Hi there,

I have to say that I found your experiences very interesting.

In general, any experience can be successfully brought up during an interview as long as it as a learning side.

In both of your examples I see many hints:

• Team-working
• Analytical skills
• Creativity
• Sense of adventure and curiosity

These are all qualities that make up a good consultant!

Just a couple of suggestions...

- As they are indeed unusual experiences, just mention them with a smile, as if you were telling to your interviewer a funny story. Being spontaneous is always appreciated and in this case it can very well help you.

- Don´t forget to underline your achievements: what have you achieved after working for three full month full time to your project? The best would be if you were able to quantify your achievement (consultants love numbers - even estimated ones!). For example: “through my work, the estimation accuracy of a horse racing bet improved of 10%”. A sentence like this would leave the interviewer quite impressed!

Hi Anonymous,

I believe the experiences are both interesting; as for the poker story, what I would do is not to concentrate on poker per se, but on the achievements you got with it. If you managed to finance your education and trips with poker, you have probably achieved a semi-professional level, and potentially participated at international competitions. This is the kind of achievement you may want to underline, leaving the money part as an add-on that actually helped you to invest in your personal growth. It would also be useful to add to the story the elements Sara suggested (analytical skills/statistics in particular) and the success rate you got and rational to invest in such activities (eg. “Statistically I found I was able to win 55% of the matches, thus giving me a steady average income of €X per hour, better than the alternatives I could get with other jobs”).

For the betting experience, this can easily presented as a pure data analysis job, therefore I believe there are less risks that it would be perceived as a "vice", rather as a mathematical analysis (moreover, many consulting companies actually have done projects with betting companies, therefore your experience could even become interesting as a potential optimization project they may relate to).

Hope this helps,

Francesco

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!

I think Sara did a nice job of highlighting how any experience can be turned into a successful story during an interview. I will add that I find that the most interesting PEI stories are actually non-work related and I encourage candidates to use non-work stories (at least once) if the interviewer gives an opening. So, in your example, the interviewer asked you for a “situation”, not a “work situation”, which gave you the perfect opportunity to use a non-work example. By using a non-work situation, you are able to:

• Stand-out: Remember that there is a decision meeting about whether you pass to the next round (if it’s a first round interview) or get an offer (if it’s a final round interview) and the more you stand out as a candidate, the easier it is to “make the case” for you during that meeting.
• Add humor: As Sara alluded to, you can tell your story and add a twist of humor to it. Interviewers have long, mundane days of interviewing and like to have the mood lightened.
• Add personal depth: Show that you have skills and interests outside of work. If you happen to hit upon a story that resonates with the interviewers past experiences or interests, that’s a home run!

Having said that, I don’t know that I would have used both situations that were non-work, especially because they are both so similar (involving gambling) and actually may portray you as a risk-taker, even if you highlight the strategy and analysis points.