The failure to provide takeaways and anecdotes in your responses is absolutely the worst thing you can do.

When you don't provide personalized stories and anecdotes, you are simply not making the extra effort to stand out with distinctly different responses.

To begin with, let's talk about anecdotes. If you are not a very good consulting interviewer, you will not give anecdotes. Look at this example:

Why do you want to be a management consultant?

I like the intellectual challenge of the job. I also like to be able to work with ambitious, clever people solving difficult business problems.

That is a very flat response. There is nothing special or personal about it. Where is the story? Where is the anecdote?

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Do you understand the problem with this answer?

A story or an anecdote will make you stand out in the interviewer's memory. If you just give a bland, homogenized response, the interviewer won't have any reason to remember you or give you an offer.

At the end of the day, the consultants usually have a meeting to discuss all the applicants. If you said something that really stuck with your interviewer, you are likely to be discussed favorably. If you just gave a dull, unimaginative answer, your interviewer probably won't even think to mention you.

Here's how you can add an anecdote or a takeaway.

An anecdote would tell a story and draw a conclusion. It would tell the interviewer about something you have done and something you learned from it.

In the example, there was no takeaway. The interviewer didn't get a satisfying conclusion.

Here is what that answer would look like with an anecdote. Remember, when you personalize your answers, they become stronger. They convey an experience and draw a conclusion. And they make your interviewer remember you.

Why do you want to be a management consultant?

I love to work with smart, ambitious people facing intellectual challenges and solving difficult business problems. When I did my internship in asset management, I really enjoyed my smart, hard-working colleagues, but I did not feel challenged, myself. I think consulting will challenge me and give me the opportunity to work with people who will inspire me to do my best. I want to move up in the business world. I have come to realize that the best way to do that is to become a top member of a smart team and seek out the toughest challenges.

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