An interview with a former BCG Project Leader

Here is the transcript of the above video.

hi everyone a few days ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Clem oh camon
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was a project leader at the Boston Consulting Group in this video Kimmel
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shares his view on what makes BCG unique the key skills you must have to land a
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job in consulting and many more tips to successfully go through the hiring
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process and it starts with Clement introducing himself thank you thank you
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for having me it’s a pleasure I mean I’ve been I’ve been in the shoes of many many people who might watch this video
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so so always happy to give back so in a nutshell I am now the CEO of a company
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called scaly eye and scaly eyes is essentially an investment fund focused on AI technology applied to to supply
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chains and I I joined this position last year after after I left ECG or actually
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I left BCG to join this position where I was a project leader I joined BCG right out of right out of
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my MBA at I should say Paris and I spent three years there and before that I was
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a mechanical engineer most most importantly in the in the construction industry let’s let’s me in a nutshell
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and originally from France lived in a lot of places and now I’m based in Canada in Montreal okay and you work at
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BCG mushroom that’s right well yeah I was based out of Montreal I worked in
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many different places for BCG but maybe maybe we’ll get into that okay okay good
BCGs global staffing policy
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let’s do that now is that’s very interesting so it means that you had a
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lot of trouble and you have customers worldwide or across
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the Canada or in the u.s. I think BCG
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you know doesn’t have a world wild or global staffing policy it you do have
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opportunities to to travel and to work across the globe these opportunities are
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there but in terms of staffing concretely when you when you’re considered for projects it’s it’s much
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more across region so Canada for example is a region there are three offices in Canada and then it’s it’s treated as one
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place so if you’re based in Montreal you could be put on the project out of Calgary out of Toronto out of Montreal and then there’s obviously close ties
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with some of the nearby regions the Northeast you know in New York office Chicago is another is in other places
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where what I worked but much less you know around the west coast although
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there are some opportunities and some of my colleagues were based out of there it’s it’s not standard practice we try
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that yes there’s a lot of travel at BCG but I think this travel is is more localized on a general basis and then
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for those who want to explore avenues more globally the opportunities are
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there but it’s it’s much less frequent okay no let’s talk about the big
BCG vs McKinsey
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businesses especially can you can you tell us what is unique about BCG
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compared to McKinsey your BAE what what’s your opinion on that sure well look I’ve only worked at BCG
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so I can I can tell you why why I decided to join ECG and at McKinsey and
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and and to me it boiled down to two different things first of all the people are interacted
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with although there were some great people that are interacted with at McKinsey the vast majority of people I
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interacted with before joining BCG I it just clicked I got along with them where
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does it McKenzie there were some where the introductions were great others not so great so so it’s a in a very good
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example of that is my first round interview at BCG I actually did it remotely from Paris with people in
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Montreal and I literally spent two hours cracking jokes with the interviewer
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I’m just having fun and I just I just remember having such a good time where is for Mackenzie I actually you know
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flew over to to Montreal to to meet with them and and and be there but it was
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just my Shh you know much you know colder so that any in it might just be
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with those two individuals I’m not I’m not saying Mackenzie is is like that in in general but but I would say that’s
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the first point really is about the people you connect with and not that one is better than the other it’s just different personalities and and I think
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the the second one is is much more around the culture so once you get into the company this is where you can
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experience some of those differences and you know some of my friends are we’re at McKinsey when I when I was at DCG and I
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think there’s some some differences in how the organization’s manage how people are are you know treated or or so I
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think that fundamentally I think BCG really takes the heart the well-being of
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its of its people and the balancing between you know work and life I mean that doesn’t hate him that a DCG you do
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9:00 to 5:00 and that’s it you work your ass off at BCG no no questions but I
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found that there was a genuine care from every strata of the organization around
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making sure that we made this work the job work for for people and for their
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life and for their special circumstances I mean and in in in the level of care is
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you know goes from anything when you have you know family emergencies I’ve had partners offering to book me tickets
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on there you know on booked out flights because of their status and but all the
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way to you know on a weekly basis there is structural programs to make sure that
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there’s transparency around workload and and making sure that people don’t you know don’t spin their wheels or don’t
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overwork systematically so good example of this is is you know I saw it as a
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consultant but I then I also saw it as a project leader when you become part of the management structure at BCG and so
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every week we had a report that was sent to us to to evaluate how you know how many hours
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everyone was putting in in the in the organization and this is not the track who is not working this is solely to
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track who is working too much not to blame them or to say they are incompetent but actually to identify you
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know perhaps some individuals that are just staying quite because they think that you know if they’re working too long it’s because they’re incompetent or
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they’re you know it’s actually to identify this and solve the issue at a management level to say look you know
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you your team has a problem like it’s not normal that they’re working so many hours we need to fix this and and every
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two weeks there was a triggered conversation with the team with anonymous surveys in order to make sure
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that the team had an outlet to say hey look you know this isn’t working like the client is slamming us with all these
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requests and then we’re not getting slack from the management team so so fundamentally I think that’s a huge
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aspect of the culture at BCG and my sense and and like I said I didn’t work at McKinsey so I can’t tell if you know
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what they have input but my sense is that they they don’t have the same structure in place you know one when
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striking tell is in order to track how much people are working you will in into
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in and to assess what you can do to fix it you need to you know report hours and
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so a BCG every week you have to report your hours it doesn’t really matter from the billing perspective it’s really just
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to feed this machine whereas at McKinsey at least doing it when I was there people don’t tractor hours you know when
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I was telling my my friends at McKinsey yeah I got a report my hours this week they’re like what but why do you do that
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and so so I think that there’s just elements of the culture and I can’t know all of them at McKinsey and Bay but to
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me that’s that’s evidence of the genuine care and and really the organization
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striving to make this work which is extremely demanding to make this job work with life because
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because ultimately you know most of us don’t want to live to work but work to
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it so III I think I know this was a bit long-winded but I think these are really the two criteria that
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people and the culture inside the organization is really what what struck me as as a different stranger mm-hmm
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okay and can you tell us what what is a
Typical day at BCG
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day in the life of a BCG consultant right or maybe like a typical yeah typical day or typical project just so
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you know many people actually don’t have where don’t really understand what constituents do so yeah well I’ll start
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off by saying that there is I mean this is an incredible amount of diversity in
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what you do where whether it’s the type of projects you work on but also the activities you engage on across BCG so
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you know over my three years I didn’t do a single project that turned out to be the same so it’s it’s difficult to boil
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down to what a typical day is because there isn’t so much I’d rather talk about a typical week because I think
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that can can bring some some more generic questions or topics and and to
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be clear this is also what drew me to to consulting into BCG to have that diversity to satisfy this curiosity of
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different industries different topics even within an industry so so that to me that was particularly interesting so
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typical week I would say let’s let’s use a week where you’re actually on the on a
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travel case you know Monday morning get up fairly early get on the plane and so
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you know you it’s it’s funny we I didn’t hear this much about about this topic
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when when I was considering consulting but you become an expert at trouble like
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you optimize everything like I never waited at an airport I knew you know how
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to cut to like the security line to have the right pass you know lucky and and then you just you don’t wait at the gate
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you you know that you know especially when it’s a regular travel travel case
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you know that you need to be in front of the gate 45 minutes before the flight that’s when they open and that’s when
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you’re allowed to go in and you don’t wait so so week starts off like this you
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learn to optimize that and you get either to your clients to your client office or to
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to the VCG office and usually the the Monday morning is around you know
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planning the week but also planning usually there’s what we call a case team meeting it’s usually midweek or
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depending on the schedule of the case but so your priorities is get to you know where the team is whether it’s the
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client site or the BCG office and then from there you know you start
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identifying the priorities you’re gonna work on and the outcomes you want to achieve doing this week in order to make
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you know the big milestones which is a case team meeting or a steering committee or a big meeting with the clients so so usually Monday morning is
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around that and then Monday a Monday afternoon you know it’s you start working on your analysis on your on your
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next Tuesday is usually would be a lot of client interactions you know perhaps some some case teams some some meetings
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with your case team members to coordinate the analysis with your manager whether you’re your project leader or your principal your partner to
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refine and to iterate on some of the analysis then the ones that you’d have a tasting meeting this is where everyone
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shares their the the output of their work this is where your plan you know for the next big client meeting the big
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big deliverable that’s next you get a lot of feedback from the partner this is this is your chance to both you know
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shine in front of the partner by showing what you what you’ve done over the last few days but also to engage the partner
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to download the experience and and the information that they have so so those
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those are usually pretty pitiful pivotal pivotal moments this is also the time
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when you know Monday Tuesday’s sometimes this happens as well but if you’re on a travel case this is also the evening you
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go out with your case case team members or other people that are from out of town and so you go to a nice restaurant
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in the in the town you’re odd because usually that big milestone is you know the pressure kind of drops and then
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you’ve got a few tweaks to do and and so on Thursdays usually is the delivery of the deliverable or you know the final
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iteration on on that deliverable and then usually you fly home late afternoon get home you know take care of emails on
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the flights you know take care of a few things in Friday you’re you’re back at your home base I’ve found Friday
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you know Fri tend to change the more senior you become at the very beginning this is
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when you’re doing your analysis you’re prepping for Monday you know you’ve got you’ve got stuff but you know six months
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twelve month in this is when you start interacting a lot with your with your home base so you do a lot of coffee
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chats this is where you you tap into you know the people above you to get some mentorship this is also where a lot of
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the recruitment activities happen because everyone’s there a lot of the office activities happens to office meetings all of this so so Friday’s that
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you know after six to twelve month or are less productive in in in the case
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context but there’s still very important parts of the of the BCG experience because this is when you you do a lot of
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your contribution to the to the to the office or to the to the region whatever
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initiatives were you’re part of so so if they like this is a typical week how its
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structured and I prefer to see it that way you know you’ve got you know usually you’re pretty heavy substantially front
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front heavy week you know some big milestones halfway through and then the
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end of the week is usually you know more you know connecting with your peers running initiatives that are not
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necessarily your case but you know be the first thing that comes in the first priority of every consultant that DCG is
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their case and every partner will tell you this whatever initiative you choose to do on the side it has to come after
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so yeah that’s that’s usually a typical typical week I’m happy to explore any of
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those of those topics do you have any
Between two projects
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any anytime between two cases between two projects so so I hate this response
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but it’s a typical consultant respond it depends and and I’ve lived both I live
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both you know when I was actually staffed on two projects that overlap in
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for two weeks just because the one project team really wanted me on their case and then I wasn’t quite done with
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the other so I started working because I also really wanted to be on that case and I’ve worked where you know there’s
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there’s the case closes and then your your you start on the on the on the next
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project the Monday but I’ve also been on what we call the beach so the beach is
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usually a time when you’re not staffed and when you’re available as a short-term resource for other case teams
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and and I’ve as a project leader as I’ve relied on short-term resources is quite
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a bit because sometimes you have a bit of a spike and in order to manage that spike and not put it on on case team
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members which are usually pretty heavily loaded to begin with you you call on extra help so so that that happens quite
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a bit as well and it’s it’s part of the model you know like you can’t you can’t expect the consultant to be you know
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either on vacation in training or on the job it’s it’s part of it I’d say what happened in BCG Canada over the time I
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was there this was a time of a very high growth in Canada and I can’t mention
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specific figures but but it was three considered three to four consecutive years of very high growth and therefore
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there was you know a shortage of people and so so we imported people that mean
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you brought people from the u.s. from other regions but it also meant less downtime for for the teams and so so
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it’s an expectation the partners expects they know that part of their business is you’ll have some resources that
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sometimes have you know weeks that are easier or they don’t they don’t have much but usually you’re you’re leveraged
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in different ways and it’s also a great opportunity during this time to connect with partners you might want to work
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with or you know industries you want to work with because you you could help on proposals and and a partner will never
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say no to free help so this is you know a good time for you to talk suddens to
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obviously to relax a little bit but also to start building those relationships they they they think they need to to
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continue on you mentioned training can
Training
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you can you tell us more about that you know many many students actually have a thread of like joining a consulting firm
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and from day one being forced to be like you know super productive thinking the concert time even polishing slides
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like concert ends – so can you can you tell us more about – training I’ve listened to yeah yeah I think there’s
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two types of trainings there is the you know the official training where you’re off the job and you’re shipped to an
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office with lots of other people and you get training from a former instructor and then there’s on-the-job training and
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I would say I would say both are critical at BCG and but but the first
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thing to think to understand is that BCG knows what they’re doing it’s their business to take people who didn’t
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necessarily do consulting before and then transform them into consultants so the expectations is not that you do
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everything right on the first day on the job the structure is there to allow you
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to ramp up very quickly the expectation is that you learn quickly it’s not that you can do everything at the beginning
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so when you start at BCG you’ll be shipped usually for a minimum of a week
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or two weeks or even three weeks depending on your background – in order to build some of the typical or core
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skills that we have and some of them even include slide design but I would say you know in terms of slide design
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and even an analysis the most important training is what you get from your peers because every case team is designed to
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be a balance between seniority of consultants and people who’ve done this for a while and people who are more
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junior who haven’t done this so so the idea is to match you know someone who’s
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been here for two years and knows how to make slides how knows the shortcuts to do an analysis with someone who’s who’s
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new on the job and that’s the most critical source of learning if you joined BCG and you don’t ask questions
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to your peers every day or every hour you know you’re not leveraging a
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valuable resource that’s there for your success and so I think that training is sometimes overlooked and people don’t
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recognize that there will be this training which is not you know formally given but you know I’ve learned so much
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from from even you know people that were sometimes five eight years younger than me because they’ve just been working
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with this partner for almost two years and they know they know what they expect they know how to make this slide so so I think that’s
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that’s a huge part of the learning and ECG and it’s but it’s also structured and that’s that’s also one thing that
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attracted me to the consulting and TV CG is you know you’re always going to be
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pushed to do something new something that you’re not comfortable with and that’s designed in the you know learning
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and development plans for each each individual but also in the in the way
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you interact with your your management you know you get feedback every two weeks from your project leader or from
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your principal or from your partner and and that helps you in that learning so so I think learning is isn’t it’s it’s
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one of the big value proposition BCG in terms of developing your career and and
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and it it’s the core business of what we do so so there’s no need to be afraid
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around not knowing how to do things right can you tell us more was the
Hiring process
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hiring process BCG and and what was the different steps you you went through and
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maybe how’s this having process is different from McKinsey for instance you
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know I’m not sure I’m up to date on that process because it was it was almost
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maybe even five years ago that I so so I think there’s a few I think Mackenzie
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might have some some tests or some numerical texture you have to make it so don’t quote me on this but in terms of
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the actual interview process BCG I mean III made connections with the the office I I wanted to join at BCG and you know
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through a and I made those connections a lot before I was in a position to apply
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I think that helped a lot in you know making sure I understood what was important you know for the recruiting
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process and so then it was just it was basically two realms you know out of MBAs it’s trying to think I did quite a
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bit of recruiting at BCG I don’t think there are instances where there’s more than two realms it’s not in Canada it’s
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possible elsewhere it’s different but but but yeah it’s usually two rounds usually each round we have two to three
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interviewers and and it’s you know it’s the traditional with people to tend to to
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read it’s it’s a case usually thirty five thirty minutes fit interview and
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just time for it for four questions I think the that’s sometimes overlooked
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and people try to ask questions that make them sound smart that’s that’s not at all we’re looking for obviously we’re
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not looking for dumb questions when we were looking for four questions that matter you know like your I think when I
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was interviewing the the the key that struck me was you know questions that
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weren’t you know can’t the questions that seemed genuine based on the conversations we had either interested
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in in what I was doing for real or or genuine questions that people had about how the organization was run but but
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questions that could be answered online I usually the their worst kind of questions we could and and many times at
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least I did you know just said hey look you don’t need me for this go online and you can find this info so so you know
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that’s the interview process it’s usually pretty quick there’s there’s there’s a cadence there’s a cycle and so
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it’s much better to make sure that you’re in that cycle because because we
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still recruit off cycle but it’s it’s not as easy but the questions my point
Questions
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is that ask questions the worst case is not asking questions I think yes it is a
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very bad at least ask something around
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the the person and usually we introduce ourselves in what we’ve done so just
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fine and interest and yeah absolutely if you don’t have questions look you don’t care so if I didn’t you go into an
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interview and you’re not asked any questions any difference between the
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first and the second yeah I mean look
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first of all the seniority of the people you’ll meet first round is usually
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there’ll be people who are at at least at the level that you try to enter the organization so associate is
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is the first the first job title with BCG and then it’s consultant so so
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usually you’ll meet with the consultant and perhaps a project leader in the first round maybe you principle but second round
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definitely you would definitely meet a partner and you definitely put more than
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likely meet a principal it might just be partners but but you won’t be meeting more junior staff in the decision round
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and I think the difference because of this is also the types of conversations yoha like especially the more senior
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people are you know they tend to focus a bit less on the hardcore case like
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they’ll they’ll run a case and they’ll have fun you know they’ve done this hundreds of times so they are looking for someone who you know can go through
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the motion but also connect with them and at this point if if the first round
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team recommends a candidate to move to two decision around we’ve done some of
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the basic checks you know around intellectual horsepower in terms of keys
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cracking abilities so so a lot of partners and I’m not saying all but a lot of partners have had their different
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spin and they’ll try to test you on on in ways that are not necessarily done the first I think the most important is
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just to try to connect with the human in front of you and not to be overwhelmed by what’s happening your own lessly I
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just having a conversation and trying to solve a business topic and gaining it gained an interest I think I think
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there’s there’s clear differences between the two realms each have their purpose and and the teams communicate in
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between the two ground souls or what’s said in one round is known and written in another there’s a lot of background
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work that goes into this it’s it’s a critical part of the business so so
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trying you know to stay to stay true to yourself to your story across all realms is is your best bet and you have any any
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tips how to Excel doing the decision around how to connect with a partner and
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it’s a principle this is this is a very difficult one
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because every partner is different and and them I mean partners have been in
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the organization for you know probably a minimum of 10 years so so they have
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their own ways and I think the best tip is to try to relax
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and I know this was a very difficult challenge for me I was kind of overwhelmed by the you know this was the
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job I wanted this is I wanted to work at BCG in Montreal this was what I wanted and so it’s tough because you don’t have
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many chances but it’s also trying to relax and to say look this is one opportunities there are other isn’t just
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true to not be petrified by this I think when you are more natural when you’re confident it’s not arrogant
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this is when people people get impressed because ultimately a partner will it’s also testing you know can I put this
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this young woman or man in front of a CEOs one of the largest organizations or
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even not even a CEO but a high-ranking executive you know can can I trust that
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this person is not gonna break down or screw up and if you’re petrified by the stress and enable to speak or to to
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interact and to create a connection then that that makes that decision a lot
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harder for the part but but so I’d say that’s it and it’s it’s difficult it’s not there’s no magic magic solution I
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can provide but but trying to work on yourself and and to to prepare yourself
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to just be more relaxed I think is the key yeah yeah I have to have two tips
Two tips
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for that situation is one preparation is key you should you must be confident
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that you did what you had to do before so know that right here you must be confident and the second tip I give to
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my to my students is think of the present because otherwise if you think of the future like yes that’s the office
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I want that yeah you can be very very stressed so just focus on the present tense of conversation you have that’s a key motor
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hack to a cab in stress absolutely absolutely look if I go back
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and no it’s not the decision run but my first one with BCG I was in the present I was I was just you know cracking jokes
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with people I know not just with the interviewers but with like the secretary that that was coming in in between you
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know to make sure I was okay I had papers you know there was there was a mishap during my interview I actually
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got the entire case interview packaged with the answers and so I realized that
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and and the the interviewer was like you know told me not to of course I didn’t look but we started making jokes about
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it then she had to she had to exit she was having a sneezing fit but but then
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we started joking about the fact that I looked and that she was supervising me and so just like making that connection
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and removing yourself from the fact that you’re interviewing I mean look I exited
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that first round and like each of the interviewers told me look don’t worry like it’s all right like we have to talk
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about ourselves don’t worry so if you’re able to create that level of connection it’s it’s a huge wing what I what I
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always said to to two people I helped prepped for her for interviews is look
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you cannot like you you can’t you can’t
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go through the interview if the fit goes goes badly you can if you mess up a
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little bit the case you can still go through to the next round you’ll have to ace the next case they’re no questions asked but if you fail this
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it doesn’t matter what you did on the case so focusing on connecting with the individual is really key case interview
How to prepare for case interviews
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or fit in general area it was purposeful to connect that it’s a
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as a top candidate for that I would not focus on on the case in to Emily when I
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think I have a very difficult question for you so in your opinion what has three most important schemes
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you know accommodate mess master to prepare for case interviews to be good at case interviews and how for instance
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like building Missy issue tree is like doing Moulton calculations very quickly
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and how what is your advice on how to
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get the skiis okay how to learn these skills before the interviews yeah you
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know during my time at BCG I think I did dozens of interviews I was very involved with recruiting and both in Montreal and
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Toronto and in general so so did quite a few and to be honest there were a few
31:03
times when I was looking at the decision tree in particular like it’s always impressive if you have a very clear very
31:09
well thought through decision tree tree but ultimately what I was looking for is
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can this person solve anything I I throw at them and if someone was really good I
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just sometimes I’d go a little like I wouldn’t go off the case but I just explore in another area and say hey what
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do you think about that and so to answer your questions or three call it quality
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is I think curiosity is really important is just trying to understand you know
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what is it what are we trying to solve no just I’m curious I want to hear more about it’s not I need to do you know
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decision tree this is a profitability case no like ultimately there are lots
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of traps so if you try to be a robot and just follow a pretty predetermined
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course you’re gonna fall into this trap they’re designed for this but if you if you use your brain and if you just use
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your analytical you know logic just logic saying okay what’s the business issue what are we trying to solve here
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and then engaging with the person so that curiosity is really key the second
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you met you mentioned mental math this to me is is is very simple like it takes like two
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weeks three weeks tops of practice there’s lots of tools online so you can do a thousand six hundred and fifty
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seven times fifty three and you can find this in like ten seconds like everyone can do this if you mess up
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on this it’s not a big deal or say but it’s kind of you know if you don’t have
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an excuse for it you you have lots of time to prep so just get rid of it and and the added bonus is once you’re not
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stressing about potentially screwing up the mental mass then you can focus on
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what really matters which is the logic behind this so to me that’s that the
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that’s really second one it’s it’s that’s important it sounds trivial but it’s actually quite quite critical and
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it’s a I’m hesitant I think there’s there is a very fine balance between
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arrogance and confidence and being able to master it I mean you’re never gonna
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master it but being on the right side of this balance is critical because I’ve
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had interview is they just you know they just seem so sure and I pump them you
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know are you sure you know and yes yes this is it and they’re actually making a mistake they’re not getting picking up
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on the cues but there are other candidates where you know they were right but I still prompt them to see you
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know are they are they kind of crumble or are they actually standing their ground and so so it’s it’s a very fine
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line to walk and you don’t want to be you know arrogant you don’t wanna lack
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confidence either so so you have to find a middle ground and but knowing you know
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when to question yourself and to say hold on let me just double check and say that seems right is is very very
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important to me no I’m still want to
Most difficult part of the interview process
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discuss the airing process what was the most difficult part for you for the or
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having procedure starting from networking before maybe they’re fighting a resume or the kcw or whatever I think
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it was getting getting the interview with the right with the right people you know it’s it’s difficult to get noticed
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and I think if you just send your resume in it depends which program you’re part
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of you know I should say Paris at the time was not necessarily a target for
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BCG at least for consultants and you know not the MBA and and certainly not
35:02
in Montreal so so I think to me that was the the key was getting a foot in the
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door or getting that one chance and and the only way to do this is to network to
35:12
network the network ahead of time if you’re if you’re networking when you’re applying and look I always say it’s
35:20
always easy everyone’s always eager to give some advice but very few people were eager to help so if you if you
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reach out to ask you know for advice on you know tell me like what can I do during my MBA to learn more to be better
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positioned not asking for any help you’re just asking for some advice you’re asking for people’s opinion if
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they’re like me they’d like to give it so so I think that’s to me that’s that that was a very difficult part then of
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course the case is is is a challenge but getting in the the right door is not as
35:56
easy as it sounds yeah I have two more
How to prepare for the fit interview
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questions is that okay with you so one one last question about the re process
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how did you prepare for the fit interview any advice on that car yeah
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you know I think you need to be you mean you need to be clear about why you want to go into consulting why you want to go
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into that specific company what you know beyond you know it’s a great company
36:29
great things like really understanding what makes that their company different for example in Montreal when I visited
36:36
this was a fairly new office it was a couple years old and everyone everyone had told me you know the vibe is very
36:43
entrepreneurial he’s here to build something wants to launch something wants to go after new
36:49
clients and that appealed to me and you know like and and being able to say this you know like I don’t want to just join
36:56
BCG because if I joined BCG in Paris this would be a completely different story you know completely different vibe
37:01
so so being crystal clear and why you want to go into consulting why you want to go into into that specific company
37:07
that specific office makes a huge difference and and then having good stories to back
37:13
these up you know like to back your leadership experience you know just just
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having those preps knowing you know having two or three experiences that you can draw multiple you know angles from
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is is very important like you can’t wing the fit interview you have to be to be
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right it doesn’t mean you have to craft a story like invent a story you have to know which story you’re gonna tell and
37:38
that story has to be about you but but it needs to be well thought through it’s
37:43
it’s similar I mean when I make the parallel now with the work that I did at BCG that’s the fit interview is is
37:49
really the other part of the job that we don’t usually see you know the case cracking is can this person you know you
37:57
know build a model and and find the solution to this difficult problem the
38:03
fit interview is much more around is that person going to be able to convey the message to the client in the right
38:09
way is it is you know once we have the solution it’s one thing but then you have to make to convince the client that
38:15
this is what they need to do but also to explain it to them and so the fit interview is you’re doing this like
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yourself which in hindsight is you know a very good parallel with the other side
38:26
of the job that we do as consultants yeah and then just true to paraphrase
Why BCG
38:33
what you said but why and why specific BCG no better method my scans of first
38:42
mistake most people most people spoke honest conjugates do for the vision interview select like a clone they’re
38:49
all saying the same thing so it’s fine to say okay you want to run BCG because
38:55
I don’t know it’s a big company but explain why for you reaching for some wine matters for you sir look look
39:04
of course it’s evident that you want to join some of the best companies there are in this world that’s fine and it’s
39:09
fine to say it if this is your primary argument you failed at your story because I mean you know it’s not
39:17
convincing like okay yeah we’re the best tell us why the why why do you why us and not the other you know so I think
39:24
that’s that’s very important mm-hmm okay and one last question and this one is
Learnings
39:34
more for me so what where you made your learnings obesity boy that’s it’s it’s
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difficult I mean there’s what we call the consulting toolkit that’s the
39:53
practical stuff you learn you know how how to run an analysis how to structure
39:58
your deck how does build a an executive summary how to craft a story you know for for an entire case those are those
40:05
are very helpful skills I think that I wanted to get because in business I
40:11
think they’re they’re they’re critical
40:17
it’s a it’s a difficult question to answer i I learned a lot about the
40:22
corporate world you know this is not about necessarily me but about how this
40:28
world functions what is it that people do in corporate functions which I wasn’t
40:33
necessarily I had not been exposed to before I’d usually I mostly worked for SMEs before small businesses so so that
40:41
was a very good insight and an insight that let me just say that I did not want to join that world but but that to me
40:48
that was critical and it was quite defining for my career to be honest because I originally joined PCG in
40:53
anticipation of joining the you knows you know skipping a few steps on the
40:58
corporate ladder but but exiting BCG and joining higher up and and that really
41:03
taught me you know what what does a senior vice president I don’t know very
41:09
I Bank do what says they like and you know it happens I worked on a case for
41:14
four or five month on and I was very close with one of them so I was able to learn a lot like this so so there’s the
41:22
practical stuff but it’s also you know the things that you learn about what is it that you want to do what interests
41:27
you and then and then also learning about how to manage high performers it’s
41:35
it’s very different to be honest to manage people at BCG than to manage people in the rest of the world just
41:44
because at BCG I think your motivation is you know you don’t have to motivate
41:49
anyone to do anything you know don’t joint BCG cuz they’re eager to learn they’re eager to demonstrate their
41:56
worth and so on and and you go into a traditional place and not that people aren’t ambitious or anything but they
42:02
don’t necessarily have the same drives with that regard or they’re not at the same stage in their career and suddenly
42:07
there’s different priorities so so learning how to manage those different
42:12
types of individuals and now I’m you know in a different context than BCG I think that that was also very important
42:19
so so I could go on and on I think you know it’s a difficult question to answer but I’d say there’s obviously the
42:25
practical stuff the stuff that you use on a day to day basis but then but then there’s a lot more about the human the
42:31
human aspect of of the industry and also
42:37
the corporate world that was that was very important for me [Music]