Big 4 Partner Interview Tips [Deloitte EY PWC KPMG]

welcome back to the channel uh in today's video I'm going to talk about final round partner interviews at the big four accounting and consulting firms so that's obviously ey PWC deoe and KPMG uh I worked at ey uh I did the grad scheme starting in 2015 in uh Consulting so having been through this process I've obviously done and passed a partner interview um and I have some tips and tricks that I think might help so in this video I'm not going to cover the obvious things because there's already loads of good YouTube videos uh on that stuff I'm going to cover the details and the tips and the tricks um that I think can make the difference between getting through and not getting through outside of the obvious things that you need to cover okay so I'm going to walk through the process all the way through from start to finish so obviously prior to the partner interview um you will have completed online assessments and then an assessment Center of some kind uh in order to get through to the partner interview which is the final stage you'll obviously be told that you're through to the final stage usually via a phone call or email uh from the Recruitment and HR department and then typically you'll be given a couple of time slots to choose from uh which work with the partner's diary uh for you to go and have your interview my personal advice and what I did try and pick a Thursday or a Friday and if you can go in the afternoon and here here's my theory on this right so partners are busy and they're going to be efficient with their time which means whatever the most important thing that a partner has to do they're going to do in the morning if your interview is 9:00 in the morning you are in between them and their day job if you go afternoon Thursday or a Friday chances are they've done the difficult important stressful things that they need to do and so they're going to be a little bit more light-hearted Ed and happier for it to be more of a chat as opposed to giving you a grilling or as opposed to their mind being elsewhere and not being on having a conversation with you so when you're picking your time slot my advice is try and go Thursday or Friday in the afternoon all right once you've picked your time slot you then obviously have a little bit of time uh in the buildup to the interview to prepare so you should have been given the partner's name on the email of who you're going to be meeting so Main to do Google them look them up on LinkedIn find something out about them so these days a lot of the partners post things on LinkedIn to do with the business that they run have a read have they got any videos or articles that they've published understand what they're interested in what they're working on right build some common ground even look at things like where do they live um what what university or school did they go to right try and find things that demonstrate you take an interest in them personally right people love talking about themselves and if you can find an opportunity to ask a question in the interview about the partner themselves specifically they will love that it shows an interest so rule number one look them up on LinkedIn Google whatever and then on top of that I said I'm not going to go into too much detail on this it's pretty obvious but you know make sure you have something prepared on why you want to work for that firm specifically so what are their Marquee strategies or things that they're working on that interest you and then uh you know why do you want to work in the industry more broadly what is it that excites you there's other videos that cover that better than I can on here but you know make sure you prepare on those obvious things on the day of the interview the first thing that happens is you'll arrive at the offices so when you walk into the offices you'll go up to the main reception and uh make sure you have the name of the person that you're there to be interviewed by ready have the email confirming your appointment up on your phone uh and then go straight up to reception and say I'm here to see so and so um and then the person at reception will point you in the right direction in my experience uh I was then directed around to the lifts so I wasn't escorted by anybody I was escorted around to the lifts and they tell you the floor to go up to in my case of e it was the 20th floor um you'll have your interview where they have clients and they bring clients into the building which is separate to where everybody does their work the reason being when people are working there's obviously confidential information out and about um There Are Rules around how you kind of have things on your desk and so you can't have somebody from Barkley for example walking past a team doing a project for HSBC like that would be a disaster so they have a separate floor for where they have client meetings uh in the company offices that is also where you'll go and do your interview there is once you get to that floor another reception so again you go up to that reception and you say I'm here to see such and such at whatever time and they will check you in and they'll say either please go straight to the room or more likely they will say please go and wait in the business reception or the business Lounge um and then we'll let you know when the person interviewing you has arrived that was what happened to me the partner was overrunning slightly so I had to go and wait in the business Lounge now once you get to the business Lounge this is just my advice it's not gospel but there will be tea coffee snacks other drinks all available I would just leave it well alone right because one you don't want to spill anything and look stupid because immediately it's just gets you off on the bad foot and secondly I I feel like it makes you look like you're a little bit over familiar with where you are if the partner walks in and your back's turned and you're making a cup of tea or a coffee or you're eating some crisps I just don't think it's a brilliant look so my advice is if you're waiting in the lounge just sit there look around take it all in look interested see what other people are doing I wouldn't make yourself at home I think that that might rub some people up the wrong way so just sit there uh and and wait patiently The View depending on where the office is can be nice don't start taking pictures and selfies out the window it sounds obvious I've seen it done um it it's not a brilliant look so just don't do that okay so then uh you when when you meet the partner um they will walk into the business Lounge obviously and come and find you now in my experience Partners do graduate interviews one of two ways and it's just up to them uh their personal preference so one way is they might block out a whole day or two days to do all of the interviews that they need to do or they'll do them sporadically over a period of time um to get them covered off all of the partners are required to do a certain number of interviews um and so it's just up to them how they get through them in my experience the partner that I interviewed with was doing them kind of randomly throughout the week which means I was the only person who wasn't an actual proper like business person in the employee lounge or sorry the business Lounge therefore when the partner walked in it was very obvious that it was me he was looking for and not like all the other 40 50y old people that were sitting in there and assuming you've looked them up on LinkedIn you should know what they look like so when they walk in stand up walk over to them to greet them you know shake their hands say you know hello it's really nice to meet you thank you for having me thank them already you know um it's a real pleasure to be here really excited to have the opportunity to talk with you blah blah blah all that stuff it sounds really obvious I've seen other people uh you know once I work there being in the business lounge and like sit be sitting down and wait for the partner to go over to them and then shake their hand hands while sitting down like already you look stupid so don't do that make sure you stand up look energized look like you want to be there look like you're excited brigh eyed ready to learn it goes a long way First Impressions do count then step three will be you know once you've done your introductions you'll go to the interview room now either before you leave the lounge or once you get to the room depending on which room you're in a big one or a small one one that's cated one that's not they'll say you know would you like a drink of anything at this point I think it's acceptable and a good idea to ask for a drink so ask for some water there are a couple of reasons why the first is if you're really nervous it gives you something to do with your hands you're not going to look weird holding a bottle of water but you might look weird fidgeting and messing around with your hands so ask for some water and the second reason is if they ask you a question that you're stumped by you can buy yourself a couple of seconds by sipping on water so it's a little bit of a safety net to kind of risk manage things that could go wrong in the interview it doesn't matter but it's just a good idea okay and then you will get down to actually doing the interview now it's important to have in your mind the scene set which is the following whilst the partner will make you feel like you are the most important part of their day the reality is you're obviously not they have much bigger things going on the second thing is it is much more more in the partner's interests for you to pass the interview than it is for you to fail the interview and here's why you've already been through a couple of rounds of interviews and a part A partner's job at these firms is to direct and lead and delegate right they're not really doers they don't do things they lead um and they sell and all that different stuff so their expectation going into this interview is that the due diligence on whether you're capable or not has already been done they expect that somebody who is incapable of the job will not be put in front of them therefore you're unlikely to get a real grilling it it can happen but it's unlikely so therefore the partner will be going into this meeting with an already positive mindset the second thing is it's much more hassle for a partner to fail you on the interview than it is to pass you and the reason why is if they fail you they have to give proper written feedback which will be provided to you um you know via the recruitment team they also then have to feedback to the recruitment team and HR on why they said no so that HR and recruitment can do better in the future to not send through candidates that Partners don't want which means there's just a whole ton of extra work that they don't want that they'll have to do if you don't get through the interview so it is in the partner's interests as well as in yours that you make it through and so that's important to have in your mind as you go through the interview so the most important thing therefore in the partner interview outside of the or away from the competencies and all of that stuff is you need to come across as somebody that they would want to work with that's somebody that they would want in their team what that means is you need to be personable you need to be curious you need to uh be kind of fun to be around right you need to be somebody that they can see being in their team in their offices working with their other team members red flags is they don't want somebody that's kind of up themselves they don't want somebody that's rude they don't want somebody that they think is going to be annoying and is going to clash with members of their team they want somebody who is going to be a good addition to the environment they have absolutely no interest in hiring someone who they think there's a chance will rock the boat and cause issues therefore like as you go through it's absolutely fine to make a joke um you know to have good conversation think of it as like the first beer on a Friday afternoon after you leave work or leave University as you are in at the minute right like conversations flowing everybody's in good spirits but nobody's had too much to drink so nobody's being obnoxious or rude right it's just kind of that Friday afternoon feeling is what you want to try and recreate I think in your interview and then as you go through they will obviously ask you the actual questions in the interview in my experience I was asked a few things about my CV so could you tell us about uh this piece of experience you have could you tell us about that module that you studied at University could you tell me about this part-time job that you had and essentially what they're looking for you to be is somebody who can and so you need to demonstrate like the obvious core skills again I'm not going to cover them in detail but you know demonstrate you can work as part of a team demonstrate that you can change your mind demonstrate that you can learn and develop demonstrate that you can lead you know various different things right just demonstrate all the rounded skills that they would want to see they're pretty obvious in my experience we talked about my CV for like maybe 15 minutes and then for the rest of it we talked about football uh he was a man city Fan Man City I think had just I think the Aguero goal had just happened so we talked about that for like 45 minutes U like it was super chill really easy laidback conversation um then it finishes you know you say goodbye and that's it and then I think that was the Thursday afternoon and then you'll get a call uh from the partner the Friday afternoon um so the day after in my experience and yeah told that you're successful they say you know HR will be in touch and then a couple of days later you get through the contract the packet the vetting requirements T's and C's you know all that stuff background checks that need to be done and uh then you'll be into uh you know if you accept starting your your journey and your career at a at a decent firm so look I hope that was helpful I hope there are some bits in there that you can use outside of what you normally hear on YouTube uh as I say the main thing is be personable be fun be light-hearted and to be honest I don't think you can go too wrong um if you have any questions please leave them in the comments uh and I'll respond to all of them or if you want to direct message me directly on uh on other socials for any tips uh please D feeli 3 thank you for watching

Channel: Calum London

Views: 2,747

Keywords: big4, EY, KPMG, Deloitte, PWC, Consulting, big 4, big 4 interview, big 4 accounting firms, big 4 jobs, big 4 assessment centre, big 4 partner interview

Id: -xxv9lLJvsU

Length: 14min 31sec (871 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 16 2023