This document provides guidance for an MBA interview workshop focused on consulting. It discusses developing a personal brand, preparing for fit and competency interviews, and crafting cover letters. Key points include developing a concise personal brand statement, preparing evidence-based examples to demonstrate competencies, and tailoring responses and cover letters to reflect the individual's brand and motivations for pursuing consulting.

1. +
MBA2012 Fit Interview
Workshop
Gavin Crouch, AD Consulting Careers
Stuart Jagot, AD Career Services Learning &
Development
J-P Martins, AD Consulting Careers
Personal Brand,
Interviews and Cover
Letters for Consulting

2. +
Who’s done the prework?
1. Read key sections of the Case Book
2. Create a list of your relevant, differentiating strengths
3. Outline your answer to the request “tell me about yourself”
4. Create an evidence table to prepare yourself for
competency based fit interview questions

3. +
What’s today about?
What is consulting and is it for me?
Who are the consultants and to
which would I be best suited?
How do I tailor my CV for
[strategy] consulting?
 Detailed CV reviews and
feedback
Introduction to problem solving
 ½ day workshop
 Consulting Club crack a case
programme
What is my personal brand?
How can I reflect that…
 At interview
 Tell me about yourself
 Competency answers
 In cover letters
Previously Today

4. +
Brands

5. +
Valuable brands
Convey rich meaning clearly and simply
Are relevant to target segment
Are distinctive

6. +
What’s your brand?
In pairs – tell your partner what is your personal brand?
In one short sentence, phrase, or even word!
Clear and simple?
Relevant to a consulting recruiter?
Distinctive from others in this room?
Exercise 1
5 mins

7. +
[Good] brands are backed by
distinctive characteristics
What are three key characteristics1 of the brand?
Are they consistent2?
1 Eg product, service, image
2 Eg cars, trucks and vans, A-class vs S-class

8. +
What are your relevant,
differentiating strengths?
Relevant,
differentiating
strengths
Differentiating
but not relevant
Relevant
weaknesses
Irrelevant
weaknesses
How strong are
you relative to
your peers?
Very strong
Very weak
Average
VeryNot at
all
Average
How important is this
strength to your specific
recruiter?

9. +
What are your strengths?
In pairs – tell your partner what are your top 3 personal strengths for
consulting?
Are they:
Distinctive from others in this room?
Motivated strengths? (ie you are interested in them as well as strong)
Relevant to a consulting recruiter?
Consistent with the high level view of your brand?
Backed by evidence?
Exercise 2
5 mins

10. +
Interviewing movie
Chapter 7 – “Karaoke Skills”
Play until end of scene

11. +
How to succeed at interview
In pairs – tell your partner what ensured your success at
previous interviews?
 What 3 things helped you perform well during an interview?
Exercise 3
5 mins

12. +
How are you being assessed?
What? How?
Can you do
the job?
Do you have the appropriate problem-solving and
communication skills?
Case interview will be the primary assessment
mechanism*
Will you do
the job?
Are you really motivated to do the job?
Are you driven to excel in the job?
Will you fit
in?
Will you fit into our culture?
Will we enjoy working with you?
Will you inspire the team?
* For many consulting interviews, this will comprise 80-90% of the interview time

13. +
Will you do the job? Questions to
expect:
Type of
question
Description Examples
General/open Gives you a platform to introduce
& sell yourself, for example
Tell me about yourself
Motivational Checks why this specific role and
company for you, now in your
career
Tests understanding of role,
company, sector
Why are you doing the
MBA?
Why do you want to be a
consultant?
Why apply to Bain?
What do you want to be
doing in 5 years’ time?
Competency Collects evidence of your
achievements, that demonstrates
your skills and behaviours
What is the greatest
challenge you have
overcome?

14. +
Would you fit in? Questions to
expect:
Type of
question
Description Examples
Personal Your abilities and
development needs,
interests and values
What excites you?
Competency How you handle
certain situations
What’s the toughest problem you’ve
had to solve?
What would your classmates say about
your communication skills?
Give an example of where you’ve
demonstrated great leadership
What does it take to make you give up?
Company Your understanding
of the business, its
culture and values
How will you fit into Booz?

15. +
Consulting competencies - recap
Problem
Solving
Intellectual capacity
Analytics/quants.
Creativity
Business judgement
Comfort with
ambiguity
Personal
Impact
Presence
Confidence vs. ego
People skills
Team player
Sense of humour
Leadership
Maturity
Track record
(sporting, clubs)
Integrity
Inspirational
Willing to take
personal risks
Drive/
Aspiration
Driven by results –
action oriented
Enthusiasm
Desire to excel
Other interests
Could I put you in front of a client on Day 1?
Could I spend 24 hours flying from London to Sydney with you?

16. +
How to prepare for a competency
interview
1. Identify competencies for the specific job
2. Identify your evidence & achievements for each
competency – see pre-work exercise 4
3. Structure your answer:
 Challenge – key business drivers
 Action
 Results – quantify where possible, include outcome & impact
Note: Emphasise your role, and be specific about what
action you took

17. +
Example: Leadership
Challenge Needed to transform an inefficient and ineffective global
finance function in an FMCG business
Action I led the process team of 10 company representatives from
across the globe that designed 20 future blue-print global
finance processes and implemented them within a 12 month
timeframe
I initially built relationships with each team member face-to-
face, then lead the team via weekly conference calls
Results I realised budgeted cost savings (30% reduction in OPEX) and
delivered the client’s expected project value (IRR of 15%)
Describe a situation when you had to lead a team to a
achieve a challenging goal

18. +
So tell me about yourself
60-90 second answer that covers…
1. Your key competencies or strengths, that reflects you &
your brand
2. 2 or 3 summary key achievements, that you are most proud
of
3. Your interests & motivations, that differentiate you
4. Close by creating a bridge between your strengths,
motivations and the role / Company you are applying for
…that reflects you, your brand and engages the
interviewer!

19. +
Breakout rooms – go directly
there, and be back in 90 minutes

20. +
Session 3: Reflect on your
individual performance
How did you perform during your interview?
If you performed well, why was that?
If you performed less well, how can you improve?
What’s missing from your performance?
What will the recruiter remember about you?
Take a few minutes to reflect, and write down 3 or 4
specific actions you will take to improve after today’s
session
Exercise 4
5 mins

21. +
Recruiter feedback
Up to 80% of an impression
comes from things other than
what you say: Image
 Body Language
 Tone of Voice
 Eye Contact
Builds rapport from the
beginning
Listens to questions and reads
signals
Speaks no more than 50%
Engages in a dialogue and asks
questions
Your ‘fit’ is also based on the impression you make
Speaks articulately and
succinctly
Stays calm under pressure
Presents negative information
clearly, concisely, with a
positive approach
Communicates they’re
motivated to do the job
Great grooming
Good eye contact
Firm handshake

22. +
What questions are you going to
ask them?
Will they appear random, or reinforce your brand?

23. +
Cover letters
I haven’t got
one of these

24. +
Not all firms are the same
Doesn’t want a cover letter
Say it’s ‘optional’
 What’s the upside of writing
one?
 Downside?
Does want a cover letter
All about motivation:
 Why consulting?
 Why Bain?
 Why Paris, Kiev, or Timbuktoo?
Note – not how great your
problem solving is, or your
leadership…
Eg: McKinsey Eg: Bain

25. +
If you do write one, please keep
your brand!
Dear xxx
I’m at LBS and applying for a consultant job
Consulting is interesting as you work in lots of different industries
I’m quite interested in Bain as I met Bill, Jim, Suzie, Alex, Samantha, Igor and Tsusoko at LBS
and they impressed me with how many different industries they worked in. I’m now
passionate about FMCG
I have what you’re looking for:
 Problem Solving: I once built a spreadsheet to work out our monthly sales and improved reporting times by 10
 Personal impact: I’m really really good on this one and once climbed Mt Kilimanjaro
 Leadership: I led a team of three people to complete a complex, quant, market segmentation that helped clinch a $3bn
deal
 Drive: I play basketball every week and won a state championship while at Uni
Please consider my application and give me the job as I’m sure it will be great for me and
my development
Yours
yyy
Typical cover letter – do this only if you can’t think of
anything else

26. +
So how to reflect brand in cover
letters?
Why not consider…
Organising your cover letter around
motivations, as on the previous slide?
Organising your cover letter around your
key, relevant, differentiating strengths?
Using your words, not those of my
presentation or even the ad?
Double-checking relevance
Writing in a narrative rather than bullets?
Generating a tag cloud – and check that
the relevant ‘strength’ words dominate?
Relevant,
differentiating
strengths
Differentiating
but not relevant
Relevant
weaknesses
Irrelevant
weaknesses
How strong
are you
relative to
your peers?
Very strong
Very weak
Average
VeryNot
at all
Average
How important is this
strength to your specific
recruiter?
Remember this?

27. +
Final exercise – what do you
recall?
 What do you remember about individuals’ brand statements
at the start of the day?
 Think about – how much will a recruiter remember about you
at the end of a solid day of interviewing?
Exercise 5
5 mins

28. +
Next steps
Keep practising cases
 Individually
 Informal groups
 Club Crack-a-Case
Refine your brand
 Slide presentation?
 Mock up some cover letters
 CL reviews 4-14 January
Practise ‘fit’
 Informal groups
 PLP
 Mocks with Career Services this
term (22 November to 3
December)
Practise ‘fit’ (contd.)
 Mock recalls 4 to 14 January
 Group practice 4 January to 28
February
 Super Saturday 8 January
Attend OCR events
 Introduction to OCR, 29 November
to 1 December
 Coffee chats November/
December
 Presentations begin CP Week, 4 –
7 Jan
Apply
 CP deadlines start 9 January
 Other recruiter presentations start
10 January
 Interviews from 24 January
This will happen sooner than you think!

29. +
Appendix

30. +
Prework: Create a list of your
relevant, differentiating strengths
Area of strength
Strength relative to
MBA peers
Importance to my
recruiting targets
Ranking (identify your
personal top 4, and
order of strength)
Problem Solving
Personal impact
Leadership
Drive and motivation
I’ve listed the
mandatory ones - add
other strengths here
Very strong, strong,
average, weak or
very weak
Very high, high,
average, low or
very low
Fill this in!
1=strongest,
4=weakest

31. +
Prework: Outline your answer to
“tell me about yourself”
Summary Tell me about yourself Recap
Fill this in!
What are you going to say
Say it, and substantiate it
(evidence – examples)
Recap – to sum up, what
were you trying to say!

32. +
Prework: Create an evidence table
Competency Challenge Action Result
Problem
Solving
Personal
impact
Leadership
Drive and
motivation
Prepare yourself for competency based fit questions
using the challenge-action-result framework Fill this in!