A Booth MBA graduate tanked her BCG interview last week. Not because she couldn’t structure cases or analyze data. She failed because she approached the interview like a deposition – methodical, thorough, and utterly lifeless.
“I answered everything correctly,” she told me. “The feedback said I lacked energy.”
She’s not alone. Half the rejected candidates I coach had technically correct answers. They just delivered them like robots reading tax code.
Consulting interviews aren’t just skill assessments. They’re chemistry tests. Your interviewer is asking themselves one question beyond your analytical ability: Would I want to be stuck with this person at a client site for 14 hours?
Think about that. Your future manager might spend more time with you than with their spouse during project sprints. If talking to you feels like work, you’ve already lost.
A senior partner at McKinsey once told me: “I can teach someone to build models. I can’t teach them to light up a room.”
Candidates think energy means being fake-cheerful or artificially enthusiastic. Wrong. Energy means being genuinely engaged with the problem you’re solving.
Watch the difference:
Low energy: “Revenue declined 15%. We should investigate price and volume drivers.”
Right energy: “Revenue dropped 15% that’s significant. Let me calculate whether price or volume drove this, because that completely changes our response.”
Same content. Different presence. One sounds like homework. The other sounds like someone who cares about finding the answer.
Most people speak in monotone during stressful situations. It’s a protective mechanism, if you don’t show emotion, you can’t be judged for the wrong emotion.
But monotone kills interviews. Here’s what works:
Emphasize the words that carry meaning. Not randomly – strategically.
“The client should EXIT the market” versus “The CLIENT should exit the market” versus “The client should exit the MARKET.”
Each emphasis tells a different story. The first emphasizes the decision. The second contrasts with competitors. The third implies shifting to other markets.
Record yourself solving a case. If your voice doesn’t rise and fall naturally, you sound disengaged. Even if you’re frantically thinking inside.
Energy isn’t just about how you speak. It’s about creating momentum with your interviewer.
Low-energy candidates treat interviews like oral exams. They wait for questions, deliver answers, wait for more questions. It feels transactional.
High-energy candidates create dialogue. They think out loud, test hypotheses, build on the interviewer’s hints. It feels collaborative.
A candidate recently turned around a struggling interview with one phrase: “This is interesting, if margins are rising but profits are falling, volume must be collapsing. Should we explore why customers are leaving?”
The interviewer leaned forward. Suddenly they were problem-solving together, not performing a quiz.
Universities reward careful, measured, complete responses. Take your time. Consider all angles. Never show uncertainty.
Consulting rewards dynamic thinking. Speed matters. Hypotheses beat perfection. Intellectual curiosity beats intellectual showing-off.
A Princeton engineer learned this the hard way. Her first mock interview was technically perfect and completely flat. I asked her to solve the next case like she was explaining it to her roommate, not defending a thesis.
The transformation was immediate. She started saying things like “Wait, that doesn’t make sense” and “Oh, this is weird — why would costs spike only in Q3?” She got offers from all three firms.
Your physical presence communicates as much as your words. Crossed arms, hunched shoulders, and avoiding eye contact scream discomfort – even if your answers are perfect.
I make candidates practice their posture before practicing their frameworks. Sit forward slightly. Hands visible and occasionally gesturing. Eye contact during key points.
One candidate literally transformed her outcomes by uncrossing her arms. Same brain, same answers, completely different perception.
Low-energy candidates ask procedural questions:
High-energy candidates ask engagement questions:
The difference? One set treats the interview as a hurdle. The other treats it as a conversation.
When anxiety rises, energy drops. It’s biological, your body conserves resources for fight-or-flight.
The fix isn’t pretending you’re not stressed. It’s channeling stress into curiosity.
Instead of thinking “I must get this right,” think “I wonder what we’ll discover.” Instead of “They’re judging me,” think “We’re solving this together.”
A candidate who’d bombed three interviews came to me defeated. We didn’t work on frameworks. We worked on reframing interviews as puzzles to solve with smart people. Her next interview at Bain felt like a completely different experience. She started enjoying the cases instead of surviving them.
Different cultures express engagement differently. What’s appropriate in New York might be aggressive in Tokyo, while what’s polite in London might seem cold in São Paulo.
But engagement transcends cultural norms. You can be reserved and engaged. You can be quiet and energetic. It’s about presence, not performance.
A Korean candidate struggled with American-style enthusiasm. Instead of forcing extraversion, we focused on showing intellectual excitement through precision and follow-up questions. His quieter style of engagement worked perfectly.
The worst place to be is medium-energy throughout. Better to show genuine excitement about parts you find interesting and thoughtful consideration elsewhere.
When a private equity case reveals the target company has 70% margins, react: “70%? That’s exceptional they must have serious competitive advantages or a unique model.”
When calculating NPV, be methodical: “Let me work through this systematically.”
Variation shows you’re human. Constant medium energy shows you’re performing.
Reading cases alone won’t build energy. You need practice with observers.
Record yourself. The first time you watch, you’ll cringe. Your voice is flatter than you think. Your expression is blanker than you realize. Your pace is more monotonous than you intended.
Good. Now you know what to fix.
Practice with friends who’ll be honest. “Would you want to work with me based on that performance?” If they hesitate, you have work to do.
I asked five partners what makes candidates memorable. None mentioned frameworks or math. All mentioned energy and engagement.
“I remember the candidate who got excited about a supply chain innovation.” “The one who laughed when she realized she’d been overcomplicating.” “Someone who said ‘This reminds me of Apple’s pricing strategy’ and made a brilliant connection.”
These aren’t calculated moves. They’re genuine engagement showing through stress.
Two candidates can give identical answers and get opposite results. The difference isn’t what they said it’s how alive they seemed while saying it.
Energy isn’t about being someone you’re not. It’s about letting your genuine interest in problem-solving overcome your anxiety about being evaluated.
Stop treating interviews like exams where enthusiasm is unprofessional. Start treating them like opportunities to solve interesting problems with smart people.
Your interviewer spends 60 hours a week solving these problems. If you can’t muster genuine interest for 30 minutes, why would they believe you’d enjoy the actual job?
Show them you’re not just capable of the work. Show them you’d make the work more enjoyable for everyone around you.
That’s what transforms correct answers into compelling offers.
Energy can’t be faked, but it can be trained. Learn how to communicate insight and presence in every case.
As a former Bain recruiter, I’ve helped countless candidates bring their authentic energy into high-pressure interviews and turn good answers into job offers. Book a free intro call with my team today, and and let’s craft a strategy that gets you noticed for all the right reasons.
As a coach with consulting experience, I can provide you with more tips and one-on-one practice to sharpen your estimation techniques. Book a intro session with my team to know more.
