Partners in Performance Associate Interview Questions
& Process

It took me about 2 months to get through everything. There were 5 interviews spread out over 1-2 weeks each. First, I spoke with HR, who was really nice and helped me get ready for the case interviews. Then, rounds 2 through 4 were with Partners. Each was an hour long and included a case study followed by a behavioral question. They were friendly and seemed to want to see me do my best. The last interview was with the managing partner, which lasted an hour and a half. It felt a bit intimidating, but it was okay overall. It turns out the managing partner has the final say and can override everyone else, which kind of made the earlier interviews seem pointless. He was looking for someone exceptionally brilliant, not just average. He also gave me some false hope, saying to be ready because they might make an offer in about six months. It's a typical business company, and I'm not sure how much they actually value their employees.

Had about a month with 4 interviews. Started with 1 screening phone call, then 2 more 1.5 hour phone interviews where they asked behavioural questions and gave me cases to solve. The final interview was in person, also with behavioural questions and cases. The phone interviewers were nice and helped me when I got stuck on cases. Met a partner for the last one, he wasn't as helpful, but that's apparently how he is. I didn't like how he did the cases, his questions weren't clear or helpful, but I guess it was my job to ask for clarification so maybe it's on me. Didn't get an offer.

I had three interviews in total: 1. HR call, 2. First round case study with manager, 3. Second round case study with partner. All interviews were very comprehensive. HR interview felt a lot more like an actual interview rather than a chat - she asked a lot of specific questions about experience, profile, willingness to travel, etc. Case studies were both rather tricky and in heavy industries, both tested your pragmatic thinking about approaches and solutions (vs. theoretical). There was some math, which was easy, but the cases were really aimed at understanding the candidate's ability to understand complex o&g/mining operations, which is fair since that is what they mainly do. They also spent a decent amount of time on small talk and fit part, which meant they really want to get to know you as a person. Interviewers: all were incredibly friendly, you could tell the culture is great, all really work with you to help you understand the case, very very professional. I did have a couple of issues though, 1. The recruiter who scheduled the interviews was a bit disorganized, she sent me wrong dates and interviewer names couple of times, it was unclear which round I was in (2nd interview of first round or first interview of second); 2. at the very end, after my rejection, they offered feedback but never followed up to actually provide it; 3. I think they are looking for a certain profile (i.e. willingness to travel so no family ties, ability to be on site and speak to engineers, etc.) which should be filtered out at the screening stage.