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CHAPTER 1
AT A GLANCE
WETFEET INSIDER GUIDE
CHAPTER 3
THE WETFEET WAY
CHAPTER 4
CASE
INTERVIEW PREP
CHAPTER 5
THE RECRUITER’S
PERSPECTIVE
CHAPTER 6
CASE EXAMPLES
CHAPTER 7
ADDITIONAL
RESOURCES
CHAPTER 2
CASE INTERVIEW
PRIMER
• Don’t talk about yourself in a negative manner. You
have as much right to be in that interview as any
of your classmates, and make sure the interviewer
understands that. Self-deprecation won’t get you
anywhere in consulting. Nor will kowtowing. If you
don’t think you can tell a 30-year veteran at Kraft a
thing or two about the cheese market, maybe you
shouldn’t sign up for an interview with Kraft when it
comes to campus.
• Demonstrate that you’re a fun person. Would you
want to go out for beers with a cold fish (even a
smart cold fish), much less spend months working
together in Indianapolis?
• Be high-energy! Smile! Be excited! Sixty hours per
week may not sound so bad right now. But wait
until you’ve been at the client site from 7:00 a.m.
until 9:00 p.m. every day for the past two weeks,
and you have to catch a plane to do it all over again
for a different client next week. e interviewer
wants people who have the stamina and the desire
to put in long, tough hours while living out of a
suitcase—and still come up shouting, “Yes, sir! May
I have another spreadsheet, please?”
PART 2: PROVE YOURSELF TO ME
You’ve had a clever chat about the weather; you’ve
told a good story about why you love your alma mater
more than your own mother; and now it’s time for
the recruiter to pull out your resume. “So, tell me
about the work you did for ….” What’s going through
the recruiter’s mind is something along the lines of,
“What’s this guy done that shows he’s smart enough
to handle consulting work?” To keep sailing straight
toward that case question, you’ll need to demonstrate
that you’ve had significant work experience (or
a reasonable facsimile), can work well with others, have
the aspiration to lead, and have the intellectual
horsepower to do the heavy lifting required of
consultants.
What, exactly, impresses the hard-nosed consulting
recruiter who has seen it all—and likely, done it
all—before (or at least advised a client on how to
do it)? Here are several tips gleaned from WetFeet’s
conversations with management consulting insiders.
One word of caution: You’ll want to walk that fine line
between providing evidence of your capabilities and
seeming like an overbearing braggart.
• Talk about situations in which you assumed a sig-
nificant leadership role. You might mention the
challenges you faced and how you overcame them,
or what you learned about yourself as a result of
your experience. Just make sure you don’t whine
about how your team members didn’t work hard
enough to make you look good.
• Your goal should be to demonstrate, with well-
articulated examples, that you have the leadership
skills of Winston Churchill, the intelligence of
Stephen Hawking, and the no-nonsense, high-
energy style of a preschool teacher.
• ink of several examples of projects at school, at
work, or in an extracurricular setting in which you
were challenged and survived with flying colors—
dating stories don’t count!
• Prepare for the questions you know are coming. In
particular, have a solid, concise explanation of why
you want to be a consultant and why you specifi-
cally want to work for firm XYZ.
• Be prepared to be asked about anything on your
resume. Consultants have a nose for rooting into
obscure facts that can turn up pungent informa-
tion. One of their favorite tricks is to take an item
and turn it into a case question (“So, I see you
started out in the auto business. Do you think
Cerberus can turn around Chrysler?”). Our advice:
ink ahead about how each bullet point on your
resume can be turned into a compelling (short)