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Ten Tips to Successful Interviewing
1. Have three succinct, well developed, dart to the bull’s-eye bullet point answers for each of these major questions:
a. Why this industry?
b. Why our firm?
c. Why you?
These three questions will make or break you, as simple as that. If you sound iffy about any of them, see ya! To prepare good answers, ‘Why the industry’ involves soul searching for those passions that draw you to whatever industry you are recruiting for. ‘Why our firm’ is probably the easiest to prepare for and should be a well cultivated blend of different aspects of the firm, its people, culture and general momentum in the marketplace and which makes it the attractive vehicle for you to drive your career with, at least for the Associate years. Like a Burberry scarf, this answer should nicely accent the ‘Why You’ which is a blend of soul-searching attributes and firm specific draws that personally relate to you.
2. Be Ready for what you know you will be asked: Walking into the interview, you should be able to answer the following questions in your sleep:
a. Why do you want a career in XYZ?
b. What made you return to graduate school to get your MBA?
c. Why did you pick Chicago GSB?
d. Why are you interested in our company?
e. What group in particular you are interested in?
f. Who you have spoken to from that group and from the company as a whole? (First name, last name, group)
g. What other closed lists you are on and what other companies you are speaking with?
h. Why you would pick our company over those?
i. What classes are you currently taking and what has been your favorite class / professor at the GSB?
j. What motivates you?
k. What are your three greatest strengths and weaknesses?
l. What makes you different from your classmates?
m. Why a particular location, i.e. New York, London, etc.?
n. What do you do for fun?
3. Get the interviewer speaking about themselves: GENERAL RULE, THE MORE THE INTERVIEWER IS SPEAKING ABOUT THEMSELVES, THE BETTER Don’t just sit there shaking your head up and down thinking about what technical / case you’re going to get asked — instead use this opportunity to your advantage. Get this person romancing in their own career - make them seem a legend in your mind and theirs. “Wow! 10 years at XYZ is a long time! So many of your colleagues I have met through the processes have long tenures at your firm as well. What is it that XYZ is doing so right to retain their employees?” � “How have you seen the firm change?” “How has your expectations of Associates changed?”, and on and on and on. Before you know it, there is no time left for that creepy “what would be the deferred tax effect of �.” or “how many pennies would it take to fill the Hancock Tower�” landmine questions.
4. Know the company you are speaking to: To really win over the interviewer, “I like the people I met”, “I like your strong international focus / global platform / etc.”, “I agree with your culture”, etc. will NOT make you any different from anyone else. BTW - take the word culture and step on it like a smoked-out cigarette. Unless you are Professor Rayo, you probably could not define ‘culture’ anyway, especially for most companies you are interviewing at which are in essence a blend of 20 cultures of since acquired firms that actually cultivated a culture back in the ’80’s (think Drexel). Focus attention on avoiding the cliche and instead, show off your knowledge of the specific company. Bring up assignments / deals they are currently working on, major positive events that have happened to the company recently, specific areas of industry expertise, etc. Even better, dig deep within yourself and put your finger on why exactly you tortured yourself for the last three months of your life having to market yourself to the specific company - what it is exactly that fuels your hunger to work at the specific firm (besides insane pay). Once you identify this underlying passion, package it in a genuine manner. i.e., “The first time I passed by your building on 5th Avenue, I looked up at it and got a shiver down my spine. Already back then, I told myself that XYZ is where I want to work one day. Since then, I have capitalized on every professional and academic opportunity to get here. In speaking to Mr._____ and Mrs._____ along with the numerous other people I have met over the past few months, deals I have watched you doing in the market such as your work on _____, and the acceleration of your firm as best represented by the upward surge in league table positioning in both the debt and equity markets over the past five years, I can confidently reiterate my initial instinct that XYZ is where I want my career! It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity for me.”
5. The Power of Examples: What would your group members say is your greatest strength and weakness? “My group members would say my proficiency in financial modeling is my strongest strength. I ran the valuation and supplied the underlying analytics used in the competition. As a weakness, my group would probably say that often I act a skeptic with the suggestions brought up, a devil’s advocate of sorts.” -or- “My group members would say my proficiency in financial modeling is my strongest strength, as it was while I was a consulting. During my previous work experience at Major XYZ Consulting Firm, I was trusted with modeled out $100+ million healthcare strategic expansion projects for the third largest health system in the Midwest. I was able to integrate this past experience into my role on this group project which happened to be focused on the same industry. Because of this past experience, I have discovered the value of testing alternative scenarios for feasibility. For my group members unaccustomed to this type of analytical review, they may have found my devil’s advocate approach a bit skeptical. However, at the end of the project, they realized its value. One member even remarked “we would never have found that solution without reevaluating the initial proposed solutions”. A lot more memorable plus it lets you highlight the finer points of your resume.
6. Don’t Contradict Yourself: This is a quite simple point but one that can prove deadly. Don’t talk about how you returned to grad school to sharpen your technical business skills because you have no former exposure and then talk about how your strong background in finance and accounting helped the group win a case competition. Mixed signals will make recruiters challenge your logic and integrity. Keep a consistent message throughout, even if it exposes a weakness.
7. Be Yourself: As cliche as this sounds - it can make the ultimate difference. Many brand name companies have interview processes that have been refined and developed continuously for many years. As I’m sure you have heard in class, at investment management firms’, investment banks’ and consulting firms’ major asset walks out the door everyday. For these type service companies, picking the right people is a huge priority. These companies put a lot of effort into the recruiting selection process and will have techniques to trip you up if you are trying to be their “model” candidate instead of yourself. Goldman Sachs and McKinsey are especially good at this as any second year who has made it through their rounds can attest to. The way to attack these interviews - by being yourself. I’m not saying to bring up your 4 night a week drinking habit or your fetish for glow sticks but don’t try to force the fact that you are someone you are not. Be true to yourself and humble and you will maximize your odds of advancement. As you learned from Shady Campbell at Winterview, have fun in the interview. Just think, outside of psychologist sessions, when is the next time will people want to sit patiently for an hour and just listen to you speak about yourself?
8. Don’t Panic: This year I walked into an 8:30 am investment banking interview, introduced myself, and was immediately thrown a scalding hot technical question. This SOB was a 10 out of 10 in difficulty. So hairy, it made Borat’s chest envious. My mind half working because of lack of coffee, I simply sat and stared like a deer in headlights. The silence felt as if I was watching an atomic bomb slowing falling from the sky on top of me in the form of a giant ‘ding’ letter. Finally, as my stress level rose exponentially, I finally screamed for relief by just saying “I don’t know”. In my mind, I anticipated the interviewer getting up, walking over to the dry board and writing a giant condescending “I DON’T KNOW” across the board, ala Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Cringing my eyes, I looked over at him and, to my shock, he simply proceeded with the interview. I figured I was toast so the rest of my interview I resorted to my point #7, was totally myself, and point #6, don’t contradict, played the “came back to grad school to tie up lose ends” card throughout the interview, and points #1 - #4, gave passionate reasons why I was there and got the guy talking about his reasons for the same. The rest went so well, I felt horrible I had bombed the technical and therefore blew up an otherwise good interview. Sucks. Two hours later I was told that I had the best interview of the day and subsequently advanced through second rounds and eventually to the offerland. Long story short - don’t panic just because you mess up - just figure out ways to cure it. I’ve done enough mocks to realize that I can always get someone, as prepared as they are, to mess up - everyone does. Don’t worry about it � just keep moving and grooving.
9. Ask Great Questions: Don’t furnish a great interview only to hit a brick wall with dumb questions. If the interviewer did not introduce their background, lead into it. Once again, get them talking about themselves. Behind that question, have one or two well researched secret weapons - good questions that you really care about answers to that show you put work into getting to know the firm. Also, have a couple questions in your back pocket such as “what are your expectations of a summer associate”, “describe the role you would place a summer associate in on a project you are currently working on”, etc. for those interviews (especially in the second round) that “run out of gas” after 15 minutes. Nothing is worst that waiting for another softball question to knock out of the park and instead you get “What questions do you have for me” with 15+ minutes still left in the interview. And, ‘no’, this does not necessarily mean that you will not make it to the next round — maybe you’re a great fit (until you ask 5 really bad questions in a row) or they may be testing just how passionate you are about the firm and position, i.e. they want to hear those two really well researched questions that show proof you are really interested in them. As a last point, NEVER SAY, “I’ve asked so many questions through this process that I can’t think of anything else” unless you have machine gunned a decent series of great questions at the interviewer and they look exhausted / time has run out.
10. A.B.C. - Always Be Closing: Don’t knock the cover off the ball for 29 minutes and mess it all up in the final minute when asked “If we gave you an offer, would you accept”? This is probably the most complicated question you can be asked because you just (hopefully) spent the past 30 minutes to 1 hour convincing the interviewer that their firm is the one you have always dreamed of working for and, by far, #1 on your list. Now, when asked if you would accept the offer, you hesitate and act like the ugliest person at school is asking you to the prom. Bye-bye! Instead, act genuinely flattered, excited and politely explain that you hope this is an indication of future good news and that, although many other firms invested a lot of time in you through the quarter and you owe it to them to finish up the process, from what you have experienced, it definitely seems like the right place for you. You are not committing to anything, showing you are genuinely interested and still care about your reputation.
Good luck. Let us know how it works out.