What are McKinsey, BCG, and Bain looking for in the fit portion of the interview?

hello everyone my name is Kenton karate im an XD GG consultant and ex-googler and the founder of rocket block an online platform that helps students prepare for case interviews in today's rocket box mini lesson we're going to be discussing a really important topic which is what skills and traits are the firm's actually looking for in the fit portion of the interviews now McKinsey for example actually is posted what they're specifically looking for on their site and I put the link down below it's from their careers section but they talk about things like leadership and entrepreneurial drive and problem-solving ability and if you talk to the folks that at BCG they they say is a very similar thing you know they are looking for leadership skills and problem-solving and teamwork and collaboration skills and so again with all the firms it's all fairly similar that have their own kind of verbiage for how they describe it but they're all really looking for the same kind of traits in the fit portion of the interview and what I want to do in this mini lesson is kind of roll those up for you talk about the four big things for big traits they're really looking to see demonstrated and then even go step before that and talk about a little bit of a subtext of why the sounds care about that why they want to see that particular trait demonstrated why does it matter so much to that so that you have a context when you're thinking about what stories and anecdotes you're going to share and how you're really going to demonstrate those skills to the firm in the fifth portion of your interview so let's go ahead and get started trait number one leadership abilities now this is the universal trait that all the big firms will talk about wanting to see McKinsey vayne BCG country Deloitte you need we're all looking for leadership abilities and it's pretty obvious what if you think about it they're going to expect you on day one to lead yourself through complicated case analysis eventually they're going to be asking you to lead work suites or maybe multiple work streams or entire case keys and the future would pick up you know leadership roles within the firm's office and eventually even if you make it to that point within the firm overall as partner or managing director etc so with every step of that consulting career ladder they didn't want to see the leadership ability in-state and so they really look for them so that's why they're looking for now in terms of how you can help demonstrate your leadership ability in the fit portion of the interviews I have two key tips the first is focus on quantity sorry focus on quality definitely quality instead of quantity and the reason I say that is it's more impressive and has a bigger impact to point to a handful of experiences where you really kind of took ownership of something and Lad a group or a team or a club to some kind of impressive result it shows a lot of depth and gives the firm kind of confidence that you actually have some real leadership challenges as opposed to say like a high quantity is a bunch of like say VP is this club or VP is a club where it's less clear to the firm whether you were the person at the end of the day that has to make the tough decisions and has a deal with disputes and chart a path forward if you're the person that's kind of the number one person in my experience a president of a club they have some higher confidence that you probably had to wrestle with some real shoes and have some good learning some takeaways now the second is the firm like city line versus dots when it comes to leadership ability now what do I mean by that a line is a track record of leadership throughout your personal life and your career so being able to point to one or two quality experiences but a few different stages of your career is really helpful but what's the firm know that demonstrating leadership abilities is something that you've been doing naturally over a long period of time to create a line of like a few good experiences versus a dot is like Oh an isolated incident of leadership here or there but it hasn't been consistently across your career now again for what we talked about the beginning the firm's want to see consistent leadership in all these different stages throughout your career as a consultant it makes them you know a lot more confident if they see a line a nice arc of leadership experience throughout your career and again it doesn't need to be a massive quantity you know mean you know ten the leadership experiences at each level but if you can point to one or two quality things at a few different stages of your career personal life that can really help trick number two drive now why consulting firms care so much about this well to put it pretty simply consulting can be a really tough job yes there is plenty of benefits and compensation is certainly one of them but there are a lot of really challenging tough factors that you're going to deal with for example you have tough demands and clients you'll have demanding toughs partners the challenges and the case problems themselves they're going to be incredibly tough either problems that you know a firm a company is willing to come to your firm and pay a million dollars a million and a half dollars have you guys help solve so these going to be really challenging tough problems you have all those factors conspiring against you you know on top of that a tough timeline and so the firm's as a result really look for people to have a strong amount of Drive because those people are going to need to push through all of those factors and still into a really good result still solve complicated problem even with all that stuff going on now each of the firm's kind of refers to this is something different McKinley on a careers page called this entrepreneurial drive if you talk to the folks at PC G's will often refer to it as motivation strong internal motivation but regardless of what the specific name is all these firms are really talking about the same thing it's a parent kind of drive and problem solving ability and the adido butt grip can just kind of keep going and get to an answer so how can you really demonstrate this in your interviews well I've got two tips there the first is in the case interview portion itself this is one of those things that if you're getting stuck or you're going down a few dead-end you know giving up is the opposite of what you want to do but if you show that you are willing to kind of keep driving to keep trying alternative until you kind of hit on the right answer that's a great way to demonstrate your drive with second onions in terms of spit interviews in terms of finding an anecdote really great images to highlight drive and a strong amount of it our funding scenarios where in your career if if the outcomes have been kind of a modest outcome and whatever kind of capacity you're talking no one would blame you for it because all the kind of factors were conspiring against you but if we can find a situation like that where no one would blame you for a modest outcome and you were able to drive an incredible outcome that's the type of story that usually can illustrate great Drive and that's epic story you'll want to find and highlight in the fit portion trade number three collaborative collaboration is super important in consulting because consulting at the end of the day really is a team sport there is a really room for lone wolves someone amino in the consulting industry you can't kind of go off by yourself and work in silo for ten weeks and then come back to your team with a result the process is much more collaborative and integrated and built around the team working together yes you'll have your independent work stream but at the end of the day although it needs to kind of fit back together to a cohesive story that works toward you know recommendation and solution for the client so for that reason firms put a lot of emphasis on people that are good working in teams people that are good collaborating their co-workers because at the end of the day you're going to need to collaborate with your teammates your managers the principals on your cases partners maybe even senior partners and of course the client and other folks on your clients team that you'll need to work with over the course of the case so collaboration skills and like a collaborative ethos and teamwork ability for that reason are really important and the firm's look for that in the interviews because if you're brilliant and great analytically but you can't work within a team that's not going to be a plus on the job so the consulting firm they really need someone that can be really as analytically and fit into a team and create a positive result okay tip number four firm and zuzia and you'll notice I called this a tip and not a trade so I have a confession the fourth one is in a trade but it is really important so I didn't want to mention it and what I mean by firm is Susy Azzam is don't forget that this portion of the interview we're talking about is called the fit portion for a good reason ultimately after the case portion the firm's are really trying to figure out are you a good fit for their firm or you can fit the culture they eat those and what you want to make sure you do is that you want to make sure that you show yours dusy Azzam and your energy for that particular firm that you're interviewing with in an authentic genuine way you want to make sure that comes through because at the end of the day the firm's want to know that you really want to work with them as well and that this isn't just another interview that you're going through even though some of these firms are incredibly prestigious and you might be thinking well of course I would want to work there if I were to get a job offer you want that to come through and don't just assume that the interviewer already knows that so make sure that you genuinely and authentically express your enthusiasm for the firm you're talking to great let's do a quick recap so in this mini lesson we're talking about what the firms are really looking for in terms of the fit interview we talked about three main buckets loop traits the first is leadership abilities they really want to see a track record of quality leadership experiences throughout a personal life and career today so that's the first thing the second is drive and problem-solving ability again they want to see a track record and series of examples this is something that you have demonstrated over and over again and then you're going to bring that drive tenacity and problem-solving ability to the firm the third is collaboration they want to know that they're going to be able to plug you into a team of other really smart individuals put you with clients partners folks from different offices and that you're going to be able to work productively in a team and not only do your work kind of make that whole team better they want people that are really rockstars in terms of collaboration so that's a third of it and then the fourth as we talked about is really important don't forget it but firms want to make sure you fit with it they want to make sure that you're really excited about accepting an offer at their firm and come into work that they want that enthusiasm and that energy and so make sure that you don't forget about that and take the time to you know do your research on the firm and bring you know your questions and things that you've genuinely excited to learn more about so that they really understand that you have enthusiasm for that role and that company that you're looking to join so thank you again for watching we've got lots of great videos coming already please take a moment and subscribe to our YouTube channel below with big red button down there and we will see you again soon in a future video you

Channel: rocketblocks

Views: 50,502

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Keywords: fit interviews, consulting interviews, fit portion, mckinsey PEI, personal experience interview, bain, bcg

Id: Zlc2BUlH2Hs

Length: 12min 35sec (755 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2017