Applied online and got called up for the first round within a week’s time.
First round was a group interview with around 10 candidates. It started with a 30-min introduction by a consulting manager on the company and the role of a consultant. Followed by a self introduction where each candidate gave a short speech on him / herself. We were then given a scenario to discuss among ourselves to come up with a conclusion within 30 mins. During the 30 mins, you’ll be assessed on your participation and logical thinking. After that was a presentation, the 10 of us were split into 2 groups, each was given a case (project / event planning within a certain budget) and had around 15 mins to prepare for a 5-min presentation to summarize our strategy / plan to the assessors and take questions from them. After these exhaustive exercises, they gave you a written test to complete within 1.5 hours. It was one integrated test with questions on basic arithmetic, logic, excel application, financial market, equity valuation and personality. Some questions were in multiple choice format and some were open-ended where you have to write an answer. No calculator was allowed. Difficulty level was acceptable, but one thing worth noting is that you won’t be given a laptop to work on the excel questions, you’ll have to write out the whole excel formula on the test paper, which caught me off-guard coz I always thought the excel questions would be on a laptop. I mean who in the world would remember exactly how the formulae are written, with all the input being accurate and in correct sequence?!
After the first round, I got called up within a week for the second round which was a panel interview with two consulting mangers. The interview lasted for approximately 1 hour with most questions focusing on CV and fit. The interviewers asked lots of questions on my CV and also why Factset. I have a background in finance and the interviewers were trying to steer me to explaining why I want to go from finance to a software company and why Factset instead of Bloomberg / Thompson Reuters. They also asked if I have applied to other openings. Overall they were quite friendly, but showed some confused faces when I tried to explain why I wanted to move from finance to Factset and how Factset is different from its competitors.
Phone call for final round came 1 week after my second round. The final round consisted of two 30-min interviews one after another, each with a regional head of sales looking after Asia. Questions were similar to second round but more focused on why they should hire you. The interviewers only asked a few questions on the CV and kind of let you lead the conversation throughout the interview. This is an interview where if you didn’t prepare well enough, you’ll run out of things to say in 10-15 mins.
No negotiation took place. Offer letter came in to my email within a week of the final interview.