2 people interviewed me. Both of them asked me to solve cases that they already had worked on. The cases were not difficult. Then I was invited to one of the branches for in-person interviews.
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Cornerstone Research (Washington, DC) in Oct 2013
Interview
30 min first-round interview on campus with two associates. I was invited for a second-round interview at their office in DC. I ended up having SIX case interviews, which I don't think was supposed to happen (some of the people that were supposed to do my behavioral interviews were busy).
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
For a case interview, the man gave me pen and paper and had me solve a math problem as part of the solution to the case.
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Cornerstone Research (Los Angeles, CA) in Oct 2016
Interview
I originally wasn't even considering consulting as an option after graduation, but after going to their info session a week prior to the interview, I was intrigued and thought, why not? First round was held on campus: 3 back to back case interviews. Even though the recruiter said that you can't really prepare for the case interviews like a MBB case...(I thought that comment was so not true), I'd say you can. Personally, I was wholly unprepared for the case interviews, and since I'm quite unfamiliar with business jargon, it was difficult to understand parts of the question, let alone problem-solve your way through them. If you're not a Business major/minor, I'd recommend googling some basic business terms before going in. Some of the MBB case prep material out there on the web is very detailed, and I wish I had access to them prior to my interview (i.e. Victor Cheng's website)
As for interview specifics: the first interviewer had never conducted an interview before, so although he wasn't sticking to the time limit, he was very nice. The question related to analyzing stock prices. The second case was about goodwill and building the company's brand, and the third case involved calculating profit margins. (I didn't even know what profit margins were before that day.)
All in all, no surprise that I didn't make the cut. Mediocre experience overall: interviewers were pretty intimidating except for the first one. Third interviewer seemed to be visibly bored with me, and ready to end the process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Case study questions, as explained above. Minor calculations were given as well. Print outs with data were given.
Candidates applying for Associate, Consultant roles take an average of 8 days to get hired, when considering 3 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Cornerstone Research overall takes an average of 17 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Cornerstone Research as a Associate, Consultant according to 3 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 100%
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