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It’s a thin ice to walk on.

• On the one hand, if you answer “dissent” you risk of coming off as stubborn and arrogant, the person who is pushing her opinion no matter what.
• On the other hand, if you answer “consensus” you risk of coming off as a softy, the person who agrees to everything, so that people don’t get upset.

So, if asked that question in an interview I would go with a typical consulting answer of “it depends” :)

• If you disagree with smbd and think that if your opinion is not taken into account, then the client interests are not served the best or your values are compromised, then “dissent”.
• But if you disagree with smbd and your idea is just as good as anybody else’s at the table and it’s important to bring all the stakeholders on board to move things forward, then “consensus”.

I hope this helps!

Best,
Daniel

Hello,

This is type of questions which distincts people with a good ownership skills. In principle, depends on the criticallity of the situation, you shall try to solve it with all and every manner and tools by yourself, unless the potential negative impact from the delay (during which you will try to change anything) is much larger than the implicit value from your actions.

For example, if your product's defect is minor or if you may stop the line w/o large issue on the client's side or penalty on your side - pls make the fixting or replacement. However, if your product is time-sensitive, clients need it urgently, delay will cause your company significant amount of money or you can't fix it - then you need to get your boss involved.

What your boss may potentially do (and what you may potentially be willing to do)? Well, sometimes it's better approach your boss, because he/she has more responsibilities, broader vision of the context, etc.

But the real ownership quality is shown when (for any reason) there is no boss above? Then you may consider the following:

* Inform the client about it and ask his advice on the situation to understand urgency, propose him discount, product substitution, extra services, etc.

* Buy the same/similar product at your own cost from 3rd party supplier and deliver it to the client w/o him being aware of your problems

* Inform the client about the delay, and promise him to deliver it with no cost for him. Thus you will definitely discover what you shall be doing in order to avoid such collapses in the future.

Hope this helps,

- Refund tickets (and get money back)

- Change tickets for another movie on another day

If not possible:

- Invite other people to watch the movie with you (friends, family)

- Watch movie alone

- Sell tickets to incoming guests (possibly for lower price)

- Be douchy and force the person that stood you up to pay 50 %

- Do nothing, go home and accept the failed investment

This is a key part of the interview! Please do not overlook it at all.

DO

Ask questions about one the below 3:

-consulting industry (how have clients need evolve?)
-case (did you wind up proposing this to the client? which were the roadblocks during the project?)
-himself (which step of the consulting career did you like best?)

AVOID

Ask stupid questions on:

-questions you can ask to HR (how long before I have an answer?)
-basic consuling career stuff (how often do you promote people?)

1. Versatile experience, spanning from TMT unicorn to boutique M&A house;

2. Strong transferrable skills, from financial modeling to project management;

3. Get along well with C-suite people, chill, bold, fun-loving and bald.

Hello,

I cannot imagine a scenario in which you are asked something like this in an MBB interview.

FIT questions are about leadership, impact and entrepreneurial drive, asked as behavioural questions.

Best,

Clara

Hi!

The first thing to recognise is why interviewers ask this question. Ultimately, they want to know how aware you are of your development areas, how you feel about you "weaknesses", and whether those "weaknesses" are red flags :)

I advise my clients to:

1. Answer honestly & directly... but not too honestly (this is not a confessional :)). Interviewers can tell if you're being ingenuine and know when you're trying to cover up your weaknesses. For example, "I work too hard" is not a weakness so don't say that. And don't say something that will obviously be a complete deal-breaker.
2. Pick a "weakness" that is important for consultants to have. i.e. it should be relevant to the role. Saying you want to be a better investor is not relevant to the role. However, saying you could be better at managing your time is something that is relevant to being a consultant
3. Show that you have already worked on this "weakness" and have a plan to improve it even more. Interviewers want just want to see that you have "weaknesses" (they already know you do because we ALL have weaknesses). They want to see that you're the sort of person who is doing something about it to improve yourself because as a consultant, you have to be open to feedback and take steps to address that feedback.

Here's an example of what this might sound like (remember, this is just an example that demonstrates an example that is direct, honest, relevant, and improvement-focused. You will need to cater this to yourself:

• "A weakness of mine is my ability to present confidently in situations where I'm less familiar with the topic. This stems from a complete fear of presenting just a few years ago, which I worked on through the support of my colleagues and by putting myself in situations where I had no choice but to present, get feedback, and then refine and try again. So I feel like I've already come a long way. The work I'd done preparing myself for these interviews have helped me gain additional communication skills to improve how I feel presenting less familiar topics, but it is still an ongoing effort, which I continue to work on."

Hope this helps! Get in touch directly to get some specific practice in.

Best!

Hi!

To answer your question directly: Your interviewer expects that you provide very concrete and clear examples of leadership in a difficult situation to show. So here's what you need to do:

1. Think of an example that truly demonstrates you taking leadership. An example where you ran a team successfully to a specific goal or through a difficult challenge. The interviewer does not want to hear that you've been in a leadership position, but instead that you have evidence of being an effective leader. So, saying you were responsible for a large team is not good enough because you may not have been very good at it :). But explaining that you led that large team to deliver a multi-month project through major challenges is impressive. And be sure to highlight what the challenges are. Which brings me to...
2. Summarise at a high-level
   1. ​who you led
   2. what you led them to do
   3. what was difficult about it
   4. what you did to be successful
   5. Bonus: what about you specifically made it successful (e.g. your confidence, tenacity, etc.)
3. And then be prepared to go into detail with your interviewer:
   1. Explain what you did, said, and thought. Remember, this is not about your team, it is about you so get comfortable using words like "I did...", "I said...", "I figured out that...", etc.
   2. Describe specific difficult moments and how you overcame it (again, it's all about what you did)
   3. Explain any planning you did beforehand and why
   4. Share and celebrate the outcome (which should be positive) and maybe any learnings or things you would do better.

All the best!

Hi,

This is a tricky question. The safe response is that you say that you see yourself working as a project leader/principal at the office of your application. If you already have a specific interest, you can elaborate on which functional topics and industries you plan to specialize in the future.

Surely, in order to be honest with the interviewers, you can also say that you see their company as a platform to better understand how you want to shape your career. However, I would refrain from saying things such as "I see myself in working in the industry after working at your company for 2-3 years". With this question, they want to test your commitment, thus you need to further elaborate on that.

Best,

Deniz

It is one of the most popular Fermi questions and you could face it during the 1st round, when math and problem-solving skills are usually tested deeply. I will propose a quick solution, in order to give later some detailed considerations.

Let's estimate the number of windows in Seattle.

• No. of residents in Seattle: you do not have to know that Seattle has almost 750k residents, but a good candidate should infer that it is a big city in the US and that can be assumed it has 1M residents.
• No. of windows per residents: you are actually interested in the number of facades to clean; a small window has 2 facades, the inner one and the external one, while bigger windows have 4 or more facades. Let's assume that an average residence in Seattle has 2 people and 40 window facades. So we have 20 residential facades per inhabitant. Let's assume to have other 20 commercial window facades per resident, including e.g. bars, offices, stores.

-> 1M residents x 40 window facades, we have a total of 40M facades to clean.

Now let's evaluate the charge per facade.

• Facades per hour: the time requested for a wide window of a store will be much higher than the service window of a little house. Let's assume an expert cleaner will take 1 min for a medium-sized window, i.e. 60 facades per hour.
• Charge per hour: let's assume an hourly rate of $10. We should also consider the cost for infrastructures, tools, products, and insurance: let's estimate other $5 per hour.

-> in an hour: $15 / 60 facade, that gives 25 cents per window facade.

--> Therefore to clean all the windows of Seattle you could charge $10M ($0,25 x 40M).

Remember: in consulting nobody knows the number of windows in Seattle and maybe neither in window-cleaning companies :) What will be valued is not the accuracy of this type of numbers, but the reasoning you make behind them and your common sense (you should always wonder if numbers you estimate have sense or not). In addition, when you complete an estimation (e.g. the no. of residents in Seattle) you can ask the interviewer whether you can proceed with that number or she has something more accurate.

The solution proposed will be considered great and will allows you to pass the round. But in order to really crack it and impress the interviewer, you should be more curious, proactive and come up with creative considerations, potentially based on personal experience. Some examples:

• When you calculate the no. of windows in town you can make some comparisons with your city, e.g.: "in Manhattan, I feel lucky with just one window at home, but I know that Seattle is more residential, houses are bigger and they usually have beautiful views on surrounding gardens and parks. Therefore let's assume an average house has 4 little windows (2 facades each), 4 medium (4 facades each) and 2 big (8 facades each)."
• Think out of the box: ask the interviewer if you should also consider the car windows.
• When you evaluate the cleaning speed you can say, with a bit of healthy self-irony: "A medium-sized facade take me at least 3-4 minutes to clean it. But I know to be a disaster :) I assume an expert cleaner with professional tools can handle it and move to the next one in 1 minute."
• In the end, to consider other risks not covered in the discussion, you could also introduce a safety factor, e.g. "the time evaluated do not consider the time to put up and put down the infrastructure and the time needed to wait for residents to free up windows. For these and other possible risks we should consider an increase of 10% of the estimate."

in my last consulting project, i was on a team of 4. three of us were very much self-directed and self-starters that took initiative to break down, assign, and complete tasks required for the project. one team member, however, was admitedly in need of constant direction. when our team broke down into partners, i was paired with the non-self-starter. i took this opportunity to be candid and open with him about what he needed from me to be successful, and worked with him to break down tasks, which i then assigned a portion of to him. while it felt a little strange stepping into the "boss" role with a peer of equal footing, we both realized that this is what he needed, and what the team needed, to be successful. In the end, our portion of the project was extremely well-received by the client, and my partner and i's (and entire team's) relationship remained positive throughout and after the project.

Hi,

This is one of the most frequently asked questions. The response to this question is quite generic, but it works all the time. When I interviewed with MBB, this is how I answered the question and you can follow a similar logic:

I focused on the fact that I was a recent graduate who did not know what to specialize in, in terms of industries (e.g. healthcare, consumer goods, retail, etc.) or functional topics (e.g., finance, HR, strategy, digital, etc.). Thus I emphasized that I wanted to get into consulting to better understand what I am passionate about by working on a different set of projects.

Moreover, I also mentioned that the skillset that I will acquire in consulting (e.g., team management, time management, client management) would be applicable anywhere I go next.

Lastly, I also highlighted the opportunity to take up significant responsibilities in the early stages of my career, as it is rare to find someone who is in his/her mid-20s sit on the same table with key industry leaders and make recommendations to them.

Best,

Deniz

i chose to pursue opportunities at bcg because of the new problem, new approach mindset. with my research background, i enjoy approaching problems that have never been seen before with a fresh and creative mindset, but bringing with me the tools and schools of thought that inform my thinking along the way. additionally, diversity and inclusion is important to me, and BCG continues to prove its commitment to these efforts, continuously winning LGBTQ inclusion awards and publishing articles on this content

This question is usually asked in the very beginning of McKinsey interview and does NOT strictly constitute a part of personal fit questions (which are situation-based). In contrast to business cases and personal fit questions there is also no exact system for evaluating your answer to this question. The “tell me about yourself“ question during McKinsey interview serves just one purpose – to actually help you relax, let you talk about something you are familiar with and to help your interviewer to get to know you a bit better (sort of to put a face to whatever she read in your CV).

So, I would use it as a chance to make yourself memorable and to leave a positive impression. What do I mean by that? I mean, of course, do say a few words about your studies and work experience, but also say what you are passionate about and what you want to achieve in life. Are you passionate about swimming? Say it! Are you passionate about singing? Say it! Do you want to eventually build your own business? Say it! It’s important for an interviewer to understand what kind of person you are and for you to leave a memorable mark, so make sure you highlight those things which throw a bit of light on your personality.

Hi,

I think that everyone that apply for any consulting firms attribute a high value to money.

Thus, I think you can give an example of successful investment you did in the past in order to give the idea that money is an instrument to improve your welfare as well as your business skills. Investing you can train yourself to handle pressure and learn about new business sector.