The first stage was a 15 minute call with the CEO who didn't really care about your skills. The goal of interview was to outline the fact that this job required commitment from you as it's fast-paced and engaging. Perfect, I thought. The CEO then invites you to a 'case interview' which he described as "Engaging, you won't sit in a corner of the room doing a case by yourself". The 'case study' interview consisted of me being sat in a room by myself for 1.5 hours, segmenting water waste management companies into different categories, as per the details they provide you with. It's a mind-numbing easy task and the truth is that it's all you'll get to do as an analyst - tasks delegated from seniors with the entire role being doing work than AI can do very well now. The people there didn't care at all about the process, didn't introduce themselves, didn't ask about me, and then left me in a room for a further 30 minutes to stare at the walls while they checked my answers. The bottom line is that do not apply here if you have ambition and think you're worth more than pouring coffees for the CEO and formatting excel sheets. Please also note that after being told that the CEO would get back to me today or tomorrow, I received no emails, even after follow-ups.

I went through a recruiter after submitting CV and cover letter. Initial screening was done via telephone interview , proceeding directly into in person interview. The in person interview was split into a maths case study (logic based maths test spanning 2 hours) followed by interview. Strategic Analytics are a very niche traditional company and as such are looking for quite a specific candidate. Unfortunately the case study and interview are very traditional and look for some raw mathematics skills. There is not the opportunity to use a computer, programming or modern skill-sets to tackle the case study and they did not seem to be what the interviewer was looking for. I'm positive that this company is exceedingly good at what it does but it does have a very specific focus and would suit applicants from a Maths or Engineering background from a red brick University who are looking for a very traditional Consulting experience in a boutique setting. More modern data led, software based Consultants may well be better suited elsewhere but they do not pretend otherwise!