I applied online. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Kearney (London, England) in Mar 2016
Interview
Two, one-hour long interviews, back-to-back. Both began with a fit interview followed by a case. The fit interview was intense and the interviewer drilled down a lot.
'Tell me about a time when you did xxx'.
Followed by:
'How did you plan that process?'
'What were you thinking at the beginning of that process about the structure of the task/project?' 'Why did you decide to do it that way and not another way?'
'And at x stage, what was your thought process?'
'What were your weaknesses/limitations in that project?'
'What did you learn from it?'
If preparing stories for your fit, try to leave enough time to not only tell your story using the Context, Action, Result format, but to look at your CV stories from different angles so are prepared for the level of drilling.
The good news is, there are only two or three of these in the time so make sure the stories show a range of skills and why those relate to consulting.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All the usual - why ATK/why consulting questions, plus things like:
What do you think a day in the life of a consultant is like? How would you fit into that space?
(Was looking for an understanding of the corporate culture, the mindset of a consultant, the ability to be credible in front of a client etc)
How do you think you'd cope with the corporate environment/workload/frustrations of a client perhaps deciding not to implement your work?
There were two cases - not very structured compared to what I'd practised as they had come from the interviewers' own experience. One was a banking case about implementing a new technology and doing a cost/benefit analysis.
The second was a retail distribution case for a consumer goods company - looking at where in a particular country products were made, the customer segments (large v small stores/online), and trying to discern how to prioritise customers based on a number of factors you could choose - I looked at size of stores, volume of orders, time to pay, distribution costs - distance from main factory and time to travel, length/quality of relationships among other things.
2 rounds, 5 interviews total. Consisted of 4 cases with some behavioral questions. Final interview with partner only on behaviorals. The whole process was really quick and great, with very accommodating recruiter.
Two round process with one case in the first and two in the second, one behavioral interview in each interview. The cases got progressively easier, and the interviewers offered feedback in between rounds.
Fair interview process. First one is generally with Manager, and final round interview is generally with a Partner. Be prepared for a case! I genuinely enjoyed my final round with the Partner and felt that he was someone I could learn from.
