重磅干货－顶级咨询公司资深合伙人解析面试（上）

Question 1:

Could you please introduceyour background (position) and your experience in interviewing candidates?(e.g. years of experience, frequency, for what positions, what type ofcandidates)

Hi Lulu, thanks for invitingme to your program! Hello, everyone! I am a senior partner with one of theworld's largest management consulting firm. Over the past 20 years, I have beena strategic management consultant to lead highly talented teams to work closelywith our clients, solving their most complex business issues. 

As talent is the mostcritical asset for our business, I spent approximately a quarter of my timeevery year, interviewing candidates who are either fresh college graduates, MBA graduates or experienced hirecandidates with significant years of working experiences.  The candidates normally come from topuniversities or MBA programs from around the world for our analyst or seniorconsultant roles or from other leading management consulting firms or renownedmultinational companies for our experienced hire positions.

Question 2:

What aspects do you take intoaccount when assessing the candidate?   

From an assessor's standpoint, an interview (or a series of interviews) is aimed at assessing thecandidate's candidacy in three aspects: experiences, skills and personalattributes:

1) experiences– to understand if the candidate has the relevant working experiences –this is typically related to the nature of the applied job;

2) skills– to test if the candidate has mastered the critical skills to be effective at work; suchskills typically include numeric,analytical and logical reasoning skills; and

3) personal attributes – to assess if the candidate has the right personal attributes that areimportant to the individual and the firm's long term success.Suchattributes typically include teamrelated: leadership, team work, conflict resolution; creativity related, e.g.creativity, out of the box thinking; and ethicsor work ethics related, e.g. ethical challenges, professionalism,hardworking, etc.,     

Question 3:

Any particular tips you wouldlike to share in the resume walk-through session?

Walking through resume isperhaps the easiest to prepare.  Yet youwill still need to do your homework well. I have four tips here:

1.    Make it your"story" – As an interviewer,what I am most interested in understanding are about your passionandyour preparation: where did youcome from? What did you do? What have you achieved so far? Why are you heretoday? Particularly, what have youdone to qualify yourself for this job opportunity?  

2.    Talk insequence and concisely: typicallyin chronological order and highlightonly the most relevant experiences; for each section, you should notonly talk about what you have done but also hint/highlight what you haveachieved and its relevance to the next job. The tricky part is to put thosethree elements in very succinct sentences and in a proactive tone. This willmake it much easier for your interviewer to follow your story. 

For example,"I havemanaged to internin three leading management consultingfirms, so that I am familiar with working environment in this industry.""During this period, I havechosen towork on a really intensepiece of research project that required a combined set of highly analytical andindependent research capabilities." 

3.    Tailor yourstory when necessary: If you areapplying for multiple jobs, remember totailor the most relevant sections to reflect the most importantexperiences, skills and attributes that is required by the job you are applyingfor.  

4.    Practice,practice, practice: all bestpresentations come with practice. I remembered many years ago, I used topractice resume walkthrough at all times, as I was taking a shower, walking onthe road, in front of a mirror.  The goalis to make it come out so naturally that you can complete the walkthroughclearly and convincingly within 1-2 minutes.  

UsefulPhrases:

In my coursework and internship (previous job), I’ve had extensiveexperience in ….

I have both theoretical and practical experience in…

I’ve become very familiar with (certain tools/programs/procedures)

I had the opportunity to apply the skills in (certain projects)…

I was in charge of/I’m responsible for…

I played a key role in…

I coordinated with/collaborated with…