In management consultancy recruitment, while interview questions change, an interviewer ultimately wants to know why they should hire you. Every interview question has a purpose.

In this blog series we will provide insight into management consultancy recruitment and specifically interview questions and how best to answer them. An interviewer’s aim is to determine why you want to work for them, whether you’ll be a good organisational and culture fit, and what experience you bring to the table. Beyond these key aspects interviewers are trying to determine your career expectations, salary expectations, fill in any obvious ‘CV gaps’ and if possible discover a little more about you.

The “Why you” questions

With each of these interview questions remember ‘professional not personal’. Interviewers do not want to know that your weakness is chocolate and you have 10 amazing cats. In fact best to keep the latter to yourself on all occasions. They want to know what you will bring to their consulting team and that you are honest and self-aware.

Question 1: Can you tell me a little about yourself?

Why are you right for this job? What management consultancy experience or accomplishments can you highlight to back this up? Keep it concise. This is not the time to list your employment history: your interviewers have read your CV so do not repeat it verbatim but instead expand upon it.

Question 2: Why should we hire you?

A daunting question but a great opportunity to highlight your key skills and attributes: relate these to the company’s goals and the job spec. Why are you the best candidate for the position? How will you fit in this management consultancy team/company? Prove it with specific examples. This shows your interviewer that you are self-aware, can sell yourself and you’ve done your research (highlighting that you are well prepared and truly interested in the role).

Question 3: What are your greatest strengths?

This question (and the following one) might be a cliché but they are very good questions and you need to be prepared for them and for others which might sound different but are actually the same.
The following points might help to focus your answers: once again think professional not personal.
*What are your key skills?
*How are these relevant to this particular management consultancy role?
*Most importantly quote specific examples to showcase these strengths: it’s implied in the question.

Question 4: What do you consider to be your weaknesses?

Let’s be honest: this is a stinker which is why it’s such a good question.

The best tactic is to either volunteer something that is not relevant for the role (i.e. its opposite is not on the list of essential/desirable characteristics) or is something that you can provide evidence you are tackling and getting better at.

Neither “I’m always running late” nor “I can’t think of anything” will leave your interviewer with a positive impression. When preparing your response in advance be self-aware and honest. If you identify a weakness don’t just say you will improve it for the sake of the interview, actually do something. You’ll be a better employee and you will have a great answer for this interview question. If your answer really is “I’m always running late” then a much better response is “I used to struggle with time-management in the morning but now I arrive 15 minutes earlier each day: this provides time to deal with unexpected tasks before my scheduled meetings begin”. This shows you have identified a weakness and worked to improve it.

Question 5: What is your greatest achievement?

Be specific; focus on your professional accomplishments within management consultancy and how these achievements benefited the business. Did you increase sales? If so, by how much? Over what time period? How did this impact overall sales targets and business development? Relate your success back to the role to which you are applying. This is your opportunity to show why you are the best candidate for the role and what you could do for their business if they employed you.

You CAN use selected and compelling personal achievements if they are relevant and demonstrate qualities expected in the role. But think marathon running rather than 5k i.e. if they are not impressive then best not to.

The most important element in answering “Why you?” questions is preparation. Practise your answers again and again, then practise with an audience and ask for feedback.

Your perfect answers are unique to you, concise, compelling and sound natural.

By Amy Burrell