PwC US chief people and inclusion officer Yolanda Seals-Coffield spoke to CNBC’s Make It for a little interview in which she reveals the question she always asks potential recruits and we’re here to share it with you so you can be prepared should you find yourself trying to get hired at PwC.
Ready?
She asks what you do when you’re not working. Feels like a trick question coming from a Big 4 firm, doesn’t it?
As for how you respond, don’t come off too eager to sacrifice your free-time to the firm. Say “work is the only thing I care about” and you’re out.
“I don’t need you to tell me that you go out and you’re hiking every day or you’re out working in the community every single hour of the weekend,” Seals-Coffield says. [Ed. note: Telling PwC you spend every single hour of the weekend helping people in your community is a great way to not get the job.] “I’m okay if you tell me, like, you listen to audiobooks and you meditate or you love photography. I’m also okay with people saying — and this used to be the answer I would have told you if you asked me 15 years ago what I did outside of work — I would say I’m with my kids.”
The point is to give a sense of yourself as a “whole person,” which includes who you are outside of work, she says.
“The actual substance of what they’re doing doesn’t matter as much as their ability to sort of talk about something that they’re passionate about and that they care a lot about,” Seals-Coffield says. “I love to see that in people and hear that from people because I think that gives you another insight into their authentic self.”
In other words, have an answer that seems passionate but not so passionate that they’re worried they’ll have to compete with your passion. Got it, thank you.
Never having the pleasure of attending a partner-only soiree, we don’t have much knowledge about the haps at these events but we do imagine catering slightly better than what you would find at an in-house training but served by oompa loompas. And an open bar, natch.
I think they just want better salespeople in the US, and to offshore all the work.
A good salesmen can convince you to pay anything LOL
You’re right, Carmine. You become a salesperson the moment you apply for a job. After that, the best SALESPERSON wins, oftentimes even if he or she is not actually the best PERSON for the job. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I would expect to more likely find that in fields requiring technical or specialized knowledge.
I’m not saying that’s right. But that’s the way it is.