Application Process & Interviews at Nous Group

Resume screening, Online testing, Interview with HR/People Team, Case study, Interview with senior management (not undertaken, skipped to offer), Offer.

Interviewers were all very warm and made me feel comfortable in a usually stressful environment. The assessments actually felt relevant which is rare for a grad role.

Screening interview and then case study

There are three stages, initially with a people teams person, then a case study with another consultant, and then a third round case study with principal.

Online Application/Cover Lette, Online Test, 15 min HR Interview , 1.5 hr Director interview with case study and written task and 1 hr Director interview

I completed an online assessment, initial interview with HR and then two case study interviews before being offered the job.

Cases, writing assessment.

The interview process was very thorough and time consuming. First, I applied online via the company website. There were three rounds of interviews. First with someone from HR to discuss my previous work etc. Second, with a manager where we went through standard interview questions and a management consulting case study. Last, I had an interview with a principal where we did a second case study and also discussed my interests outside of work.

The majority of questions were technical. This included the interview with the HR/People Team. I was asked to volunteer an issue I've noticed in society and then apply a structured problem solving method to develop high-level solutions and measures of success. The case study was a structured set of problems and questions. It involved a micro-consulting challenge - with both qualitative elements and quantitative.

A case study on the four day work week. I got to choose the case study and had enough time to work my way through and explain answers. I see it being a challenge though to people with little interview experience.

Why consulting? What draws you to this company? What are your interests? What do you do outside of your professional life?

Why Nous? If there was something to recommend me to read what would it be?

We were asked a lot of the typical questions around 'tell me a time when xyz' as well as two interesting case studies to solve a problem for a client.

Some questions I remember from my interviews were: - If you could work on any project, what would you work on? - How do you navigate a difficult person, using an example from a uni project or previous work? - What is your past experience? - What are your strengths? - How to you balance work and other commitments (e.g. regular exercise, hobbies, friendships etc). - Can you describe a challenge you've overcome in a uni assignment or previous work? - Who are your role models?

I encourage candidates to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. The point of these interviews aren't to confirm that you can answer each question correctly, rather, to verify that you take the right approach when confronted with ambiguity. Consulting is about problem solving. Industry doesn't hire consultants because they know the answer, but because they know how to get to the answer.

Its hard to prepare for this interview outside of having a real clear understanding of your own values and whats important to you in a working environment. Cultural understanding, both in, and outside of Nous, seemed to be important when i was being interviewed.

Best prepare by researching the companies values and make sure your values align too. Ensure that you can communicate this to the interviewer. Next go through some practice case studies and understand the thinking and logic needed to work through it.

Prep on mental maths Be yourself we very much do value diversity Just prep general interview questions

I would recommend preparing for the case study interviews through plenty of practice.

Be true to yourself. I recently heard a coworker comment 'The company hires the person before the skillset' whilst I'm not sure if this is our formal hiring strategy, but resonated very strongly with me. My reading of this comment is that Nous is looking for people who are well-rounded and interested in the world, with a belief that if we can hire people with the right attitude, we can teach them the technical skills on the job.

Do cases

I'd recommend practicing management consulting case studies, however, don't become overwhelmed or think you need to know everything. The exercise is really to see if you can think in a structured way about a problem, not that you get everything right. Also, the examples online are great practice but not all case studies are similar to the work that Nous does, the case studies Nous goes through in interviews are past Nous work, so no "how many people in New York wear red in a day" kind of questions (if you know you know). I'd recommend reading examples on the website of some of Nous's completed projects and thinking about how you'd go about solving those problems. Also, it's worth noting the interview process is very long, with lots of time between each round of interviews, so be patient.