Behavioral Mock Interview (Jobs and Internships) — Transcript

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1. 0:00foreign
2. 0:05thank you for coming to interview with
3. 0:07us today let's just go ahead and get
4. 0:09started with a quick introduction could
5. 0:11you tell me a little bit about yourself
6. 0:13yeah absolutely first of all thank you
7. 0:14so much for having me it's an honor to
8. 0:17be here
9. 0:17so I've been about myself I'm originally
10. 0:19from Morocco where I lived pretty much
11. 0:21my whole life I then came to Boston and
12. 0:23studied industrial engineering at
13. 0:24Northeastern University
14. 0:26while I was in college I did a few
15. 0:28different internships I did technical
16. 0:29ones at a local power plant and at
17. 0:31Amazon Robotics and I also did one in
18. 0:33Consulting at the Boston Consulting
19. 0:35Group and was also the president of the
20. 0:37Consulting Club at my University so
21. 0:39really I'm someone who enjoys both the
22. 0:41business side of things but I also do
23. 0:42have a passion for technology
24. 0:44so down the line my goal is to start my
25. 0:47own education technology company in my
26. 0:49home country Morocco so I can make
27. 0:50education more affordable through the
28. 0:52use of tech and outside of like school
29. 0:55and work I also do magic tricks on
30. 0:57college campuses oh wow that sounds like
31. 0:59a very impressive background so why
32. 1:02exactly are you interested in
33. 1:04interviewing with our consulting firm
34. 1:06yeah my reasons for joining your
35. 1:07consulting firm are twofold number one I
36. 1:10think the exposure to the strategy work
37. 1:11is very appealing to me and then second
38. 1:13the opportunities for externship is also
39. 1:15one that I'm highly looking at so on the
40. 1:18strategy side I know that your
41. 1:19consulting firm is one of the few that
42. 1:21gives you exposure to c-suite Executives
43. 1:23and to strategy type projects early on
44. 1:25in your career which is something that I
45. 1:27won't find at other companies then the
46. 1:28second reason is the opportunity to do
47. 1:30externships so as I mentioned I am
48. 1:32interested in the education sector down
49. 1:34the line and I know that your company
50. 1:35offers the opportunity to work for six
51. 1:37months at a public sector type company
52. 1:39or a non-profit out in Africa focused on
53. 1:41education so I think those are some of
54. 1:43the things that high appeal to me in
55. 1:45your company okay awesome that's good to
56. 1:48know so now we'll dive into a little bit
57. 1:50more behavioral questions so could you
58. 1:52tell me about a time where you solved a
59. 1:54difficult problem that's a good question
60. 1:57um I think the moment that I can think
61. 1:58of is when I was working at the
62. 2:00electrical power plant we were trying to
63. 2:02launch a new department and my task was
64. 2:04to essentially Source A supplier
65. 2:06typically we work with a supplier of
66. 2:08generators from France but this time
67. 2:10around their capacity and also their
68. 2:12pricing did not match our budget and
69. 2:14what we were looking for so what I ended
70. 2:16up doing is I ended up creating a large
71. 2:18list of all the different suppliers that
72. 2:19are out there and then I Found A
73. 2:21supplier in South Korea that I
74. 2:22negotiated with and also was able to
75. 2:25bring them in and Implement all of the
76. 2:26new generator technology so that was
77. 2:29able to save us a total cost of 10 from
78. 2:31the total project and it was a huge
79. 2:33success at the end of it awesome thank
80. 2:36you for sharing that so next could you
81. 2:38tell me about like one or two of your
82. 2:40key strengths
83. 2:42so I would say the biggest two would
84. 2:44probably be my ability to persuade
85. 2:46people and then the second would be
86. 2:47leadership I would say those are the
87. 2:49biggest two okay so could you dive a
88. 2:51little bit more into that first one your
89. 2:52ability to persuade
90. 2:54persuade maybe tell me about a time you
91. 2:55were able to convince someone to change
92. 2:57their mind yeah so what I can think of
93. 3:01is when I was working at Amazon one of
94. 3:03the big projects that we're trying to
95. 3:04launch is the First new robotic facility
96. 3:06but it came at a time when covet had
97. 3:08just hit and I was unable to essentially
98. 3:11Source a lot of the material that we
99. 3:13typically get from our Japanese supplier
100. 3:15so the vice president of supply chain at
101. 3:17the time his executive decision was to
102. 3:20push the launch and push it out for a
103. 3:21few months instead what I decided to do
104. 3:24is try to see if there's a way to still
105. 3:27keep the launch at the same time and I
106. 3:28looked at some of our existing
107. 3:30facilities already and try to Source
108. 3:32some of the unused material from there
109. 3:33so that we don't delay the launch so
110. 3:36initially the vpu of supply chain wanted
111. 3:38to delay the launch but through the
112. 3:39analysis through explaining to him that
113. 3:41we could Source it from the other
114. 3:42facilities I was able to convince him to
115. 3:44not delay the launch and instead change
116. 3:46the strategy to still be able to get the
117. 3:48facility right out on time okay great so
118. 3:52now we'll dive into that second strength
119. 3:53you had mentioned and could you tell me
120. 3:55about a time that you demonstrated
121. 3:57strong leadership skills yeah
122. 4:00um the the one that I can think of is
123. 4:01when I was working at the Boston
124. 4:03Consulting Group there I was leading a
125. 4:05big real estate occupancy project where
126. 4:07I wanted to essentially showcase what
127. 4:09the attendance of each office looked
128. 4:11like what I had to do was then automate
129. 4:13the process for a lot of the partners so
130. 4:15that they have like a dashboard that
131. 4:16they can like manipulate and change and
132. 4:17look at the data so I had to work with a
133. 4:20large team of 15 different developers
134. 4:21software engineers and data Engineers so
135. 4:24I worked with them to essentially gather
136. 4:26the data clean the data and process it
137. 4:29and put it and visualize it through
138. 4:30Tableau so that was a great opportunity
139. 4:32where I was essentially working with
140. 4:33different teams putting game plans
141. 4:35putting timelines for them and as I
142. 4:37mentioned at the end of it it was a very
143. 4:39strong project and the partners were
144. 4:40very happy with the dashboard and it was
145. 4:42a good like managerial experience for me
146. 4:43at the time as well awesome that sounds
147. 4:45like a very worthwhile experience so now
148. 4:48that we've talked a little bit about
149. 4:49your strengths maybe you could tell me
150. 4:51about a weakness that you face in the
151. 4:53workforce yeah I'd say the biggest one
152. 4:56is probably my ability to prioritize
153. 4:58when there's a lot of conflicting and
154. 5:00Computing priorities the big one in that
155. 5:03case would be when say there's three or
156. 5:05four different projects and all of them
157. 5:06are high urgency or high priority
158. 5:08sometimes as someone who's still very
159. 5:10Junior in their career I still don't
160. 5:11have that business sense on which one I
161. 5:13should tackle first but I've been trying
162. 5:15to improve on it and work on it so what
163. 5:17I do now is I typically just chat with
164. 5:19my manager and try to understand where
165. 5:20the business focus should be sometimes
166. 5:22even just directly ask on how I should
167. 5:24prioritize some of the work so I have
168. 5:26been improving on that a little bit and
169. 5:28I think with some seniority I would
170. 5:30hopefully be able to get there and
171. 5:31understand what I should start with
172. 5:33first
173. 5:33okay definitely makes sense so those are
174. 5:36all the questions that I had for you
175. 5:37today before we end do you have any
176. 5:39questions for me yeah I think I have two
177. 5:42big questions
178. 5:43um I think the first one is as you know
179. 5:45there's a lot of big push for like the
180. 5:48remote Workforce right now and as a
181. 5:50consulting company there's a lot of work
182. 5:51working directly with clients who are
183. 5:53coming in in person to visit the clients
184. 5:55do you think that the Consulting
185. 5:56business model would necessarily change
186. 5:58now that we are in a remote environment
187. 6:00I think that's a big one and then the
188. 6:03second question that I had for you is
189. 6:04what are kind of the big goals of your
190. 6:06consulting company by say 2025 what are
191. 6:09the big Milestones that you guys are
192. 6:10hoping to achieve and is they
193. 6:12International expansion one of those big
194. 6:13Milestones that you're looking at
195. 6:15[Music]
196. 6:16great so I think Sia did an amazing job
197. 6:19with that interview there are four main
198. 6:21things that I think he did really well
199. 6:23first he was very poised and confident
200. 6:26throughout the entire interview we were
201. 6:28going back and forth and I was asking
202. 6:30him a lot of questions but he came back
203. 6:32very prepared for each question
204. 6:34second he used the star method very well
205. 6:37I could really understand the situation
206. 6:39task action and result and he introduced
207. 6:43each story in a way that made me
208. 6:44understand what he was saying third he
209. 6:47was very concise in each of his stories
210. 6:50and lastly he ended with some very
211. 6:52thoughtful questions that made it seem
212. 6:54like he really cared about the company
213. 6:56and the position overall Zia did a great
214. 6:58job and I would accelerate him to the
215. 7:00next round
216. 7:02[Music]