So I just made final rounds with McKinsey
Anyone have any tips or hints about what I can expect? Apparently I'll be doing three face to face interviews, including one with a Partner. All three will have cases. Can I expect that these will be significantly harder or not?
More of the same, basically
Be careful of the "sneak up case". During my final rounds first year of b-school with a partner, the case snuck up on me. We were shooting the breeze about non-profits (one of his areas of expertise) when before I suddenly realized we were in the middle of a case.
The conversation went something like....
Partner: "i see you volunteered in blah blah. Cool. I specialize in non-profits in africa" Me: "oh, that's pretty cool. doing what kind of stuff?" P: "I do X, Y, and Z." Me: "oh, nice. what do you think about X? It sounds interesting." "Yes, it is interesting. It's a growing field. I think blah blah blah. What are your thoughts on Y?" "Oh, you know, Something something something." "Interesting. And how would you do it differently?" "well, maybe this and that." "I see, and what data would you need? By the way, here are some numbers for what you were talking about. ::presents exhibit:: please calculate yadda yadda"
Started the case without me realizing it. Tricky tricky.
Ha, slick. Good to know. When applying through b-school recruiting, does anyone ever apply for specialist positions?
And further, if anyone can clarify: when applying specifically to a certain practice, is this considered a specialist position? Do many do this post MBA? Any cons/pros to applying to a specific practice?
Love the narrative! That is a tricky move by the partner indeed.
My experience was that final round cases are a bit more difficult and unstructured than first round. Two of the three partners that interviewed me were doing the cases ad-hoc, whereas in first round they were reading off a script.
I had three interviews, two Partners and an Expert. The first Partner interview was exactly the same as in 1st round, the other two interviews were completed unstructured, no "tell me a situation where you displayed leadership" questions, a guesstimate case and a talk about a economic scenario.
About the specialist hiring, a believe it only occurs in the Knowledge career, not on the consulting one.
My McK final round consisted of three cases, one with a director and two with APs. The ones with APs were very similar to first rounds. The one with a director was a bit unusual because he came in 15 minutes late due to a meeting running over (decision meeting regarding the final rounds in the morning). That interview was a lot less structured than the other ones I've done. Overall though, pretty similar.
As far as the question about specializing. McKinsey allows you to apply to their operations and business technology practices. I would consider those to be specialist practices, although you'll still get a chance to do work outside your practice (I've heard that about 80% of your work will be within your practice) and you'll still work across several industries. Bain and BCG do not allow you to apply as a specialist. Booz requires you to align to either a particular industry vertical or to one of their functional practices (operations, business technology and organization), and Oliver Wyman requires you to have a "major" where most of your work will come in that industry.
Hi, Thanks for the elaborated explaination. I am due for my final round of interview for the position of "Analytics specialist", McKinsey Solutions Office (MSO), ClickFox Partnership London office.
It would be great help if there is any clarity I can get on the following:
It would be great favor if you can reply to the above queries. As I have my interview with in a weeks time.
Thanks in advace
Sorry pal. I have no knowledge about roles within McK's Solutions division. From my understanding, McK Solutions is pretty new and roles within it are very different from their traditional consulting roles (which I interviewed for).
Horsforth, congrats on making it to the final round! If you don't mind me asking, how long after your second round where you notified about moving on to the final round? It's been a week since my second round and I'm wondering if there is still hope...the waiting part is the hardest!
why thanks PHD. I should say that I'm not a MBA or BA candidate, I'm in the experienced hire stream and will be working as a knowledge expert. That being said, I knew that my final round interview was potentially this Friday before my final second round interview. One of my first rounds didn't give me a case to do, so I had to do a new case.
I'm telling you this because I actually got notification for my final round within 2 hours of the interview ending - as travel arrangements needed to be made. My next option for final rounds would have been December, which I'd've been reluctant to do as it's already been the best part of 3 months since I was approached. I kind of need to be able to focus on my real day job if I'm not successful. Case prep and general prep, not to mention interviews has allowed my focus to shift more than it would generally for interview prep.
Not sure if this helps, but normally McK set expectations for when to hear back - I've always been told that I'd hear something within the next 2 days. Maybe drop your recruiter a line. Whatever happens, I wish you the best of luck, and would like you to know that as a 43 year old, there's always the potential to be considered for an MBB position.
Out of curiousity, are you a female? Saw your skype name posted elsewhere, and breaking into the MBB at 43? Good luck, hopefully it all works out and you get the big offer!
If so, you should consider doing a 'Success Story' on these forums about your background and how you did it. I think people would be really intrigued.
Yep I am. Female that is! McK have thrown a lot of material at me about women at McK, which I find interesting as a behavioural expert! Frankly as each of the rounds has passed I've been astonished by how straightforward the process has been - I'm far from Ivy league, but I do hold an MA and I was close to topping my class when I graduated about a hundred years ago. The conversations I've had suggest that I'll be working as an AC for six months to a year, at which time I'll start to work more independently as they'll be more confident in my real time abilities. My biggest concern about switching is that I have a pretty easy job at the mo - I'm pretty senior but my work are strong proponents of work/life balance, which means that although I have and can work 70-80 hour weeks, my typical working week is half that or less when you factor in real productivity. If I make it through this final phase I'll totally do a success story...
They should tell you the interview format (question 3) in advance.
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