Wood Mackenzie Energy Consulting Energy Consultant Interview (Backdated)

The format of the interview is in the form of a day-long assessment centre. In total, there were 3 candidates and upon arrival, we were all ushered into 3 different rooms and it was not until the last activity that we were allowed to meet. The 3 candidates were myself, a business student from SMU and a masters student from Mannheim, Germany, whom I felt was a career switcher into an entry-level role; I might be wrong.

The first activity was a straight-up face to face interview with 2 Wood Mackenzie consultants. One of them was a team leader and the other was the consultant who gave me a phone interview 1 month earlier. So I broke the ice by referencing the phone interview and mentioning it earnestly how pleasant it was to finally be able to put a face to the name. The reception was mutual. The face to face interview here covered a variety of aspects.

They began by asking me for a self introduction. During my introduction, they asked for a clarification of some of the terms I used. They also asked for a greater explanation of my involvement of projects in my resume.

Following this, they asked for my career aspirations, what attracted me into being an energy consultant. From here it was important that i related the same consistent message i iterated in the phone interview earlier. I mentioned that the career of a consultant was intellectually engaging and rewarding. Professional currency with global happenings is a key requisite and this ties in nicely with my desire to someone kept up to date with worldly affairs. I also made special mention of how enticing an energy consultant role was, as it was a sweet spot between consulting and a technical role leveraging on my engineering background. On this, the team leader jumped at me with a question. He understood my process oriented engineering training background, and he was concerned if i had the right concept of what Wood Mackenzie does. He said that we are not in the business of conducting feasibility studies(of which he mentioned competent companies for that business function, such as Baker Hughes or Haliburton), but more like high level, macroscopic assessments of opportunities. I assured him that I am open to a career deviating from process-orientation and that I am comfortable with where the work will take me.

The other consultant then proceeded to give me a walkthrough of how Wood Mackenzie functions as a group, paying heed to its research arm in relation to its consulting arm. Conclusively, it was an educational interview for me as well.

When the 2 consultants were done, I was then interviewed by HR. A HR representative walked in and gave me a long list of competency and behavioural questions. Very standard stuff and questions are pretty much recycled from online interview coaching sites. The basic essentials are strengths, weaknesses, group working behaviour, career aspirations (again!), and a little bit of situational questions (if you are not able to do x, what will you do to achieve y?).

The next activity was for me to give a 15 minute presentation on a question: what will global energy demand be like in the next 20 years? I was provided with data involving population growth of various countries, as well as energy demand, across a 10 year period. I was also given the 2010 energy fuel mix globally. i was given 20 minutes in the room alone to construct the presentation with a whiteboard and a marker. i split up the board into 6 squares. my factors are projected growth rate of energy demand, the myth of peak oil, discovery of new technologies, middle east tensions, shale gas, with a last square dedicated to taking into account all the factors and arriving at a conclusion of whether energy demand can or cannot be met easily in 20 years.

20 minutes expired and in walked 7 people from Wood Mackenzie. The HR rep, head of HR, head of Singapore office, and 4 consultants. I then presented. Interesting points that I made: the law of 70 to calculate the doubling rate to have a rough estimate of where energy demand will be in 20 years. I also debunked the myth of peak oil, that peak oil is never peak oil because previously unextractable oil become extractable with new found tech. I also drew a rough chart to display how peak oil has shifted over the years, from contextual knowledge.

After my presentation I was quickfired questions by the panel. I was asked how do you think carbon taxation would affect the demand for energy in future?

I kind of glanced the question with my answering because I approached it from the CDM direction. I blasted the inefficacy of the system mainly because it was vulnerable to many shortcomings, such as the problem of additionality, carbon leakage, etc. The asker tried to route me back to his question again by repeating the question. I was sensitive enough to know that I haven't exactly answered his question so I tried a different approach. I pretty much said that carbon taxation will spur firms to look for greener ways to source for energy, pushing the energy supply curve rightwards and simultanously reduce oil dependence.

I was also asked what other information I would like to have to make a better assessment of the original question for the presentation. This one kind of stumbled me and I couldn't really think of much. I said that I would like a chronological account of the various changes in energy policies around the world. Asker agreed. On hindsight, I should have asked for an energy mix portfolio for 10 years, as opposed to having only the 2010 one.

The last acitivity was a group activity involving the other 2 candidates. This was the first time that we get to see each other. After shaking hands, we were instructed to discuss how to present on how to advise a company to align its product with the market in view of the changing global energy demand that we have presented earlier. We were given a very un-detailed case and extremely open-ended. We were also not to ask for extra information, quite unlike the standard case interview. Throughout our discussion, the 5 of the original 7 Wood Mac people were seated around us and assessing us while we discussed.

The actual case presentation was very disastrous and it made 0 sense to me. We had actually very little time to work on it and as such, I suspected that it was more to assess our teamworking capabilities than our content. It was really a case of cognitive dissonance to me, talking about something I didn't fully believe in, so I didn't find myself performing as well. My counterparts were rambling so much that I felt embarrassed for them. My lack of air time was recognised when one of the consultants directed a question at me specifically, asking for how I would change the presentation of data on the board. I said something that he agreed with, only for one of my team members to chip in with "oh actually he meant to say......". To me, this was a seriously jackass move, and to anyone reading this, never ever do that. For me to be able to make it to the final round of an interview, I would expect, and even my interviewers would expect, that I know what I am saying and do not need someone else to clarify for me.

After this, it was the end.