OTL 201 Post 6.1: Learning Activities Portfolio Update (Activity 4: Consulting Interviews)

OTL 201 Post 6.1: Learning Activities Portfolio Update (Activity 4: Consulting Interviews)

Learning Activity 4 – Consulting Interviews

Source of the activity:
My own class teaching BUSN 6070 Project Management & Consulting

Brief description of the activity:
Many MBA students think they want to become management consultants and work for one of the big global consulting firms. To give them a taste of what is required to become a consultant and what the interviews may be like I take a session and show them the McKinsey & Company website which includes a section on interviewing. Students read the site content and watch the videos posted by the firm. We then take twenty minutes to work on one of the practice business cases posted by the firm. These are examples of what the students may be asked to do if they have an interview with the firm. They are not to read the suggested answer/solution but we work through it together at the end of the session to see where they are and help them to see what they would need to improve in order to work for one of these companies.

How this activity will fit with my teaching practice:
Since I am not engaged in online course development it will be difficult to actually create and do one of these exercises in my online courses. I believe that I would like to offer it as a non-credit opportunity for students to do if they choose to, a sort of enrichment activity. I believe it is important to give students opportunities to connect with how firms actually work and hire in addition to the course topics and work that they do.

Helpful resources or links:

McKinsey & Company: https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/interviewing

I may use Bain & Company sometimes: https://www.bain.com/careers/interview-prep/case-interview/

Specific ‘next steps’ for how I intend to use this activity:
First I need to create a one page write-up of the exercise that I can post for students to use. I envision a discussion forum for this exercise to enable students to discuss what they thought of the exercise and to share what they wish they had known before the exercise. It will be useful to try to have a “discussion” of some sort occur between me and the students. I also need to facilitate group making or at least pairing up to enable online students to participate.

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