Personal Fit Part

Hello!

Here are some tips that will be useful during the fit part of the interview.

Structuring your answer

• Use the S-PARADE-L method (http://www.caseinterview.com/parade-method
  • Situation
  • Problem
  • Anticipated consequence
  • Role
  • Action
  • Decision-making rationale
  • End result
  • Learning point/key takeaways

Answering the question correctly

• Be very, very specific with your stories, do not delve too much in describing details about the setting, focus instead on what you did and why you did it.
• Focus on your achievement/skills, not on your team or group.

Interacting with the interviewer

• Don't make your stories too long (1.5 minutes max)
• Try to get the interviewer to participate. You can say things like "This story is about my time volunteering in India. Have you been there?" This will probably lead to a simple yes/no answer which won't interrupt your story and will create the "we are having a conversation" feeling more than the "interviewer VS interviewee feeling".

Dealing with unexpected questions

• Do as you would in a case study question. Clarify the question to make sure that your answering what the interviewer wants and then structure your answer using S-PARADE-L.
• The more you practice the better you will become at reacting like this naturally. It will also become harder for you to get an unexpected question.

Top 3 most common questions

• Tell me about yourself.
  • Structure this one very well as it is very likely that you will get asked something like it.
  • You need to separate your life story into several stages (A, B, C etc) then: 
  • 1A. Explain the situation ("I did an internship at an Engineering company")
  • 2A. Explain what you enjoyed and learned ("I had a great time analysing X and using MATLAB to improve my programming skills")
  • 3A. Explain what you missed that justifies your transition to the next stage of your story (B). ("However, I was missing interaction with clients and it seemed like I was not going to get it for a few months, so I decided to move to a role in Sales at Uber")
  • Repeat the structure (1B. 2B, 3B, etc.) until you get to why you are sitting in front of the interviewer right now.
• Why consulting?
• Why X company?

Hi,

Objective here is for interviewer to assess wether 
1) You already possess the general or specific skill for the job
2) You would fit well in the team
So keep that in mind both elements when you prepare for it.

One thing that can help you out about Personal Fit part is - exactly like for the Case Part - that performance benefits from structure. Time is normally limited to 10-15mins (unless you have a dedicated HR interview) and this basically means that time horizon you should take for your answer is a couple of minutes max. This applies to the 'strange' questions as well. Now, there are different ways of building a complete structure for the fit (e.g. the most famous like STAR/STARR) but not all the companies are looking at these elements. Happy to discuss with you about it.

Start your preparation by mapping your CV against the advertised requirements of the company and build short ad-hoc answers to that.

Best
Riccardo

 

Dear A,

The fit questions in these interviews are really about story telling. Of course, you will get the typical questions like: Why do you want to be a consultant? Why do you want to work at this firm?

The part the differentiates you will be the “tell me about a time” questions that inevitably take up a large portion of the interviews at these firms. The better you are at telling your stories, the better off you’ll be.

Just remember that answering to any questions like this is your chance to shine and prove your leadership skills. Actually, any stories that you mention in your answer can highlight your best abilities. For that you can follow common framework in answering any questions. It consists of 5 parts:


1. Situation

2. Problem

3. Solution

4. Results 

5. Your learnings

Hope, it helps.

Best,
André

Hello!

On top of the insights already shared in the post, next week will be pusblished in PrepLounge´s Shop material related. 

In concrete, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB". It provides an end-to-end preparation for all three MBB interviews, tackling each firms particularities and combining key concepts review and a hands-on methodology. Following the book, the candidate will prepare his/her stories by practicing with over 50 real questions and leveraging special frameworks and worksheets that guide step-by-step, developed by the author and her experience as a Master in Management professor and coach. Finally,  as further guidance, the guide encompasses over 20 examples from real candidates.

Hope you find it useful!

FIT questions are designed for the following reasons:

• to know candidate on the personal level

• to know whether candidate can to the values of the company

• to know which soft skills candidate has

How to practice FIT part?

• Prepare your answers

• Structure them according ti 

• Practice them out loud

• Practice them in front of the mirror and notice your face expressions

What interviewers are trying to assess in you:

• Personal FIT - would the interviewer like to work with you as a colleague

• Are you reliable/ independent/ confident person

• Can you be sent along to the client

• Would you fit to the corporate culture

So, considering this information, I recommend you to be well-prepared, but in case you will be asekd something unexpected - you already know what interviewers wnat to hear from you.

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