A Broader Perspective at Deloitte

Jan Woodcock is a principal in Strategy & Operations in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications department at Deloitte Consulting in New York, one of the top consulting firms in the U.S. Woodcock arrived at Deloitte 13 years ago and is part of a team that recruits at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

He talked recently with BusinessWeek Online's Francesca Di Meglio about how MBA candidates -- from the Johnson school or elsewhere -- can land jobs at Deloitte. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Q: About how many MBAs do you interview in a year?
A: The group interviews about 40 to 50 MBAs per year at the Johnson School. I may see about 15 to 20 of those people.

Q: How would you describe the culture?
A: Deloitte is people and team oriented. It's a collaborative place.

Q: How do you advise aspiring employees to prepare for the interview?
A: I tell them to study the case process, but also to focus on looking at the broader business issues and some of the frameworks that might be appropriate. They should also use common sense.

Q: What can an MBA do to impress you?
A: I'm impressed when an MBA candidate characterizes his or her own experiences and explains why that has influenced his or her point of view on a case.

Q: What's the most common mistake made by MBAs?
A: I don't know that there are common mistakes. This is more art than science. It's not a test. It's not like there are 20 questions and if you get 18 of them right, you pass. It doesn't work that way. The interview process is difficult and puts candidates under lots of pressure. Sometimes, people just have bad days.

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