Thursday, January 31, 2013

Get Feedback From Your 1st Round McKinsey Interview - Why It's Important

To get hired by McKinsey, you typically have to pass two rounds of interviews.  McKinsey's feedback-driven culture doesn't just apply to the job, it applies to interviews as well.  It's also possible that former McKinsey consultants will apply this approach when interviewing candidates for non-consulting jobs.  In this post we'll cover why it's important to get feedback from your 1st round interview...


Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Releasing Your Agenda - What It Means and Why It's Important

Image from visualphotos.com
It's likely that, at some point, you'll be asked by your McKinsey boss to "release your agenda".  In this post I'll explain what that means, and why it can be helpful.


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

80/20 Thinking, 110% Execution - Why McKinsey Decks Are Often Warm


Image from Flickr.com
One of my favorite McKinsey client quotes is "I like McKinsey decks - they're always nice and warm".  The reason McKinsey decks are often warm to the touch is because they're fresh off the printer.  It's common for McKinsey teams to be making edits and adding content until the very last minute, then scrambling to print documents and race to client meetings.  You also might see this behavior if you work with or for a former McKinsey consultant.  Here's why this happens...


Thursday, January 17, 2013

McKinsey Interviews - 3 Tips For Selecting Your Location Preferences

Image from money.cnn.com
Prior to joining McKinsey, you will have 3 major decisions to make - 1) whether or not to apply for a job at the Firm, 2) to which location you'd like to apply, and 3) whether or not to accept your offer.  This post will focus on your location preference decision.


Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Cover Letters for non-Consulting jobs - 4 common mistakes

Image from interviewpreparationtraining.com
As I mentioned in a previous post about consulting resume screens, cover letters are not critical when applying for a job at McKinsey.  However, in my pre- and post-McKinsey experience, I've found that non-consulting hiring managers rely heavily on cover letters to differentiate between candidates with similarly impressive resumes.  In this post I'll discuss the most common cover letter mistakes I've seen from candidates for non-Consulting jobs...


Tuesday, January 15, 2013

McKinsey Presentations: The Page Pull Deck and How to Build One

Image from flickr.com
There are many types of PowerPoint decks that your McKinsey boss might ask for.  One that is relatively common and easy to prepare is the "page pull" deck.  In this post I'll cover what it is, and how it's used...


Saturday, January 12, 2013

T-shaped Problem-Solving at McKinsey and 3 Reasons Why It's Preferred

At McKinsey, there's a strong preference for T-shaped problem solving - making sure you've considered all of the applicable topics before going too deep on any of them.  This applies to problem solving a client engagement, case interviews, and working for a former McKinsey boss.



Sunday, January 6, 2013

Interviewing with former McKinsey consultants - 5 tips for case-type questions

Image from about.com
Even if you're interviewing for a non-consulting job, there's a chance you'll be asked case questions similar to those used in consulting interviews.  In this post I'll share some tips on how to do well on those case-type questions...


Friday, January 4, 2013

McKinsey Case Interviews and Unit Conversions - An Easy, 3-step Method

One of the most common causes of math errors during case interviews is unit conversions.  Here's a method I learned as an engineering undergrad that helped me get through all of my case prep and interviews without making any unit conversion errors.  I've also used this method countless times at McKinsey and even after leaving the Firm...



Wednesday, January 2, 2013

MBTI - 3 ways McKinsey teams think about and (mis)use personality types

McKinsey teams use MBTI personality types as a short-hand for understanding individual preferences and team dynamics.  In this post I'll review a few ways McKinsey consultant typically think about MBTI.  These are not necessarily how an expert on MBTI would apply this framework, but the McKinsey person in your life still might think in some of these ways