tell him how you’ve overcome those difficulties.
  • Your interviewer will check how real your story is. You should be ready to provide even more granular actions, key milestones and a breakdown of potential effects.

3) Now work on 3-6 backup stories. During your interviews, you can then use these stories or adapt these stories to the additional questions your interviewer asks you.

You may be interested, why you need to prepare several stories for each question? At the end of the day, it's not that easy to come up with all of these stories. I've answered here: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/repating-fit-interview-stories-927#a1813

4) Next step is talking to consultants. I recommend doing a couple of mock interviews, both case+fit. You can connect with consultants via friends, company events or even LinkedIn. Consultants are entirely opened to share their experiences, but the biggest problem will be the lack of time. Sometimes you’ll need to send a kind reminder to your request, but it pays off.

Best,

Vlad

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Gaurav
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Nov 27, 2020
Ex-Mckinsey|Certified Career Coach |Placed 500+ candidates at MBB & other consultancies

FIT questions are designed for the following reasons:

  • to know candidate on the personal level

  • to know whether candidate can to the values of the company

  • to know which soft skills candidate has

How to practice FIT part?

  • Prepare your answers

  • Structure them according to

  • Practice them out loud

  • Practice them in front of the mirror and notice your face expressions

What interviewers are trying to assess in you:

  • Personal FIT - would the interviewer like to work with you as a colleague

  • Are you reliable/ independent/ confident person

  • Can you be sent along to the client

  • Would you fit to the corporate culture

So, considering this information, I recommend you to be well-prepared, but in case you will be asekd something unexpected - you already know what interviewers wnat to hear from you.

Was it helpful?

GB

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Clara
Expert
Content Creator
replied on May 01, 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

On top of the insights already shared in the post, next week will be pusblished in PrepLounge´s Shop material related.

In concrete, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB". 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 you find it useful!

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