Booz and Company Interview Preparation and Tips

During the next few weeks, we will be publishing the discussions that we had with some of our interviewers about the selection process at their firms. Here is the interview of one of our Booz & Company interviewers, who did his MBA from London Business School: InterviewBay: What is your background? I joined Booz Allen Hamilton (now Booz & Co) after completing a law degree. During my studies, I became less and less interested in actually working with it. For the transition into business, consulting was the perfect place to start because other corporate jobs didn’t accept law graduates and consulting firms took on anyone who had good grades and was able to pass their tough interview process. Why did I quit in the end? Consulting is not my calling. I realize that I don’t really enjoy being thrown into a new situation and dealing with a complex problem. I much more enjoy getting really deep into a particular topic and then developing it. And as a consultant you don’t really do this, especially as a junior. And I would be lying if I said that I enjoyed the 70-hour work weeks. But overall I think the experience was great for me for three particular reasons: • I think especially at the beginning of your career, you set the bar high for yourself. Consultants are, on average, smarter and harder working than your average corporate worker bee, that’s a fact. Being surrounded by smart people raises your own expectations on yourself. I can’t overemphasize this point. • It’s a great way to find out what you’re interested in when you’re out of uni and don’t really know what you want to do. You move around various industries and functional assignments and thus get a really broad experience base. • This is kind of an outflow of (1) but it’s so important that it’s worth mentioning again: You really hone your communications skills – both your written and verbal communication gets vastly better. I still draw on the rigorous training I got in terms of writing compelling presentations and emails. InterviewBay: Would you suggest any special attention for a consulting CV, keywords and the like? Yes, definitely. • Your CV needs to be spotless in terms of formatting and typos. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot and do stare at it for at least an hour before you hit that print button. • Also, make it crisp and short. 1 page is the golden standard. • Whatever you did so far, phrase it as achievements. Every bullet should start with an action word “developed”, “started”, “sold”, “achieved”, “reorganized” etc. Make it clear what impact you had. • Consulting firms look for two things in CVs, I’d say: Brains and likeability (contrary to folklore, leadership is less important but of course doesn’t hurt) so make sure you show plenty of evidence for both. You surely heard of the airport test – the recruiter needs to be comfortable with the idea of being stuck with you at an airport for 18 Booz and Company Interview Preparation and Tips hours. So if you have massive achievements in your CV but state stock options trading and reading annual reports as your hobbies and are thus likely to bore your recruiter out of his mind during off time, you have a problem. • I wouldn’t recommend any particular buzzwords – let your achievements and interests speak for themselves. Be yourself. But that said, if there’s no positive eyebrow-raiser where a recruiter thinks “oh, now that sounds interesting”, you don’t have much of a chance. In my case I was invited because I speak six languages, participated in two Model UN events (yea really - I never expected THAT to be of interest but many interviewers picked up on it!) and sang in the Vienna Opera choir as a student job. You gotta have something that stands out from the crowd. InterviewBay: How did you prepare? For case studies, I used the “Ace your Case” Wet Feet guides – they are great value for money and have the advantage of taking you through realistic-sounding dialogues. Strong endorsement! Make sure you crunch through at LEAST 20 case studies yourself and 10-15 case studies with someone giving you a mock interview. I had my brother doing it for me, but InterviewBay can help with that, too. Otherwise, make sure you know your CV virtually by heart and try to anticipate questions on anything you did. It can get quite embarrassing if you’re stupefied by a question on a detail you yourself mentioned in the CV. InterviewBay: What would I ask a candidate? Three questions Consulting interviews are about two things: Figuring out attitude and likeability in general CV-related questions and testing your ability to think fast under pressure during the case studies. So take these two things and you’ll know what kind of questions you’ll get asked. InterviewBay: Three dos and dont’s during the interview process Big dos: • Have an entrepreneurial attitude. The majority of people have what I call the “employee attitude” – “I show effort but if it doesn’t work, tough luck. I’m paid for my time and I go home at 6pm and you can’t ask more from me. I work to make a living”. The entrepreneur attitude is “I do whatever it takes to make things happen and am interested in results, not in efforts. I want to do big things and have an impact.” If you have the employee attitude, consulting is not for you. If you still give the interview a try, make sure your employee attitude doesn’t shine through. • Manage your time in case studies – often, you get bogged down in the details of a side issue and then don’t have time to deal with the big picture and don’t have all the facts to come up with a conclusion. • Make sure you have some genuinely interesting questions to ask the interviewer. Don’t try to overengineer it either but try to be a bit more interesting than “what are, Booz and Company Interview Preparation and Tips in your opinion, the key trends in the pharmaceutical industry?” These things make you stand out • Finally, try to sleep a lot before the interview day. You’ll need it. InterviewBay: In summary, what qualities do you look for in a consultant (selection criteria) Smarts, likeability, entrepreneurial mindset (in that order) InterviewBay: Tell us about your life as a consultant • It’s very meritocratic, if you’re smart and work hard you will get rewarded. • You get to work on really complex issues, so if intellectual stimulation is your thing, you’re in the right spot. • Make sure you’re ok with 4-5 hours sleeping during the week and can pull the occasional all-nighter. • Consulting firms are keen to send you on projects to other cities where you don’t have friends so that you work more, so make sure you’re ok with flying. • Handle pressure well. Sometimes, you’re under deadlines that are nerve-racking. And you definitely don’t want to disappoint the partner. • Consulting is a great entry ticket to the corporate world – a reputation of brains, ambition and reliability precedes you. Enjoy the glory! Booz and Company Interview Preparation and Tips