Bain & Company:
I got Bain 2nd round. My confidence level had lingered around 10%-20%, after the 1st round interview. I’m really glad that I got it. I thought I did well on the first one, because I felt like I knew the answers before he even started asking the questions. But I did very poorly on the second one. If anything good came out of the second one, it’s that I never gave up and managed to keep thinking about alternatives to the bitter end. But it was really hot in there, to a point that I asked to take off my jacket and I was about to untie my tie and unbutton my shirt. I kept sweating and perhaps it was that unreasonable environment that led me to do so poorly. Maybe everyone else did bad, too, that helped me get to the 2nd round, but it’s something I need to learn from.
Two consecutive 40 minute interviews.
1. A fitness club. They were opening up new offices, but they were losing revenues even as the cost was going up. Why? I did extremely well on this one. It just came to me, and somehow, the answer was in my head before I even saw the numbers.
-What are our sources of revenues? Membership, concession, special services (lockers, showers, towels, water), personal trainers.
-Which is probably the biggest? Membership in revenue, personal trainers in profit.
-What are our costs? Which are fixed and which are variable? Building rental, personal trainers, administrators, overhead (management), equipment.
-Which is probably the biggest? Buildings. Do you think we own or rent? Own (I was corrected. They rent).
It went on like that for a while. He asked me to look at some numbers with 2 different revenue structures for membership. What can you tell me from these numbers? (one membership deal was more appealing for salespeople than the other) Why would that happen? Outside of sales people having the incentive to sell one membership over the other, why else would people want to choose the less profitable one? Do you think it’s reasonable to average out all the people coming in to analyze how the offices are doing? (this one I didn’t even finish listening to the question and I knew the answer is no, because there would be less people between 8-5). If you had to open up a 2nd office in fair proximity to an existing one, where would you open it and when? (wait till it’s filled till capacity, but that might be a little too late and competition might be coming in and our brand might be damaged if we wait till it’s filled. So we need to keep a good lookout on our offices and make sure they’re not overly crowded).
2. Cell phone company. Revenues are flat. They own 90% of the cell phone business in the rural area. Thinking about going into wireless internet to increase revenue and profits. Is this a good idea? I totally bombed this one. They pretty much asked me to do a break even point analysis and I messed up when I added the variable cost and the fixed cost together and divided by the revenue. I made the mistake of assuming that wireless internet meant something like Airbears, or Google’s free wi-fi venture, where speed was not a factor and you could use it anywhere within a given city. So I said I would charge people over 55 dollars a month for this service. But instead, the interviewer helped me settle it between 50 (cable) and 15 (dialup) at around 30 dollars. And the service could only be used at their own home. Breakeven point came up to 175, but I came up with 100 initially because I added the wrong numbers. What’s our revenues? (I missed overage charges and roaming charges from other cell phone providers). What’s our costs? (I came up with a lot of costs).
The rural area in question is on average 200 households per household for each tower. Is it a good idea to expand to this market? (I said no, because we own 90% of cell phone, but that doesn’t mean wireless internet is facing exactly the same kind of competition, and 175/200 was about 87.5% of market share, not just wireless internet, but internet service in general.) He kept driving the same question, saying if people wrote letters to you, the CEO, what would you tell them? (I said I’d tell them sorry, but unless you’re willing to pay more, we just can’t do it). Is there any circumstance where you would actually consider expanding into this market? (this was gonna be my third strike. I finally realized then that he said 200 households on average, and said that well if a certain tower could reach more than the average number of 200, say 2000, then it would be ideal to expand). Good, that’s what I was trying to get to. Do you have any questions for me?
Extremely poor. But the interviewer never gave up trying to get the right answer from me. I got antsy in the beginning because we got along fairly well and we kept talking for about 5 minutes about everything but consulting and I didn’t know if we’d have enough time to finish the case question. I felt like he smiled too much and I didn’t feel too comfortable with him. I need to learn to differentiate variable and fixed costs better, and also to immerse myself into a business. In the first case, I kept saying ‘we’ as if I owned the fitness club. In the second case, I kept saying ‘they,’ as if I wanted nothing to do with this wireless company.
Microsoft:
The Microsoft interview went so well, that I would be really surprised if I don’t get a 2nd Round at Remond, WA.
What did you do at IBM? What is their business model? Where’s their biggest source of revenue? How are their profits divided? Ok, so what is Microsoft’s business model? Where do you think is our biggest source of revenue? From the three sectors we concentrate on, tell me how we generate money in that sector. (I chose the entertainment sector, because I’m fairly young and don’t have much knowledge about their services or business-to-business deals). What do you think our revenue is in that sector? Profits? How is that revenue further divided? What are your professional goals? Is there anything included or excluded in your resume that you would like for me to know about?
2nd & Final Round:
Oct 30, 2006
Bain & Company (Associate Consultant)
Pre-Acceptance Confidence Level: 20%
1st Rounds:
Oct 18, 2006
Microsoft Corporation (Corporate Finance)
Confidence Level: 75%
Oct 23, 2006
Intel Corporation (Corporate Finance)
11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Oct 25, 2006
Chevron Corporation (Corporate Finance)
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Oct 27, 2006
Apple Computer, Inc. (Corporate Finance)
9:30 am – 10:00 am
Pending:
Monitor Group (Associate Consultant)
Accepted:
IBM (Corporate Finance)
Missed Deadline:
Lockheed Martin (Corporate Finance)
Rejected:
L.E.K Consulting (Associate Consultant) – No Interviews
Google (Corporate Finance) – 1st Round
Pre-Rejection Confidence Level: 10%
Got interviewed by a man who did investment banking for 10 years. Got Net Present Value questions and were pressed to answer question after question. I just really wanted to see what their offer would have been, just to leverage my offer from IBM. I couldn’t see myself working for Google, at least not over IBM, and they couldn’t see me working there either. For some reason, Google people just came out a little weird, elitists. The guys at top seem to have their head on straight, but the underlyings seem a little too cocky for me. I have nothing but respect for what their company continues to do in terms of philanthropy and pushing the limits of business models, really putting employees first.
Order of preference:
1) Bain 2) Monitor 3) Microsoft 4) Chevron 4) Apple 6) Intel
These numbers can change depending which job offers I actually end up getting and its’ initial starting salaries. IBM falls in there somewhere, I just don’t know where. Apple fell to #4 slot after a fair presentation. But it could go back up depending on how I like the interviewer.