Question on Booz Allen Hamilton Interview: 

Hello Victor,

I wanted to inform you that I had applied to Booz Allen Hamilton (Energy Practice, Middle East) and underwent two rounds of telephonic interviews with people at Principal level and then received a call for the second round which would be face-to-face.

The telephonic interviews included one strategic case (no numbers) where I could use an issue true to address the problem and another interview was more about O&G industry in the Middle East.

I used your LOMS program during preparation and continue to do that I must say that the program is quite useful. The way I used it was to listen and take notes of key take away which then became a quick reference for me in future.

I still continue to listed to the audios passively (not the best way!) during my drive back and forth from the office. I also often pause the audio and try to rehearse by speaking out loud specific section ranging from hypothesis, synthesis to conclusions. I also used your tip and managed to do one mock interview with a friend who is a project manager at McK.

I am awaiting the dates for the next round and would like to know if you have any specific tips for Booz Allen Hamilton, Middle East. I have been following your emails and website content and noticed only one reference to Booz Allen Hamilton, Middle East, but without much information.

Thanks for your contribution to the aspiring consultants and hope your interesting emails will keep flowing as usual with experiences and insights.

— My Reply —-

Thanks for your email.

Unfortunately I do not know much about Booz Allen Hamilton middle east. Most of the people I’ve been in contact with there have gotten offers from other firms in the middle east (BCG or McK) and they have not mentioned any substantial difference about the Booz Allen Hamilton interview process.

I don’t know if this because there wasn’t any difference or they just didn’t mention it.  My sense though is they all seemed very well prepared using a preparation process very similar to what you are doing.

Based on the limited data I have, I would say you are on the right track.

If you want to cover a wider range of possibly interview situations, there are two additional things you can do to “ace the case” that would cover every possible scenario I can think of.

1) Practice your case interview math

A surprisingly high number of people with math backgrounds did not get past an interview due to an arithmetic error. I’m talking people with PhD’s in Physics, etc..

2) Practice preparing simple presentations.

Some firms, notably BCG and to some extent Bain, are asking candidates to physically prepare a presentation to present their conclusions.  At first glance this seems daunting, but it is really nothing more than a variation of the verbal synthesis that you are already familiar with.

The key difference is instead of saying my conclusion is X, due to reasons 1, 2, and 3… you now have to show the data (a chart) for reasons 1, 2 and 3.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Overall I think you are on the right track and I think in this case it is better to not know what to expect, than to expect something specific and get something entirely different (false confidence).