Q&A: From Non-Target to McKinsey
Hey guys,
I received an internship offer for McKinsey in one of their best paid offices. I studied at a non-target university, regularly checked this forum for any helpful info and thought I'd give back to the community.
Ask me Anything! During this journey, I learned a lot about how to network effectively, how to optimise your application, how to prepare for interviews and what strategy to adopt if you want to break into the best consulting firms.
Little background on me: I studied Business & Finance at a non-target European university, did some internships in a startup in the Healthcare space and in Investment Banking. I speak 4 languages and I interviewed in all of them.
Cheers
Hi, thank you for doing this.
I wanted to know what is the best strategy to network, anything you did differently from what WSO says?
How do you best impress the person you are speaking to so that they give you a referral?
Hi!
1) Best strategy to network is to use all the little victories you get to advance to a better opportunity. For example, let's say you attend a T3 consulting event. You can email to a T2 firm saying you've discovered the T3 firm recently and would love to discover their company next because x, y, z. See it as a game: Slowly climb the ladder until you're at T2 level and can start emailing/networking/going to events of MBB firms.
2) When you finally get to network/informal interview, the best way to impress a person is to ask good questions that are both relevant to your and his field and about his path towards consulting and how you're in a similar situation. For example: I was interning in Investment Banking and had a formal interview with a McK junior partner that had also studied finance before. Some questions I had: "in the last few months I've been learning about the IB's perspective on an M&A deal, and I'd like to know more about the consultants' perspective and how you accompany the clients at the different stages of the process" or "what makes a junior consultant be really good at the job and help you - as the partner - the most?"
My advice: check all the websites from consulting firms that you like, attend events/conferences, send messages to panelists you liked, informal interview with them and if you ask good questions and appear interested, they will be the ones offering to give you a referral.
Wow, thank you so much for such a detailed response, I really appreciate it.
Further I just have one question, I'm currently 18 years old and work for a market research company full time in Ahmedabad(8 hours a day, 6 days a week) while attending college at the same time, I wanted to know how to best position myself to get an internship at a T2/T3 firm next year, Should I start networking with people there right now or wait until January of 2023, also do you think market research experience will be looked at favourably?
Hey!
Thank you for doing this!
I would love to know any cover letter tips you have. Also, do they actually matter? I spoke to a ex-McKinsey partner recently and he told me that they don't even read the cover letters. At the same time, a BCG recruitment head said that cover letters matter alot. Kind of confused about how important they are. I'd like to have a good one prepared anyways.
I'd also like to know who you were targeting for referrals. I was told that its best to speak to analysts/associates and not those in higher positions.
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