Be able to walk through your resume in 60-90 seconds. Your walkthrough should show a logical progress through your various experiences (undergrad, previous jobs) to Marshall and why consulting is the logical next step for you. If you do your walkthrough right, it should inherently answer the question of "Why consulting?" If you do your walkthrough really right, it should also answer the question of "What motivates you in general?" (why you made the career choices you did, not just what choices you made).
Be able to answer the question of "Why [company]?" and "Why this [group/practice]?"
Prepare at least 2 IMPACT stories for each letter that you can tell in 60-90 seconds each. The first sentence of each story should give a quick and clear summary of the situation/problem, the action that you took, and the resulting impact of your action.Then, go into the details. The two most important things that your story should convey are:
Your action: What exactly did you do? Emphasize leadership experience/qualities when able.
The impact: What was the positive result of your action to the company, team, etc.? Use quantitative support, such as: "My analysis drove a $2M YoY increase in profit.
Below are what each IMPACT letter stands for, in case you've forgotten. Two stories for each!
Individual Contribution: Experiences in which you independently accomplished something.
Manage or Lead: Experiences in which you were able to lead both people and tasks. Focus on both leading people (showing your ability to interact with others) and leading tasks (showing your ability to deliver results).
Persuade: Experiences in which you were able to persuade a superior, client, stakeholder, or coworker who originally disagreed with you or was skeptical.
Analytical: Experiences in which you were able to use analytics to solve a problem.
Challenge or Failure: Experiences in which you learned from a mistake. Don't share fatal errors (i.e. the time you put a company out of business). Instead, share non-fatal errors that were a result of an honest mistake or simply a lack of experience when you were a rookie, and focus on how you took responsibility for the mistake and how you went above and beyond to make things right.
Teamwork: Experiences in which you worked with different kinds of people, including difficult people. Show that you're a good team player and can work well with all kinds of personalities.
Prepare stories that demonstrate that you exhibit specific traits that the company that you are interviewing with is looking for. For example, for PwC, you would want to have stories that show that you have the five traits of the PwC Professional (http://www.pwc.com/us/en/careers/campus/why-pwc/pwc-professional.html). Many of these characteristics will often already be covered in your IMPACT stories, but some may not be.
Look through the interview binders in the CRC to see what questions were asked in the company's interviews from previous years. They'll often be representative of the types of questions that you will be asked.
Relax and let your personality show! This isn't so much a test of whether you're good at reciting prepared answers as it is a chance for the interviewer to get to know you as a person and see how you interact as a human being. Of course, stay professional, but don't be stoic and robotic. Be yourself!
Finally, prepare plenty of questions for your interviewer. Most interviewers will leave 5-10 minutes for you to ask questions. On occasion, an interviewer has been known to leave as much as 15-20 minutes. So, prepare a number of questions about the company, the specific group that you're interviewing for, and your interviewer's own career path. One trick: As mentioned above, treat the interview as a conversation! Listen carefully to the interviewer's response to your questions, and ask follow-up questions, rather than robotically reciting one prepared question after another.
