On Thursday, Cox business majors got the chance to learn how to successfully prepare for the scariest and most stressful part of their future careers: the interview.
Eight representatives from global consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton hosted a lecture at 5:30 p.m. in the Maguire building for senior Cox students on how to successfully win over an employer during the initial case interviews.
Five of them graduated with majors in business at Cox, including recent ’06 alums Christina Woodard, Blake Houghton and Ryan Delaney.
Cookies and drinks were served in the lecture hall as Andrew Clyde, a BBA from SMU, described the hiring program that Booz Allen had created in league with SMU Cox School of Business. The program was specially designed for emphasis on a wide variety of consulting jobs, with an emphasis on helping undergrads quickly find their first full-time jobs out of college.
Clyde then went on to give students a greater knowledge about Allen’s wide array of connections in manufacturing, retail and science research throughout the world, before handing it over to the three recent alumni who in turn provided details about how they adjusted to their jobs. The alumni also talked about combating the fears and misconceptions of interviewing sessions.
Details were given on the hyper-competitive world of consulting, with stories of travels to Paris, the Middle East and all over the continental U.S. to work with clients in a vast array of jobs and outlets including oil companies in Saudi Arabia, tourism markets in Beirut and solar wind companies in northern Europe.
The three graduates also detailed the day-to-day life as a consultant, a job that includes an extensive amount of traveling and long hours, requires intense teamwork and a knack for improvisation.
After the original introductions, Kellogg graduate Chris Click began a slideshow presentation, which described in detail how the interviewing process would go and what criteria the applicants would be graded on.
Click stressed that consulting agencies would typically look for well-rounded, pleasant people who would work well in a team, and that number-crunching and a heavy knowledge of statistics and formulas were only about a third of the qualities by which applicants would be judged.
He encouraged students and future applicants to think outside the box and be unique in their answers and their problem-solving skills.
Helpful pointers were also given on different methods of taking notes and the types of business-related questions which the students would be given.
“Great answers are made by logical thinking and process, not necessarily the ‘correct solution,'” Click said.
Lastly, students were invited to take part in a mock case interview in which they were presented the problem of two fictional oil companies who had merged and were looking for ways to increase revenue and cut labor and technology costs.
Students took the part of an outside consulting firm who had to conduct a full evaluation of all costs, profits and management-related items to decide what had to be changed in order for the new company to gain money.
