Roland Berger Final Interview Riyadh Office

Hi there!

Super congrats on passing your first rounds! Now head down to the final one, I am sure you can do it if you put the right effort into it. 

“I asked a couple of colleagues who passed the interview and all of them say not to worry about it as it's generally a friendly interview and my chances are really high of passing it.”

I think this statement can take both positive and negative turns, so it depends on how you act on it:

- Negative: it makes you feel overconfident, like you have already made it and you do not prepare well enough before your next round. 

- Positive: you feel confident and you show this confidence and calm attitude during the interview. This can help you incredibly in giving a storng first impression to the partners that are going to interview you!

My suggestion is to stick to the positive and work on the negative, which in turn will strenghthen the positive even more because being well prepared can only increase your confidence. 

How should you work on the negative? Partners normally focus less on technical skills and more on strategic thinking, communication and your fit with the company's culture. Thus, you should:

- Keep up the case interview preparation, with a focus on cases that let you train your strategic thinking skills.

- Train your communication skills, from 2 different points of view: (1) the way you will interact with your interviewers during the entire interview (e.g. trying to build rapport) (2) the way you will present your cases (e.g. final recommendations).

- Review your personal fit stories and make sure they bring a strong growth attitudine and shows your adaptability. 

Of course, review you weaknessess from your previous rounds and fix those to the best of your possibilities. And remember to always expect the unexpected. You could have a stress interview (it happened to me in a last round with partners), unconventional cases, unconventional fit questions. Just be mindful of your preparation, remain calm and show that you can deal with difficult questions. You absolutely can if you prepare for it!

Best of luck,

Francesca

 

Hi there!

Congrats! That's an amazing achievement!

Yes, a few things to keep in mind for last round interview:

1. Work on the feedback provided in the previous rounds. Most firms communicate the feedback from the previous rounds to the final interviewer. It's important then to show the final interviewer that you have a growth mindset and are reactive to feedback. This matters immensely. Make sure you are clear on your development areas and that you get the right support to polish them before the final interview.
2. Expect less structure. Senior interviewers already have the confidence that you are a decent candidate, your skills having been already vetted by their younger colleagues. They are rather more interested in your as a person and your way of thinking. So they might present you with an unusual case, or one that is created on the spot or no case altogether. Expect anything.
3. Focus on excellent communication. Senior interviewers care a lot about how clearly you communicate and how you manage to forge a connection with the interviewer. It's important to be top-down and concise as much as possible with your answers, while allowing the conversation to flow in a natural way.
4. Put yourself in their shoes. The one question senior interviewers are asking themselves throughout the interview is what will happen when they'll put you in front of a client they've groomed for years? Make sure that even based on this first impression you seem somebody who can be trusted and who can work with any client regardless of how difficult they might be.

Best,
Cristian

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Hi there,

Q: I have passed the two rounds of interviews, and now I have the partner's interview. Let me know please if you have any advice for me as that would help me so much.

In general, in a final round the interviewers may:

1. Spend more time on fit and your alignment with the company.
2. Ask questions related to the areas of improvement for which you got feedback after the first round.
3. Not use a “standard” case. During one of my MBB finals I had one interview made by two market sizing questions and a brainteaser, without any business case.

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To prepare, you can work on the following:

1. Review your fit answers – they could ask more fit questions compared to the first round.
2. Work on the areas they mentioned you could improve, if any (eg. structure, creativity).
3. Focus your case prep on the weakest areas. If you are tracking your performance, do drills for the areas where you are struggling the most / review cases where you made mistakes instead of just doing random cases.

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Extra reading:

▶ How to Prepare for a Consulting Interview

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Good luck!

Francesco

Hi there,

Congratulations! Just getting an interview and passing the first round says that you are a strong candidate - well done!

#1 Fix any weaknesses from the prior interview

#2 stay flexible/adaptable

#3 be mindful that the 2nd round might have more unconventional cases/questions (hence point #2).

Here's some reading to help you as well!

https://www.preplounge.com/en/articles/pitfalls-case-interview-preparation

https://www.preplounge.com/en/articles/how-to-shift-your-mindset-to-ace-the-case
 

https://www.preplounge.com/en/articles/dos-and-donts-in-a-case-interview
 

https://www.preplounge.com/en/articles/candidate-led-cases-what-to-expect-and-example-cases
 

Hello,

Congratulations on passing the first two interview rounds!

Substance-wise, the partner interview is very similar to the initial rounds. You will (most likely) solve a case and answer some behavioral questions. So you should expect to prepare for similar kinds of questions as you have been doing so far.

A couple of additional pieces of advice:

• Make sure you incorporate the feedback you've been given in prior rounds and improve within those areas
• Try to establish a good personal rapport with the partner (ask questions, make small talk, be polite and enthused, etc.)
• Be ready for less structure in the interview - you can really expect anything with partners!

I want to ask some questions is there a way to contact you?

Hey there, how did it go? did you have a case interview in your partner round or was it mainly fit/ Behavioral? My final is also coming up and I am not sure where to focus my prep efforts