All questions tagged questions - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hi Anonymous,

it's true that case studies can be exhausting and you may not really remember what questions you wanted to ask.
In general I would distinguish two types of questions and associated way to proceed :

- Priority to direct questions to your interviewer : he is an human being after all and will of course appreciate if you ask relevant questions about his profile and experience as a consultant / and or transition from a previous experience he could mention. In this case no need to wirte your questions in advance, you need to be spontaneous, and if you think you may forget it, just write down you question live when he is introducing himself at the opening of the interviws
- General questions about the firm / your integration : this would typically be general question that you could get answered on the website or discussing in off conversation with the HR / a consultant you may have contacted. If you have very specific unanwered question you may write it down to make sure not to forget it

In general I would always recommand to act like and normal conversation and show sincere interest. This will always create a better connection with your interviews, than a pre-printed list.

Best

Benjamin

Hi Lennard,

asking questions during the fit interview is perfectly fine. Most interviewers like to talk about themselves and will appreciate your personal interest in them. It also shows that you are really engaged in the discussion, rather than just listening and replying to questions.

BUT: Don't exaggerate! Too many questions might disturb the interviewer. If you are handed a short CV up-front you can think about 1-2 brief questions that you like to ask the person.

Best,

Annette

Hi Anonymous,

it is totally feasible to obtain referrals starting with written communication, even when you don’t know anyone in the firms or you don’t have personal connections with people working there – you just have to follow the right steps.

As general tips:

• Don’t use LinkedIn for your communication – emails work a lot better. There are several tool nowadays that allow to get very quickly the email of someone. You should target at least 30% conversion for your messages – if you are not achieving that there is space for improvement in your message.
• When you write to your target connections, your goal should not be to ask questions, rather to organize a call. Then in the call you should ask the right questions to create a link with them.
• Whatever questions you ask during the call, you should have a closing question to ask (indirectly) for the referral. Don’t leave that to chances.

For more information on the process and for the exact steps to obtain referrals, please feel free to send me a private message.

Best,

Francesco

Hi Anonymous!

You touch on an important point here. Many candidates don't understand what distinguishes the clarifying questions at the start from later analysis-related questions (asking for market data. financials, etc.) In general, asking such analysis-related questions at the start is bad! It comes across completely arbitrary, and the interviewer will ask himself why you are asking analysis-questions before even having layed out an analysis approach (the structure)! It just makes no sense to ask for data before laying out your structure, because this information will have ZERO impact on this structure (--> the logic according to which you should address the question).

The clarifying questions you ask at the beginning have the following objectives:

1. Completely understanding the context/situation (including, unclear terminology, but also, for example, the business model of the client if unclear!)
2. Understanding/narrowing down the actual question(s) of the client (very often the question is poorly/vaguely stated in the prompt, and it is your duty as the candidate to make it precise!)
3. Understanding (and quantifying if applicable) the underlying objective(s) of the client

These questions are aiming at understanding the initial setting, hence forming a precondition to outline your structure towards answering the core question (the issue tree)!

The later analysis-related questions that you ask while navigating through the case are then aiming to verify the actual relevance of each sub-branch in your tree. So if you have defined and disaggregated the criterion to answer the client's core question in a clean way, all these leater questions follow a this precise "roadmap" as layed out by your tree. These questions then oftentimes also comprise enquiries on current performance metrics (revenues, costs, growth rates etc.), which normally never make sense to be asked in the clarifying questions (before making explicit your structure).

Cheers, Sidi

Hey there,

It could be helpful if you clarified with whoever provided your feedback on why you should have asked clarifying questions.

In the absence of more detail, I'll share 2 cents from some common pitfalls that I observe, where candidates have made unfounded assumptions without clarifying the situation. This affects their structure, but also affects other parts of their answer also.

Here are 2 "verbal tricks" that I suggest to help you ask clarifying questions.

1. Ask broad, open-ended questions, especially at the start - I see a lot of candidates delve into too much detail from the outset because they have memorized frameworks - and make unfounded assumptions of the direction of the case. A few open ended questions at the start is a good way to set the scene. Some good dimensions are:

• Goals:
  • Do we know what success looks like for the client?
  • Do we know what goals or metrics are the client aiming towards?
• Products + Customers:
  • ​Can you help me understand what kind of products / services our client sells? How does it work?
  • Who are our customers? Why do they need our product / services?
• Business model:
  • ​How do we make money?

2. Keep questions simple and short, follow up with more questions

• If you are not sure whether you are asking the right question. Just confidently ask the question, but keep it simple and short - this can have the effect of putting the onus of more explanations on the interviewer, who will then elaborate on the case.
• You should use some judgment when doing this though as the interviewer could turn the question back on you if the question is very basic.
• However, from the POV of an interviewer, I much more willing to explain some basic concepts to a candidate (after all, no one expects you to be a business expert) compared to seeing a candidate ask an elaborate and detailed question - but which shows the candidate making an illogical assumption about the situation.

Hope that helps!

Jack

Hello,

You can very have fit questions related to COVID or a case relating to a recent project on the crisis or the exit from crisis.

1. On the fit, I would say that it is good to have an opinion of Covid-19 impacts for consulting

• In the short term, consulting firms, like other companies, had to adapt to confinement / lockdown and review the modes of interaction, internally and with clients. I observe that many good practices are emerging from this crisis: particularly around teleworking and collaborative digital tools. Many of these practices are expected to continue, and that’s a good thing!

• From a business point of view, the top priority for companies has been to manage the continuity of their activities while respecting health regulations to protect their employees. As a result of the crisis, the project dynamic slowed down and many consulting firms therefore observed a drop in the sales backlog after mid-March in Europe, a bit later in the US. However, once the brunt of the crisis has passed (soon hopefully), business transformation will not end and consulting firms will always be the best partners to help carry out these transformations. While the industry explosion of the past 10 years is likely to be a halt, I’m not particularly concerned in the medium term

2. On cases, it obviously depends on the theme but there are several fairly recurring elements to think about

• Effective crisis management (execution of business continuity plans, urgent implementation of new working methods, prioritization of the projects portfolio, external / internal communication, ...)

• Preparing for a way out of the crisis with all restructuring / cost reduction levers in the foreground (acceleration of initiatives to digitize processes, organizational review with exploration of levers for near / off shoring or outsourcing and finally the rethinking of the ways of working with the review of the office strategy; rental costs can indeed be reduced leveraving on telework which has become more democratic during lock down periods)

Hope it helps.

David

Hi!

There is a whole lot of great questions you can ask. My best advice is to really think through what interests you most about the job, the firm, or the industry! If you have a particular interest (industry sector, nonprofit area, social engagement, etc.) you can ask if there are touch points/adjacent areas in the firm you could explore. Also, make sure to relate your interests and questions to your background and/or career/life objectives.

That being said, here are a couple of example questions – but by no means exhaustive:

1. "Can you tell me about your background, and in particular how you ended up as a [company name] consultant?" (if the interviewer has a rather exotic professional/educational background)
2. "I’d be interested to hear what your most challenging case has been thus far in your career?"
3. "What do you think are the biggest misperceptions that applicants have about consulting?"
4. "I’m really interested in [particular interest, such as public sector consulting or renewable energy]. I’d be interested to hear what you know about that area at [company name]"
5. "I’ve heard from various people who say your firm is [something good about the company] but also that [something bad about the company]. To what extent is this impression accurate?"
6. "If the interviewer has enough tenure: From your position, how do you think the economic cycles have affected the consulting business over the years?"
7. "What was your perspective on [company name] before you came in, and how was that changed in your time there?"
8. "If you could recommend 2 books that all prospective management consultants should read, what would those be?"
9. "When you think back to your university days, what would be the 2 or 3 things that you wish you’d learned that would have better prepared you for the job today?"

Cheers, Sidi

Great question. You need to follow the framework, but also try to follow the 80/20 rule. If the next step in your framework doesn't appear likely right now, you are welcome to communicate to the interviewer that you will shifts things around a little bit and explain what the new hypothesis is.

Time permitting, you will eventually want to come back to the initial question you would have had otherwise - but odds are you won't have time. A case is so short, you must always go to what seems most likely - no time to boil the ocean

Agree with Vlad, but there is a way I've found useful. I ask my interviewer their best memory so far of being at the firm. It solves for two things: (1) ends the interview on a happy note (2) gives you the top-end/positive end of the culture. In any case, they won't bash their firm at the interview, so asking about their worst experience is pointless.