Why strategy consulting?

• That you know what the job really is. Talking about strategy and the big picture without mentioning the analysis, the long days and life on a team at the client's site shows you are describing an image, not a role.
• That your reasons are your own. If your answer could be repeated word for word by the next candidate, it does nothing for you. What makes it personal is the link to something you have done.
• That your motivation will last. A firm invests a lot in a junior, and the interviewer is wondering whether you will still be there, and still glad to be, after a rough stretch on a project.
• That you can structure a simple answer. This is often the first question of the interview, so it is your first chance to show that you announce a plan and stick to it.

1. 1

   Pick two or three reasons, not five

   The reasons that work are concrete: solving a different problem every few months, learning fast alongside demanding people, working on decisions that matter to a leadership team. Keep the ones that are true for you, even if they are classic.
2. 2

   Attach each reason to proof

   For each reason, find a moment in your background where you already lived it on a small scale: an internship, a student project, a thesis. "I like solving problems" is worth nothing alone, while a thirty-second account of a problem you enjoyed solving is worth a lot.
3. 3

   Announce the plan, then deliver

   Open with one sentence that gives the number of reasons and names them. Then develop each in three or four sentences. This lets you be interrupted without losing your thread.
4. 4

   Close on the link to the firm

   A last sentence that opens onto the firm in front of you sets up the next question, which is almost always "and why us?".

"Three things bring me to consulting. The first is the kind of problem. During my internship in financial control, the assignment I liked most was not in my job description: I was asked to work out why the margin on one product line was falling while volumes were rising. I spent two weeks untangling the data and talking to the sales team, and I realised that this was the work I wanted to do every day, not once a year.

The second is the pace of learning. I have always improved fastest when surrounded by people better than me who reviewed my work without going easy on it, and that is what the consultants I met described. The third reason is simpler..."

This example is made up: it shows the tone and the construction, not a script to memorise. Your answer has to come from your own experience or from the data the interviewer gives you.

• Reciting the perks of the job like a brochure: variety of projects, exposure to executives, the learning curve, with nothing personal behind them.
• Presenting consulting as a springboard to something else. You can have a long-term plan, but if your answer is mostly about what you will do afterwards, the interviewer hears that you do not really want to be there.
• Talking for three or four minutes. The question calls for a short answer, and a candidate who cannot stop is a worry for later, in front of a client.
• Saying you love strategy without being able to explain what a junior consultant actually does all day.