All four McKinsey interviews in one day. Any tips?
Hi all. I'm a current sophomore at an Ivy League school with all four interviews for McKinsey a month from now. Before you assume anything, I'm a first-generation, low-income student with very minimal background/knowledge in consulting. I do plan to do case prep, work on the PEIs, and whatnot, but I am very anxious about having to do all four interviews back to back. Does anyone have any general tips? Been in similar shoes?
I kindly ask for any other, more, generally speaking, tips about the process itself. I'm not even sure if a month of prep would be enough. Thank you for your time and help!
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I did mine during the same time as the response above. I made/ ate lunch during my break between the second and third interviews (I had an hour-long break between those 2) to relax. I also prepped my first 2 follow-up emails. It's insanely exhausting but not TERRIBLE. Ask good questions and have good conversations with your interviewers as much as possible. Stay calm even when you make errors (I literally made a math error on every case but caught and fixed it).
Look up crafting cases and do the free course, it's an excellent resource that will teach you everything you need to know about case interviews. More importantly, practice cases and your PEI with live partners who can give good feedback. You'll do great, good luck!
Others can share tips about PEI, case interviews, etc. but I'd be happy to share some tips about stamina (glad another commenter brought it up). Stamina will be critical, 4 interviews is a lot! For background, I went through long interviews myself, and also have over a decade participating and coaching competitive debate, which is draining in ways very similar to interviewing and those tournaments can go all day
I am highly confident in each of the below tips
A month is plenty enough time to prep if you work hard and practice (practice critically includes live practice with others, hard to effectively solo prep cases or PEI). If you feel like you're time crunched because of any classes, you might be surprising how accommodating some professors will be for extensions if you tell them in advance
Lastly, hopefully you find some comfort in knowing you don't need to be perfect. Despite what it may seem like, plenty of people get offers even if they made clear mistakes or could've done something better, and the bar is usually lower for sophomore programs since there's less expectation that you've done a ton of prep or career exploration
Good luck!!
For what its worth, I had 3 consulting superdays in 1 day, from like 11am to 6pm. There was a total of 6 interviews, each 45min long. What really helped was putting myself through that 5hr grind like 4 or 5 times before so that I could mentally get used to it. Also, I got to experiment with foods and felt that actually sugary foods like twinkies really kept me going so thats what I ended up doing on my actual day and it worked like a charm. Same foods might not work for you, but I'd definitely try that and other foods. Keep in mind that this is not easy at all, but best of luck - you can do it!
ps. also skip all your classes that day
How have you gotten interviews this early?
If anyone is wondering, I had my super day today (four rounds back to back), and I heard back from an AP within two hours. I got the offer, and I'd be more than happy to help anyone else who wants to apply this year. Just PM me! (:
congrats!
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