I applied online and received an email two weeks later. The first stage was a phone screening by an HR employee. Although it was a position in Europe, all the logistic/HR part was handled in the US (through the whole process). The call was rather quick (30 minutes) with a "walk me through your CV" part (a question I got a lot during other rounds of the interview as well) and several personal questions linked to my CV (e.g. "What was the hardest task when coordinating clinical trials"). Already during the call, the HR employee told me that next I would be interviewing by telephone with a VP from Europe and asked when it would suit me. I got an email with the exact date and time for that interview a couple of days later. The second phone interview had a similar structure, the question part was longer with behavioural style questions ("Can you tell me about a time when you had to accept a decision even though you were convinced it was a wrong one?"). What I really liked was the fact that the first minutes of the interview the senior employee introduced herself and walked me through her CV. It did gave me time to relax a bit and made the interviewer feel like a person and not a testing machine. At the end I had enough time to ask some questions myself. Within a day I received an email confirming my selection to the next round. It was scheduled three weeks later in their Berlin office. The interview day (as it was really a day, from 10:00 - 17:00) was a series of interviews with VPs from different European offices. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. The interviews included two case studies (*), a Power Point assessment (**) and a writing exercise (***). (*) Standard business cases but related to the health care sector. I didn't feel that a life science background was needed to respond to these, rather good marketing and business knowledge. (**) Replicated a printed slide in Power Point that included text and a diagram. (***) A project briefing was given and you had to write a structured reply to it. Everybody was really friendly and while a professional attitude was kept at all times I felt very comfortable interviewing with the team.

Preliminary phone screening led to an invitation for on-site interview. At the on site, interviewed with multiple people at all levels ranging from consultant to managing director. Each hour long interview had a case component as well as a fit component. Cases were life science focused, as expected. Interview also included a presentation. Overall the cases given during the interviews were very interesting, interview format gave ample opportunity to get to know the firm culture. Although it was a long day, this was one of my best consulting interview experience.