Synthesis exercise for A.T Kearney

Question

Hello forum, I have recently been contacted by A.T Kearney for an interview and the first round consists of an hour "synthesis exercise" in which we have to choose a topic among many options, read and analyze about (15mins) and then present it for 10 mins.

I was wondering if anyone has had this experience or if experienced recruiters can give me some insight on what they're looking for and/or how to present a topic in a consultant/logical/structured matter which is what I suspect them to want to see.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi Anonymous,

Indeed, mostly for junior positions, ATKearney have recently one of the case study of first round interviews, by a synthesis exercises.
The meeting will still last 1h, and prior to syntehis exercice you will have a fit interview.

Now about the synthesis exercise, this is to test your ability to quickly conduct some research and summurise it in a structured way.

The topic in itself is not so important, and you should not worry too much about your general background to cover it. You will have 15 mins to conduct researches (ipad available in the room), and prepare for your presentation. The key sucess factor is that you take time within this 15 min to really stucture your presentation, and avoid building it on the fly.

Somehow the topic should be connected to the news. For example this could be "Olympics in Paris 2024 : for and cons." They you should look for the different arguments existing and structure it while you will deliver the argumentation. ex. 1. Economical impact, 2. Political, 3.etc.

Overall your presentation may end up as a discussion with your interviewer but make sure you always remain structured in the way you present your arguments.

Best

Benjamin

Answer 2

Hi Anonymous,

I have the same type of interview question coming up and to my understanding, you have to pick a news topic among several options and be able to present it in a short but concise summary. This is testing your ability to digest a lot of information under a time pressured environment and highlight the important parts of it.

That's all I can say since I have not yet had the interview. If you have had it, I was wondering if I could have a chat with you to ask a couple of questions?

Thank you,
Julien

Answer 3

Thanks Benjamin! Appreciate your advice around being structured in all responses - however I've noticed partners are generally quite unstructured in their line of questioning - is there any way to address this? I imagine one way would be to slow down the pace of interviews to buy time for structured responses?