In this testimonial, Laura explains how the Ace Your Consultant Interview (AC) Academy helped her secure a highly competitive consulting role that she had been targeting for years. She joined the Academy 18 months before her interview, valuing its flexible, ongoing format that let her dip in and out while balancing other commitments. Laura highlights the Academy’s core 3‑point answer structure, which gave her a reliable framework for handling unexpected or “curveball” questions and even technical interruptions during interviews. Repeated exposure to a wide variety of practice questions over a year made the actual panel interview feel familiar rather than intimidating. She also praises the Academy’s supportive community, noting that it alleviated the loneliness and cut‑throat feel often associated with interview prep. Concluding, Laura strongly recommends the Academy to anyone facing a single, high‑stakes consulting opportunity, emphasizing its value, flexibility, and the confidence it builds.
Chapters
I was definitely quite stressed because I knew that there was one job and only really one job that I wanted. And because the department that I want to join isn't going to be expanding, it'd probably be another 10 years before a job came up. So no pressure. So I just was very much kind of feeling like I need to maximise all my chances of getting the job. I think for me, a lot of the other courses out there seem to be like a one-stop shop, and I knew quite far out in advance, like, you know, I joined AC almost 18 months before actually having my interview. You know, I didn't want to be just doing one thing and then you forget about it. I wanted something that could be like a continual process, and I absolutely loved the fact that with AC you kind of could join and keep joining and participating throughout sort of a longer period of time until you got your consultant job. So a face-to-face course or a one-stop sort of shop just wouldn't have worked with that, whereas Ace Your Consultant Interview, the academy could fit around like my life and I was able to dip in and dip out over a longer period of time and it just worked so much better for me. I mean, there's so many good bits of the academy, I kind of find it hard to think of just one thing, but But the thing was about the structure, about having that kind of introduction, the 3-point structure, concluding it, because I found that even when I got a couple of slightly curveball questions, I could still use that structure, make a good answer, you know. And actually, that structure just really carried me through, even when one of my panelists' mobile phone went off. And I was just able to say, well, I've covered my first 2 points, now I'll resume with my third point. And I think if I hadn't had that structure, That would have thrown me completely. I had 2 interviews as part of the substantive consultant thing, and my sort of stakeholder interview that I had the day before had a few slightly curveball questions, but I was able to use that structure and all the things we'd spoken about. And what I did find is that when I then got into my main panel interview, I sort of came out of it feeling like, oh, that's all right, because actually the questions that came up in my main panel interview were exactly the sorts of things that been preparing for through the Academy for, you know, a year leading up to this. And I sort of came out almost feeling like, oh, that was actually all right, because I think even if things were phrased in a slightly different wording format, you know, I'd just sort of gone through so many different types of questions with the Academy that actually the panel interview didn't feel quite as scary when I'd done it as I thought it was going to be. I really Enjoyed the Academy. I think sometimes in the run-up to interviews, it can sometimes feel a little bit lonely or a little bit cutthroat, and actually the Academy was just like a really warm community where there was lots of people all with a sort of similar goal in mind, and actually it was just really supportive and really friendly, so it was a nice positive place to go when sometimes the preparation for interviews can feel a little bit of a slog. I absolutely think joining Joining the Academy was just the right thing to do for me, and I think it's just, it's incredible value because you can keep just joining the cohorts until you've got your interview. You can dip in and dip out, and it fits around life. Um, you know, anyone thinking of doing it, you know, I would just say get on with it. Why have you not already joined?
