Consulting Interview Questions: A Complete List with Answers
There are 14 common consulting interview questions that account for over 90% of questions you could be asked. Preparing answers to each of these consulting interview questions will give you an edge over other less prepared candidates.
In this article, we’ll go through each common consulting interview question and tell you exactly how to answer each. The 14 common consulting interview questions are:
1. Walk Me Through Your Resume
2. Why Consulting?
3. Why This Firm?
4. Give an Example of a Time When You Led a Team.
5. Tell Me About a Time When You Solved a Difficult Problem.
6. Describe a Situation When You Disagreed with Someone.
7. Tell Me About a Time When You Failed.
8. Case Interview: How Can We Improve Profitability?
9. Case Interview: Should We Enter This New Market?
10. Case Interview: Should We Acquire This Company?
11. Case Interview: How Should We Price Our Product?
12. Case Interview: Should We Launch This New Product?
13. Case Interview: Market Sizing
14. Do You Have any Questions?
1. Walk Me Through Your Resume
This consulting interview question is typically asked in the beginning of the interview. So, it is important to answer this question well in order to leave a great first impression.
In asking this question, interviewers are looking to learn two things:
One, interviewers want to get an overview of your work experience and achievements. Many times, interviewers don’t have the time to look at your resume beforehand.
Two, interviewers want to understand why you would be a good fit for consulting. Your accomplishments in previous work experiences and the skills you have developed from these experiences are a good indicator.
When you answer this question, follow this strategy:
- Start with a strong opening statement that summarizes your areas of expertise and number of years of experience
- Highlight your most relevant and impressive experiences and accomplishments, starting with the most recent
- Connect your experiences to why you’re interested in consulting and the firm and why you would be a good fit
Example: Walk me through your resume.
I am a marketing and strategy professional with over five years of experience in media and e-commerce.
I spent the last two years working at Activision Blizzard, where I led social media marketing. I planned and executed marketing campaigns that led to over $1 million in sales. I also developed a marketing strategy that lowered customer acquisition costs by 15%.
Before that, I spent three years working at LinkedIn in their ads team. I ran customer surveys and focus groups to identify key customer pain points for ad purchasers. From this, I launched over fifty tailored email campaigns that had a 25% higher conversion rate than previous campaigns.
Given my experience in data-driven marketing and strategy, I believe I would be an excellent fit for McKinsey’s Marketing and Sales practice.
2. Why Consulting?
Consulting is a tough job and many consultants quit even before reaching their one-year mark. It is a huge waste of resources for a consulting firm to hire and train someone only for them to leave after six months.
The “why consulting” interview question assesses your interest and passion for consulting.
This question checks if you have a basic understanding of the job. The better you understand what consulting is, the more likely you are to stay at the firm for a longer time because there will be no surprises to you once you start working.
Secondly, this question checks for enthusiasm, which signals to the interviewer that you would work hard as a consultant.
To answer this question, identify three compelling reasons why you are interested in consulting and use the following simple, but effective structure to make your answer clear and organized.
- State that consulting is your top career choice
- Provide three reasons to support this
- Reiterate that consulting best fits your professional needs and goals
Example: Why are you interested in consulting?
Consulting is currently my top career choice for the following three reasons.
One, I want to make a significant impact by working with executives at billion-dollar companies on their most challenging business problems. The opportunity to make such a big difference is what excites me and gets me out of bed.
Two, I am passionate about the energy sector through my previous work experience at ExxonMobil. Through consulting, I can further develop my expertise in energy and also develop the soft and hard skills to make me a successful business executive.
Three, I enjoy working closely with teams, especially with bright and extraordinary people. I look forward to getting to know my colleagues closer and developing friendships with them.
At this moment, I feel that no other career better suits my professional needs and goals than consulting.
3. Why This Firm?
Interviewers will often ask you why you are interested in working at their particular firm. This consulting interview question is used to assess whether you are genuinely interested in the company.
Before extending job offers, consulting firms want to confirm that you are actually interested in the firm and have a decent likelihood of accepting their job offer if they gave you one.
It is a huge waste of resources for a firm to interview and give offers to candidates who are applying to the firm as a backup choice with no real intent to accept a job offer.
Therefore, in answering this question, you need to demonstrate why the consulting firm you are interviewing for is a top choice for you. You need to convince interviewers of this.
Identify three compelling reasons why you are interested in the consulting firm and organize your answer using the following structure:
- State that the firm is your top choice consulting firm
- Provide three reasons to support this
- Reiterate that the firm best fits your professional needs and goals
Example: Why are you interested in McKinsey?
McKinsey is my top choice consulting firm to work for. There are three reasons why.
One, I am passionate about the government and education sector. McKinsey is the clear leader in these sectors among all consulting firms. McKinsey has tremendous expertise and strong client relationships that I would love to learn from.
Two, McKinsey has a global staffing model, which gives me the opportunity to travel and work with different people around the world. I get fulfillment from working with smart, diverse teams and McKinsey is the best place for this.
Three, many of my mentors that I respect and look up to have worked at McKinsey. They have all highly recommended working at McKinsey, so I know that McKinsey would be the best place to work to develop my skills and advance my career.
Given these reasons, I feel that no other consulting firm besides McKinsey best fits my professional needs and goals.
4. Give an Example of a Time When You Led a Team
Behavioral or fit interview questions are commonly asked consulting interview questions. They ask you to draw upon a time or experience in the past in which you demonstrated a particular trait or quality. These questions dive deeper beyond what is listed on your resume.
The most common type of consulting behavioral interview question focuses on leadership. Examples of this type of question include:
- Give an example of a time when you led a team
- Tell me about a time when you managed someone
- Describe a situation in which you had to motivate someone
- Tell me about a time when you showed initiative
To answer these questions, pick an experience in which you made a meaningful and significant impact while working with or managing other people.
1. Provide context of the situation and what the objective or goal was
2. Describe the leadership role you took and what actions you took
3. Explain the impact and results of these actions
4. Summarize what this experience taught you about leadership or what this situation reveals about you as a leader
Example: Give an example of a time when you led a team.
While working on a customer service improvement project for Amazon, I led a four-person analytics team. The goal was to analyze recent customer survey data to identify ways to improve customer service.
I distributed work according to each person’s interests and expertise. After a few weeks, I observed that three members worked productively and effectively while one member, John, was consistently delivering work that was both low-quality and late.
Realizing that this was a potential motivation issue, I sat down with John to understand what the root cause was. The problem was that the analytics team had recently shifted to using an analytics software called Tableau.
John found Tableau difficult to set up and use, so he was unmotivated to switch from using Excel, which he was an expert at. As a result, Excel could not handle the millions of rows of data, causing poor work quality and delays.
To motivate John, I set up three one-on-one Tableau training sessions with him to walk him through the setup of Tableau. I demonstrated how it could save him time because it performed computationally intensive calculations much quicker than Excel.
Afterward, John began liking Tableau. He became excited to learn about what other features of Tableau could save him time in his other projects. His performance significantly improved and he began consistently delivering high-quality work on-time. Our team generated over twenty different customer initiatives that would increase customer satisfaction scores by 20% and generate $125M in additional revenue each year.
This leadership experience taught me how important it is to understand your teammates. John did not have a motivational issue, but a transitioning issue. If I did not take the time to understand how John was really feeling, I would have overlooked a simple solution to this problem.
5. Tell Me About a Time When You Solved a Difficult Problem.
Another type of behavioral consulting interview question focuses on problem solving. Examples of this type of question include:
- Give me a time when you used data to solve a problem
- Describe a complicated or difficult problem you faced and how you approached it
- Tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision
- Give an example of a problem you solved in a unique way
To answer these questions, pick an experience in which you faced a difficult problem or situation but were still able to make a meaningful and significant impact.
1. Provide context of the situation and what the problem was
2. Describe what actions you took to solve the problem
3. Explain the impact and results of these actions on the problem
4. Summarize what this experience taught you about problem solving or what this situation reveals about you as a problem solver
Example: Tell me about a time when you solved a difficult problem.
Last year, I was working at Airbnb in their strategic planning & analysis group. I worked primarily with the customer experience team.
I was tasked to determine whether the incremental $10M that Airbnb spent on initiatives to improve customer satisfaction had a positive return on investment. This was important because Airbnb was focused on cutting unnecessary costs to achieve better profitability.
I used SQL and excel to analyze over 700K customer data points to create a model forecasting how much happy customers spend per year versus unhappy customers.
I collaborated with data science, customer experience, and finance teams and persuaded them to give me their support and buy-in. I also performed competitor and industry benchmarking to validate the results further.
In the end, I determined that the customer satisfaction initiatives had a negative 20% return on investment. I presented the findings to the CFO and to my 30-person strategic planning & analysis group, who all supported my recommendation. My work would save Airbnb $10M per year moving forward.
Throughout this process, I learned how to work with multiple cross-functional teams and how to persuade stakeholders to get their buy-in. This experience also further reinforced my perspective on using data to make intelligent business decisions.
6. Describe a Situation When You Disagreed with Someone.
A third type of behavioral consulting interview question focuses on resolving conflict. Examples of this type of question include:
- Give an example of a time when you disagreed with your manager
- Tell me about a time when you didn’t get along with a colleague
- Describe a situation in which you had to resolve conflict on a team
- Give me a time when you worked with someone that was difficult to work with
To answer these questions, pick an experience in which you faced conflict but still made a meaningful and significant impact.
1. Provide context of the situation and what the conflict was
2. Describe what actions you took to resolve the conflict
3. Explain the impact and results of resolving the conflict
4. Summarize what this experience taught you about working with other people or what this situation reveals about you as a teammate
Example: Describe a situation when you disagreed with someone.
On my last project, I worked with a newly hired manager that was difficult to work with. He had an investment banking background and liked to overwork his team without taking breaks. We often would be expected to skip lunch to deliver work on-time.
After two weeks, the manager asked his direct reports for feedback on how things were going. During my feedback session with the manager, I brought up how I disagreed with the working style he was subjecting the team to.
I explained that it was unhealthy to skip meals and that this made the team hungry, unhappy, and unproductive. I explained that I felt that his working style was not a good fit for the team.
I asked if we could be more thoughtful in prioritizing work and reducing the amount of time spent working on tasks that were not critically important. I also proposed scheduling breaks for the team to relax together, which could improve productivity overall.
The manager initially disagreed with my approach because he was used to working with higher performance teams when he was an investment banker. However, I convinced the manager to trial my preferred working style for a few weeks to see if the team performed better.
By building in breaks into the work schedule, the team immediately became happier and more motivated. We completed the next three projects on-time without working on any weekends by focusing on the most important tasks.
This situation taught me how to communicate disagreement with someone in a calm and non-aggressive way. By reaching a compromise with my manager, I was able to convince him to try my working style, which was ultimately better for the team.
7. Tell Me About a Time When You Failed.
The final type of behavioral consulting interview question focuses on resilience when facing failure. Examples of this type of question include:
- Give an example of a time when you tried to accomplish something but failed
- Describe a situation in which you made a mistake
- Talk about a setback you had at work
- Tell me about a time when you failed to meet expectations
To answer these questions, pick an experience in which you faced a major obstacle or setback but overcame it to deliver a meaningful and significant impact.
1. Provide context of the situation and what major obstacle or setback you faced
2. Describe how you reacted to the obstacle or setback and what actions you took in response
3. Explain the impact and results of moving past the obstacle or setback
4. Summarize what this experience taught you about resilience or what this situation reveals about your motivation, adaptability, or optimism
Example: Tell me about a time when you failed.
While working at Apple in their AppleCare business, I was responsible for analyzing data to identify opportunities to improve customer satisfaction.
While looking through survey responses, I realized there was an opportunity to use the tremendous amount of data that Apple had to predict which customers were likely to cancel their AppleCare subscriptions. Apple could focus on retaining these customers by sending them discount codes for renewal.
I pulled over five years of purchasing data for over 10 million customers to create a logistic regression model. In the end, I determined that Apple could increase revenues by $100M by targeting the top 10% of customers that were most likely to cancel and sending them discounts.
I was excited to present my results to the head of AppleCare. To my dismay, he rejected my proposal because he did not like the idea of discounting a premium service. Throughout my presentation, I had failed to convince him of why my idea had merit.
However, I still felt that the work I had done on predicting customer churn was useful. Instead of offering discounts, I suggested to the head of AppleCare that we interview customers that were most likely to cancel to identify opportunities to improve the service. He was more open to this idea than my previous one.
After interviewing a hundred customers, we identified three service improvements that would reduce churn for these customers by nearly 20%. This would increase Apple revenues by $150M.
This experience taught me how to be flexible and adaptable when faced with a rejection or failure. Although my initial idea was rejected, I learned how to stay positive and look for other opportunities to make a meaningful impact with the work I had done so far.
8. Case Interview: How Can We Improve Profitability?
Among case interviews, profitability cases are the most common consulting interview question. Profitability cases ask you to determine how to improve a company’s profitability.
There are two steps to solving a profitability case.
First, you need to understand quantitatively, what is the driver causing the decline in profits?
Since profit is revenues minus costs, you need to determine whether revenues have gone done, costs have gone up, or both. You’ll then need to dive deeper to understand exactly what revenue or cost driver is responsible.
For example, on the revenue side, is the decline due to a decline in quantity sold or a decrease a price? Within quantity sold, is the decline concentrated in a particular product line, geography, or customer segment?
You’ll need to dive deeper into costs as well, breaking it down into variable costs and fixed costs.
The second step is to identify, qualitatively, what factors are driving the decline in profitability that you identified in the previous step.
To do this, you’ll likely need to look at customers, competitors, and the overall market.
Looking at customers, have customer needs or preferences changed? Have their purchasing habits or behaviors changed? Have their perceptions of the company changed?
Looking at competitors, have new players entered the market? Have existing competitors made any recent strategic moves? Are competitors also experiencing a decline in profitability?
Looking at the market, are there any market trends that we should be aware of? For example, are there new technology or regulatory changes? How do these trends impact profitability?
To solve a profitability case, you can use the following framework:
9. Case Interview: Should We Enter This New Market?
Among case interviews, market entry cases are the second most common consulting interview question. Market entry cases ask you to determine whether a company should enter a new market.
Typically, to recommend entering a new market, there are four things that would ideally be true:
- The market is attractive
- Competition is weak
- The company has the capabilities to enter the market
- The company would be profitable from entering the market
In other words, you need to determine if the market is attractive enough to be worth entering. If the market is attractive, how competitive would it be to enter?
If the market is attractive and easy to enter, does the company actually have the capabilities required to enter the market successfully?
Finally, if the company does enter the market, will they be profitable?
To solve a market entry case, you can use the following framework:
10. Case Interview: Should We Acquire This Company?
Merger and acquisition case interviews are another common type of consulting interview question.
Merger and acquisition cases ask you to determine whether a company or private equity firm should acquire another company.
In the case of a company looking to acquire another company, the reason for the acquisition is usually to access a new market, access new customers, or to grow revenues and profits.
In the case of a private equity firm looking to acquire a company, the reason for the acquisition is usually to grow the acquired company and then sell the company years later for a high return on investment.
In either case, four things typically need to be true to recommend making an acquisition:
- The market that the acquisition target is in is attractive
- The acquisition target is an attractive company
- The acquisition would generate meaningful synergies
- The acquisition makes sense financially
To solve a merger and acquisition case, you can use the following framework:
11. Case Interview: How Should We Price Our Product?
Pricing case interviews are another common type of consulting interview question.
Pricing cases ask you to determine how to price a particular product or service. To solve pricing case interviews, you should be familiar with the three different pricing strategies:
- Pricing based on costs: set a price based on what the costs are of producing the product or delivering the service
- Pricing based on competition: set a price based on the prices that competitors are charging for similar products and services
- Pricing based on value added: set a price based on the benefits the product or service provides customers and how much they would be willing to pay for the benefits
You’ll likely use all three pricing strategies to help you determine the optimal price.
Pricing based on costs determines the minimum price you should set to make sure that you are not losing money.
Pricing based on value determines the maximum price you could set and still have customers that are willing to purchase your product or service.
Pricing based on competition will help you determine which price in between the previous two price points you should set.
To solve a pricing case, you can use the following framework:
12. Case Interview: Should We Launch This New Product?
New product case interviews are another common type of consulting interview question.
New product cases ask you to determine whether a company should create and launch a new product. These types of case interviews are similar to new market entry cases.
To recommend creating and launching a new product, four things generally need to be true:
- The product’s market is attractive
- The product meets customers’ needs and is better than competitors’ products
- The company has the capabilities to create and launch the product
- The company will be profitable
To solve a new product case, you can use the following framework:
13. Case Interview: Market Sizing
Market sizing questions are another common type of consulting interview question that may be asked as a part of any case interview.
Market sizing questions ask you to estimate the size of a particular market. Market size is typically defined as the total sales of a product or service in one year in a specified geography.
There are two different approaches to answer market sizing questions:
- Top-down approach: start with a large number and then refine and break down the number until you get your answer
- Bottom-up approach: start with a small number and then build up and increase the number until you get your answer
To answer market sizing questions, decide which approach you want to take, outline the steps you would take to calculate the market size, and then walk the interviewer through your assumptions and calculations.
Example: What is the size of the contact lenses market in the United States?
Using a top-down approach, we can answer this question by taking the following steps:
- Start with the population of the United States
- Segment the population by age
- Estimate the percentage of people in each age group with vision problems
- Estimate the percentage of people that wear contact lenses
- Estimate the number of pairs of contact lenses each person wears per year
- Multiply all of these figures to calculate the market size
Starting with the United States population, assume there are 320 million people. Assume that life expectancy is 80 years and there is a uniform distribution of ages.
Let’s segment the population into four age groups, 0 to 20-year-olds, 21 to 40-year-olds, 41 to 60-year-olds, and 61 to 80-year-olds. There are 80 million people in each age group.
Let’s assume that 20% of people in the first age group have vision problems, 30% in the second group, 50% in the third group, and 50% in the fourth group.
This gives us 16 million people in the first age group, 24 million people in the second group, 40 million people in the third group, and 40 million people in the fourth group. This gives us a total of 120 million people that have vision problems.
Assume that a third of people wear contact lenses versus wear glasses. This means 40 million people wear contact lenses.
If each person uses 2 pairs of contact lenses a month, that is 24 pairs of contact lenses a year.
Multiplying 40 million people with 24 pairs gives us 960 million pairs of contact lenses that are used each year.
If a pair of contact lenses costs $5 on average, then the market size of contact lenses is 960 million pairs times $5, which is $4.8 billion.
14. Do You Have any Questions?
The final common consulting interview question is “do you have any questions for me?” Almost all consulting interviewers will try to leave time at the end of the interview for you to ask questions.
Asking meaningful questions to the interviewer is a great opportunity to connect with the interviewer on a more personal level. Additionally, it is another opportunity to show how interested you are in consulting and in the firm that you are interviewing for.
If you ask the right questions, you can leave the interviewer with a positive and memorable last impression. If you ask the wrong questions, you can leave the interviewer with a negative last impression or they may forget who you are by the end of the day.
Therefore, carefully prepare what questions you’d like to ask at the end of the interview.
Here are a few examples of great questions you can ask:
- What was the most challenging case that you worked on?
- What has been your favorite case so far?
- What do you enjoy the most and the least about your job?
- Looking back at your first year in consulting, what would you have done differently?
- What are attributes or qualities of the most successful consultants?
- What advice would you give to an incoming consultant?
- What do you see as the biggest opportunities or challenges for the company?
- How do the core values of the firm impact how the firm’s employees work with each other and clients?
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