Guide to a future in consulting

Can you cite some examples of occasions when you had to “sell” an idea or yourself to others?

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  How well do you demonstrate your ability to influence?
  
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  What data research did you do to back up your proposal?
  

• Tell me about a time you were working on a project and you didn’t agree with how it was progressing.

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  How do you deal with conflict or lack of consensus?
  
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  Can you continue to work effectively even when you do not agree with the methodology or decision?
  

• Tell me about a situation where a team you were on worked through a difficult situation?

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  Your demonstrated ability to work through conflict in a constructive way that achieved results.
  

• Describe a time when you managed through a significant change. What was that change, and how did you build commitment within your area for the change?

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  Are you a dynamic thinker?
  
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  Are you a change agent?
  
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  Can you manage for results?
  

• Tell me about a time you made a mistake at work?

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  This is an opportunity to frame a failure as a learning experience.
  
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    Describe the failure
    
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    Lessons learned
    
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    Success story
    
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    Value to the company
    
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  Show that you can learn from your mistakes
  
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  Nothing too terrible or personal
  

• What role did you play in your last team experience?

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  Demonstrate that you know how to contribute without being the leader.
  
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  Show how you helped the team move forward through a challenge.
  
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  How do you make the team function more efficiently?
  
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  If you were the leader – how did you lead?
  
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  How effective are your influencing skills?
  

• How has your MBA prepared you to contribute to our firm?

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  Talk about your experiences at Babson and why they will help you in the future.
  
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  What new skills have you acquired?
  
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  How has the integrated curriculum and team experiences helped you to grow?
  

• Why are you interested in our firm?

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  Does your personal story or history have much in common with the consulting company?
  
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  How well do you fit with the consulting company?
  

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• Sample Behavioral Questions from Firms

• Simon-Kucher and Partners

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  If you were a consultant to your former company, what would you recommend that they change?
  

• Boston Consulting Group

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  How would other people in your program characterize you?
  
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  What books have you enjoyed?
  
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  Who are your heroes/ to whom do you look up?
  

• Deloitte & Touche

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  How do you deal with failure?
  
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  How has your MBA prepared you to contribute?
  

• IBM Consulting

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  What book have you read in the last year that had an impact on your life?
  
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  Give me an example of a time when you were a leader in a group/team? What exactly was your role?
  
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  Give me an example of a time when your presence on a project clearly made a difference – things wouldn't have been the same if someone else had been there. What did you contribute that was unique?
  

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• The Case Interview

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  What to expect when you walk in the room.
  

• Oral Cases: 90% of case interviews will be oral

• First Round

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  A standard first round case interview (usually of 30 minutes) can be broken down as follows:
  

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  Greetings / Introductions (1-2 minutes)
  
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  Personal Questions – Often focusing on your resume or things you have done and were of interest to the interviewer, make sure you have your story down! (5-10 minutes)
  
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  The Case Interview – Now comes the fun part! (10-20 minutes)
  
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  Wrap-up questions – Ask one or two questions that you would like to know about the firm and is also a good time to ask what the next step is and their business card (1-5 minutes)
  
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  Calculators are not allowed
  

• Second Round

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  This is slightly longer, for around 45-60 minutes.
  

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  This case interview will require in-depth analysis
  
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  There may be multiple cases
  

• Written Cases

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  Some firms will give written cases or group cases. Financial case interviews are typically written
  
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  Typically calculators are allowed
  
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  Typically they will monitor the group during the case if it is a group case
  

• First Round

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  Interviewer gives you 5-6 pages of information including statistics, data and graphs
  
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  You have 15 minutes to answer 4-6 questions with one question which requires complex calculations
  
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  You will not have enough time to answer all the questions so you must be prepared to strategize about which questions to spend your time on and then be able to discuss how you would determine the answers
  
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  Be sure to refer to the exhibits.
  

• Second Round

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  This is typically a group case.
  

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  Each participant is given part of the case.
  
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  You have 30-45 minutes to develop a presentation.
  
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  There is not enough time to do anything more than read your material and prepare your answers.
  
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  The group must present together.
  
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  Your challenge is to support the other members so that you appear to be a part of a consulting team.
  
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  You do not need to be the leader as long as you are a positive contributing member of the team.
  

• Other group cases

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  A group of four to six people are given a case.
  
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  A member of the firm observes the group process as well as the presentation.
  

• Case Solving Frameworks

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  Working hard is the next best thing to thinking smart…
  

• Why use a framework?

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  Having a framework memorized and at your fingertips is essential to doing well in cases. The framework allows you to quickly pull up areas for questioning and exploration without having to think. You should use a framework that you can remember and that makes sense to you. It is essentially a starting point for your planning that you can use to help you through the initial moments of panic as you start the case.
  
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  A framework is not, however, a map of how to solve any particular case. It seems that many people get caught up trying to fit a framework to a case and completely miss the point of the case. You need to practice using the framework as a guide throughout your practice cases, so that when you get to the real thing, it is second nature.
  
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  And what about the 4 C’s, 5 P’s, Growth-Share Matrix, or Porter’s Five Forces? Don’t get confused between business analysis frameworks and a framework for approaching case interviews. Trying to analyze a case based on the 4 C’s is a recipe for failure. These types of frameworks are useful for analyzing aspects of a case and will definitely add to your credibility if you can appropriately pull them out. For instance, if your plan is to investigate profit drivers first, then customer segments, supplier relations, and finally competition, using Porter’s Five Forces as a way to synthesize your findings into an analysis of the attractiveness of the industry would be completely appropriate. But using Porter’s alone would completely miss the profit drivers and thus might miss the key to cracking the case.
  
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  So how do you use the framework? After the interviewer has given you the introduction to the case, you will want to ask for a minute to plan your approach. In this time, you must quickly develop a set of three to five major areas of the business to investigate, such as drivers of profitability and/or cost, sources of competition, changes in customer needs, etc. You are trying to figure out some problem or opportunity for the company in question, and these investigative areas are your first best guess as to where these problems lie. You will not know at this point exactly where to look, but if the interviewer says that profit margins have been declining, it’s a good bet that either revenue has been hurt or costs have increased. These would be two very good areas to begin questioning about.
  
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  Think of the framework, then, as a mental checklist that you can run down to be sure that you are covering all of the bases. You will want to pick the 3 to 5 most likely areas for exploration based on your initial assessment of the problem. Some of them will likely be unimportant. You also may discover other areas that are important once you get into questioning. Your initial plan is therefore not set in stone and your interviewer will not think less of you because you included an irrelevant topic. But if you leave out an important area for investigation, it is likely that you will miss the point of the case and not be able to come to a conclusion.
  

• How to Start Your Case Framework

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  What type of case framework you want to use depends on how much time and preparation you want to put into case interviewing. The ideal situation would be to memorize a framework for each of the 12 common types of cases. However, if you are short on time you can start with the Wharton Consulting Club framework.
  

• The Wharton Consulting Club Framework¹

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  The following section is copied from the Wharton Case Book 2007 – 2008. It is intended to present one example of a general framework for students who do not have time to learn the more complete issue trees in the next chapter.
  
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  The WCC framework breaks down into 8 major topics. These are the topics that you must memorize and be able to recall easily under pressure. Each of these topics then has a number of sub-topics that you can use to direct your exploration. It is less critical to memorize these topics than to be able to come up with drivers for each of the issues that are relevant to your case.
  
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  With a little practice, you should be able to quickly write down 3 to 5 major topics and then 2 to 4 subtopics for each case you encounter. This forms your plan for attacking the case.
  
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  Major Topic Possible Drivers
  

  Major Topic	Possible Drivers
  Revenue	Volume Price Product
  Cost	Variable Costs Fixed Costs
  Competition	Rivals New Entrants Substitutes
  Customers	Market Size Segments Needs
  Supply Chain	Suppliers Distributors
  Processes	Manufacturing Marketing Sales Distribution Customer Service
  Company	Core Competencies Cost of Capital Brand Organization / Incentives Controls
  Business Environment	Legislation Unions Technology Economy International Issues

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  So let’s see an example of using the framework for a case. Imaging the interviewer has just asked you the following: “ACME Gloves is the leading manufacturer of latex surgical gloves. Recently, they have seen significant price erosion and are losing share in their market. The CEO believes that there are still significant growth opportunities for his product and has asked you to develop a strategy to exploit them.”
  
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  Now you will need to develop a plan for attacking the case. Here is where we pull out the framework and look for major topics that may be relevant to the case. Take a moment before you read on to come up with you own list of relevant topics.
  
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  Here are possible areas to explore:
  

1. 
   Competition
   
2. 
   Customers
   
3. 
   Supply Chain
   
4. 
   Revenue
   
5. 
   External Factors
   

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  You might come up with a different list, but here is the reasoning for the above list: Clearly we are looking for ways to grow the business, probably by repositioning the company in a new market as a response to a competitive threat. So understanding the competition and possible customer segments will be critical to understanding where we might reposition the company. If we are investigating entering a different market, we clearly must understand how our distribution network (as part of our Supply Chain) may provide a competitive advantage (or lack thereof). Finally, we will need to know how much of a growth opportunity any new market positioning may provide.
  
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  You might also include an investigation of cost position relative to competitors, or question the impact of regulation given that this is a medical product. These were left out initially, however, because they seem like secondary issues (at least at first blush) and can always be investigated further if it becomes clear that they are important.
  
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  Now within each of these major topics, what drivers would we want to investigate?
  

1. 
   Competition
   
   1. 
      Rivals – Who are they? What is their relative share? How are they positioned relative to us?
      
   2. 
      New Entrants – Is there a credible threat of new entrants?
      
   3. 
      Substitutes – Are we worried about other products serving as substitutes?
      
2. 
   Customers
   
   1. 
      Segments – What new segments might we be able to pursue?
      
   2. 
      Needs – What are the needs of each segment?
      
3. 
   Supply Chain
   
   1. 
      Distribution – Do we have the capability to reach a new customer segment?
      
4. 
   Revenue
   
   1. 
      Volume – What the size of a new target segment?
      
   2. 
      Price – What price point can we hit?
      
5. 
   External Factors
   
   1. 
      Economy – What is the current economy like? How does that affect us?
      
   2. 
      Industry trends – Are there any relevant industry trends that may impact us?
      

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