【干货|春招】咨询方向工作的面试需要准备什么？

Mean Value小编在这里分享一下咨询行业的 Interview Guide帮你迅速进入正确的面试备战中

每个阶段的面试，面试官都考察不同的方面，而了解面试官的internal question 是关键。

在第一阶段面试中，面试官主要考察你的 soft skills，面试官的internal question 是：Is this someone who I would like to work with?/ Is this someone who makes a good impression on clients?

第二阶段的case interview，面试官的internal question是： Is this someone who is an achiever focused on results?/Is this someone who can solve problems efficiently and logically?

在实际工作中，problem solving更重要，是咨询顾问立命之本；但作为面试中考察problem solving能力的case，其重要性、优先级不如soft skill。

所以在准备咨询面试时，主要准备这三件事：

• prepare behavioral answers
• prepare for the case
• connect and be positive

接下来我们就从这三点开始进行逐条说明。

一. Behavioral Question

Behavioral-interview questions 一般都基于你申请职位的必备技能和职位要求，建议你去看一下过往这个职位的ideal candidate都有哪些要求（比如：excellent multi-tasker, strong communicator, highly organized, etc），想一想你过往有没有什么经历可以证明这些申请条件，准备几个“short stories”，然后反复练习，直到你能够流利并且自信的说出你的故事。以下是一些typical behavioral-interview questions: 

• Tell me about a time when you:convinced someone/a group of doing something they didn’t want to doachieved a goal you had set for yourself had to persuade a group to deal with a crisis/difficult situation
• Why consulting? You don’t want to go into academia anymore? 
• Why this firm(locations, business areas of specialty, reputation, career progression and direction, company culture)
• Tell me about the highest-pressure situation that you’ve dealt with in the past six months.
• Can you describe a situation in which you had to deal with a difficult judge in court? What did you do?
• What big challenges have you faced during the discovery process in a lawsuit? How did you address them?
• Can you provide me with a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic to solve a problem?
• Can you tell me about a time when used your oral persuasion skills to successfully convince a judge or jury to rule in your client’s favor?
• At your last job, what was your typical way of dealing with conflict? Give me an example.
• Can you tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to bring a case to trial?
• Have you ever been involved in a situation in which you and a boss or colleague had a disagreement over a strategy (such as how to tackle a client’s defense)? How did you resolve it?
• Can you describe a situation in which you needed to brainstorm differing or conflicting ideas with others in order to help accomplish work goals?
• Can you tell me about the biggest mistake you made on a past case and how you remedied it?
• Can you tell me about a time when you were the lead attorney on a case? What challenges did you face, and how did you address them?
• Can you tell me about a recent situation in which you had to deal with a very upset client?

 回答问题的结构: Headling+STAR法则

• Headline sentence describing achievement
• Situation or Task Describe the Situation or Task in a past job or volunteer experience that you had to address (for example, dealing with a difficult coworker, going the extra mile to complete an assignment, etc.).
• Action overall approach and detailsActions you took to address the situation or to complete the task.
• Result Finish with summary of results

二. Case Interveiw

CaseInterview的问题一般都是咨询顾问在工作中常遇到的问题，映射了真实的工作状态，因而可以用Case Interview的方法来检测面试者的反应水平和问题解决能力，来判断是否具备成为咨询顾问的资质和潜力。各大公司网站也会有practice cases，下面推荐几本资料：

1. Case in Point 

2. 基础入门: Victor Cheng的Case Interview Secret （福利） 

3. Victor Cheng的Look Over My Shoulder，多套模拟面试录音，重点在于有深入讲解。Victor在其中有海量大小技巧，实用而不失逻辑性。 （福利） 

4. 可以在网上找知名大学的casebook来作为训练素材

之后就开始需要去和不同对象Mock，到各种地方约人Mock，参加学校内专业社团的Mock活动，一是为了习惯不同风格的面试官，二是去学习不同的思维方式；每个人都可以在Mock的训练中找到一些适合自己的方法，形成自己独有的思维框架。

三. 准备一份问题

准备一份你可以问面试官的问题，不要局限于问关于travel 和work-life balance 的问题，面试官听到太多了，另外展现出你在之前对该公司做过research(offices, leadership, areas of focus, career progression)。如果之前能够查到面试官的biography，可以问一些关于他的问题，建立connection。
Sample Questions：

• Could you tell me a little about the culture in [FIRM]’s[CITY] office? How does it compare to the culture in the company as a whole?
• When thinking about your co-workers, do you consider them to be your colleagues, your friends, or both? (this question can tell you a lot about the kind of culture within a company or an office)
• As a minority/female consultant, have you ever experienced any negative interactions with client representatives where you felt that race was an issue? If so, how did you deal with it? Did your managers support you with your concerns?
• As someone with a tech background, I’m wondering whether my previous experience will translate well into Consulting. Could you tell me how much you’ve reached back into your prior experience in Technology during your career at [FIRM]?
• I really like the fact that your company operates on a generalist model where consultants can float around on different types of assignments early in their careers. What was your experience like when you were in this stage of your career? Did you find it difficult to jump onto client engagements where you had no prior background and hit the ground running? What sort of support did your team give you in these cases?