WSO Podcast | E49: PhD to McKinsey. The Pivot from Academia and Case Interview Tips
About
Member @bmeNerd is the author of the book: The Elements of the Case Interview, which is available on Amazon. In this podcast, he shares his story about striking out the first time during case interviews at McKinsey to landing the offer the second time around. Find out what changed that made the difference, the challenges pivoting from academia to management consulting as well as advice he'd give to his younger self.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 49) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:05] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief Monkey. And this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, member BME Nerd shares his story about striking out the first time during case interviews at McKinsey to landing the offer the second time around. Find out what changed that made the difference. The challenges pivoting from academia to management, consulting as well as advice he'd give to his younger self. Enjoy. Bm Nerd, thank you so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
bmeNerd: [00:00:58] Hey, thanks a lot, Patrick.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:59] Yeah, So no problem. It'd be great if you could give the listeners a quick summary. Your background.
bmeNerd: [00:01:05] Sure. So I'm now director of operations strategy at a mid-sized medical device company called DG Global. When I joined, we were owned by Blackstone. And in the year and a half that I've been here, we were able to transact the company to a new conglomerate, publicly traded parent company. And it's been great. Before that, I was I spent a year and a half as an associate at McKinsey in the Houston office. So a little bit about my path to getting to that point. I did my undergrad in physics at Cornell. I did after that a PhD in biomedical engineering at Duke and then wanted to work in consulting but didn't have a successful application in actually on the date of my defense, my PhD defense didn't know where I was going to go after grad school. I did a one year postdoctoral fellowship, which for any of your listeners who aren't familiar with academia, it's a typical kind of training that you would do in between getting a PhD and developing more skills to prepare for a job as a professor. I did that postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. At some point during that fellowship, I decided to reapply to consulting and at that time around was successful. And that's what led me to McKinsey and from there in my current role today.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:36] That's great. So you're let's go all the way back to undergrad. You're a physics major, which is pretty intimidating, especially at an Ivy League school. Tell me, what kind of drew you to physics? And was it super competitive and tough? I mean, you did well, but. And then on top of that, you're kind of graduating into the financial crisis or soon, soon thereafter. Tell me a little bit about your thought process in terms of careers. Did you know you were going to want to go academia? Right after? I can get an advanced degree.
bmeNerd: [00:03:08] Yes. It's interesting you point out that it was during the financial crisis. I graduated in 2009, the first class to graduate from college after the financial crisis. So really interesting to look back on that. At the time, I didn't know what I wanted to do. After undergrad, I tested the job market and unsurprisingly wasn't successful there and decided to go to grad school. I felt that I had grew intellectually quite a bit during getting my bachelor's in physics, and that's what led me to do a PhD.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:45] And so why biomedical engineer actually going back? Did you try to apply to jobs? Were you trying to break into consulting back then in 2009 and just struck out?
bmeNerd: [00:03:54] Actually, I hadn't heard of I hadn't heard of the consulting role, wasn't familiar with it, didn't know it was accessible to somebody in a science or engineering field. So I was applying to roles that were more in line with the physics degree, like roles of national labs, engineering type roles.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:12] And just there were not very many openings given just the state of the economy and the funding drying up and.
bmeNerd: [00:04:17] Stuff like that. Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:19] Yeah, that makes sense. So you're like, Hey, might as well stay in school. I grew a lot intellectually, I'm going to go get my PhD, kind of kind of a big decision. Did you have support from your family? Did they financially, were you working on the side or was it a consideration at all financially finances behind it? Because I know it can be a struggle.
bmeNerd: [00:04:40] Yeah. And for me, it wasn't too difficult of a decision because at various points in my undergraduate, I wanted to be a professor, thought about it. I really found my professors to be inspirational when I was in college. So when I decided to get a PhD, that was what I had in mind was to become a professor. Okay. Financially, and in terms of my family, you get a small stipend when you go to grad school for a PhD. Okay. Because in addition to classes you're doing you're conducting the research. Kind of like the worker bee for the professors. Mm hmm. So I was able to support myself, although my family and my parents did want me to be a doctor, so they were a little disappointed about that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:22] They said, MD, PhD, Right?
bmeNerd: [00:05:26] Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:27] Yeah. Especially since you're in interesting. You went from physics to biomedical engineering. Why? By biomedical engineering? Just interested you at the time. Anything pique your interest?
bmeNerd: [00:05:38] Yeah, I've just been on this. That trajectory since the start of the since the start of college, of just wanting to do things that are more and more applied, kind of started out in physics really, because that was one of the that was my favorite subject in high school, really. And then after that, just when I was on this path to want to do things that would more and more applied have more of an impact on the real world and society had more of an immediate impact.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:04] Did you feel like you couldn't do that in physics? You felt like you couldn't do more, like applied physics and stuff with that, or you felt like, well, engineering, the switch to engineering instead of less theoretical, right? But why? Why medicine? Why or why biomedical?
bmeNerd: [00:06:20] But yeah, a great question and that's the reason for that is because you can actually do a lot of applied physics within biomedical engineering. My PhD work was in medical imaging, so I was doing a lot of research on x rays and ultrasound and used a lot of the same concepts I learned in physics. But it's a lot of that research now happens in biomedical engineering.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:42] So you were going through this program. You're doing a lot of the lab work. You're kind of being the grunt for the professors. You're writing your you're working on your your own research. Same time as well, Correct.
bmeNerd: [00:06:56] That's right. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:57] And then specifically, I guess your time frame was about five years. Is that pretty standard for the for the PhD track? I think it is, right?
bmeNerd: [00:07:05] It is, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:06] Yeah, yeah. And so at what point were you thinking. Management Consulting is, is calling me. When did that kind of switch. Was it a few years in.
bmeNerd: [00:07:20] It was it was somewhere towards the end of my day, maybe about three and a half or four years in.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:26] And what made that switch? Why? Why did the idea of being a professor kind of wane or or kind of lost its luster, I guess, potentially to you?
bmeNerd: [00:07:37] Yeah. You know, I think that in in a field like biomedical engineering, there's just always is a lot of that slant among the community towards commercializing your research. Starting a business out of it. A lot more of my professors, as you can imagine in biomedical engineering, had spun off companies relative to what I was seeing at Cornell when I was when I was doing physics. The professors were more interested in the purely scientific part of it. And so that's what kind of got me started thinking about the business world. And I saw consulting as an opportunity to bring my problem solving skills to to the business world and to in a in a forum where I could really learn how to do that. How can I apply problem solving to make an impact in the business world? So I saw it as a really good training ground for sure. That's what drew me to it for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:32] And then how did you learn about, like the top consulting firms? Was it just through professors? Was it is that when you came across Wall Street, Oasis, when was kind of what was that education like in terms of what your career might look like?
bmeNerd: [00:08:45] Since I was since I was at a Target school, I did have there were info sessions that the management consulting firms would have at Duke. But with that, I just want to quickly mention that when I did get an offer at McKinsey, I was at the at the National Institutes of Health, the NIH. That's when I was doing my postdoctoral fellowship, which is not a target, not a target school. So I just wanted to point that out as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:08] Okay, Fair. And so tell me what the time. So you started kind of leaning towards potentially the business side. Consulting specifically seemed interesting to you, a good training ground to get that business experience, understand the industry a little bit more work, you know, work, get outside of academia. Tell me that the prep you did leading up to your first kind of set of interviews with McKinsey and I assume you interviewed with more than just McKinsey, did you interview with them?
bmeNerd: [00:09:33] That's right, I did.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:34] And can you tell me about just that whole recruiting process, the preparation? Were you too busy with the post doc to really prepare a lot, or did you do a lot of preparation?
bmeNerd: [00:09:43] Yeah. So I applied to McKinsey twice. Yeah. The first time doing my PhD, I actually had more free time. Then during my postdoc, I had more of a demanding boss. So ironically, when I when I was spending more time at work, that was that was the application that was successful. But in terms of the process, the first time around, you know, I was fortunate enough to, to apply, get accepted to some of the three day programs that that specifically McKinsey and BCG have three day program immersion programs for people from non-traditional backgrounds or advanced degree backgrounds.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:27] Do those have a name, a certain name for the listeners?
bmeNerd: [00:10:30] Yeah, it does. So BCG is called Bridge to BCG, and McKinsey is called McKinsey Insight.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:37] Thank you. Yeah, I think I've seen discussions on the on the form about them. I just wanted to get it out for the listeners so they knew that. So. So yes, continue. So you got into those programs.
bmeNerd: [00:10:48] Yeah. And what was significant about about that was that I just met a lot of people from around the country who are, who are in similar shoes, who are preparing for case interviews, who are from non business backgrounds. And I just had a lot of case practice partners and I just every day had had to two or three people I could practice cases with on Skype. And that's kind of how the process went for me was just a volume of of practice or mock interviews.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:16] It sounds like you're doing all the right things. So what do you think went wrong? Just the competition was super tough. Or do you feel like there was a certain case that bombed or that you bombed or anything like that?
bmeNerd: [00:11:28] Yeah. No, I don't think it the competition is too tough. It was definitely is definitely something that there are definitely a lot of things that could have done differently. And I learned I learned that the second time around.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:39] Can you talk to me about that? Yeah, that's interesting.
bmeNerd: [00:11:42] Yeah, it was just it wasn't being as there are a number of things I did differently the second time around. I just was more deliberate in my practice, you know, the sport that I played a lot growing up with basketball and I think of it like a basketball player can't can't become great just playing a lot of scrimmages. They have to also hone specific skills like their fadeaway jump shot or their crossover. And that's one of the things that had differently the second time around was in addition to practicing with Case Partners, just also did some practice by myself. And another thing I did differently was genuinely enjoyed business problems more. I part of that practice, isolated practice, was on articles that I would read in various publications like The Wall Street Journal, for example, and just the development appreciation and just better, a lot better. It definitely enhanced my comprehensiveness and creativity whenever I structuring problems on vacation interviews. And I think the final another thing I did differently was just having more of a consistent strategy and finding out what really worked for me. I identified which frameworks, whose frameworks I liked the most, made flashcards, customize them. And that's just what worked personally for me. I think some people don't like to memorize frameworks, but I really just was more deliberate in my practice and thought about what works personally best for me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:09] So it sounds like you were doing a lot of the right stuff the first time around. You're still you're doing a lot of the cases with partners, but you felt like some of that individual practice stepping away, some of the additional research you did just to to become more knowledgeable of business in general, like through reading The Wall Street Journal actually helped make you more creative and a little more insightful. Is that accurate? Yeah.
bmeNerd: [00:13:32] And then and one thing I want to modify to that is it wasn't when you talk about reading, reading the Wall Street Journal or The Economist magazine, it wasn't the knowledge so much that I gained that was beneficial. It was more just the appreciation of the case interview skills and how they're applicable on real world problems. I don't think the knowledge is necessary and you don't have to know anything about a specific industry. The case interview is pretty agnostic to that, but it's just more that appreciation of the skills.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:04] And you feel like that appreciation kind of was like, I don't know, it allowed you to perform better in some sense.
bmeNerd: [00:14:12] Yeah, I think, I think it definitely enhanced my creativity. Yeah. And just the comprehensiveness, I think I think interviewers are kind of impressed by that. If you can let me taste interview if you can if you can talk about out-of-the-box ideas that can make a difference and you're more likely to do that if you enjoy thinking about these problems, do you enjoy thinking about what can Walmart do to take more market share from Amazon? If that's the kind of thing you like thinking about, I think it'll shine through in the case interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:38] So example on a case with that, you would instead of having three or four potential ideas, you might have six or seven. And it's just, it just becomes more impressive because you're thinking across a whole range of, of functions in the company, from marketing to, say, sales to pricing to to industry competitors, everything interesting. So it sounds.
bmeNerd: [00:15:00] And you know, one thing I want to point out, Patrick, is that when you come from a non business background, you might not have that appreciation all the time if you. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:12] No, that's fair. No, that's totally fair. So I think what's interesting about your background, so you kind of went through these these immersion programs. Do you feel like that's a prerequisite for people that come from academia? Like you need to kind of get into those or they're primarily pulling people from non targets, like let's say, with PhDs from those programs? Or do they like, let me rephrase, what percentage of the people that get these kind of offers that are PhDs come through those immersion programs? Is it like 80%, 100%? Do you know that number?
bmeNerd: [00:15:45] No, no, it's definitely not nearly that high. I think it's almost independent. Most of the processes processes are entirely independent. I'd say my interviewers didn't hadn't even heard of the programs themselves, like McKinsey University, McKinsey Insight.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:01] Are you serious? That's hilarious.
bmeNerd: [00:16:03] Yeah, it's more of a you know, it's one of those things that maybe the recruiting community within McKinsey knows about, but the consultants themselves, they, you know, they didn't. I remember I remember always being disappointed. Oh, yeah, they don't I don't get an edge from this because nobody has heard of it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:18] But were you able to were you able to talk to that program? I assume you're able to actually mention it in the in the interview, at least to be able to say, oh, I met with X, Y, Z, and it was really insightful or no, you didn't even pull on that.
bmeNerd: [00:16:32] I don't think it made a difference. I think that you meet you meet people at information sessions or various networking events. I think if even if you're at a non target school, I think I remember when I was at the NIH, you know, BCG would host a networking event at their local office at the Washington, DC office. That could have been an opportunity to meet meet people that you could that you could meet in the same way at a at an immersion program. I also point out that the year I did the immersion program, I didn't get enough of it. The year I didn't do it. I was the one I did get an offer. So I don't think I don't think it's it's valuable.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:09] Fair. Fair. So then tell me a little bit about BCG. Was it a similar process for how are the case is different? How is the culture different if you got a sense for that?
bmeNerd: [00:17:19] Yeah. So the cases are definitely, I think, less structured in this. And that's that's reflective of the interviewee led format that they use that puts a little bit puts you more in the driver's seat so it's a little less structured also in their final round. They allow their partners to have a little bit more liberty with the way they conduct the case interviews. So their partners who will give the case, are a little bit more likely to freestyle it. Mckinsey, on the other hand, you'll have oil and gas partners giving cases about the medical industry, and they were just going off of a standardized worksheet for the case interview. So McKinsey tries to stay a lot more structured in a number of different ways.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:10] In terms of how they're in terms of how they're ranking candidates and whatnot. It maybe can versus versus BCG. It's a little more kind of freestyle, it sounds like. So so tell me, how was that harder for you?
bmeNerd: [00:18:23] Pg Yeah, I think it is. I think I think that that, that format you're more vulnerable to I think anxiety getting nervous because you're kind of, you're on the spot, right? And and also you're more likely to get non standardized cases from the partner. So I think for those two reasons the interviewee led format and also partners more likely to go off script. But you do have to you're a little bit more vulnerable to getting nervous.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:52] So how would you prep for an interviewee led? Thing, like just be prepared to kind of talk, continue talking through things and getting very little feedback along the way. Is that is that how I should think about it?
bmeNerd: [00:19:06] Yeah, I think I think the the biggest things to keep in mind are first, the skills that are tested are the same. They're fundamentally the same. It's structuring creativity and math. I think what is a little bit what you should try to do to prepare for that unique format or the different format that the interviewee led is just get good at identifying transitions in the case and McKinsey style, the interviewer does that for you, kind of stops you and says, Hey, we're doing we want you to calculate X now. And so now, you know, this is a math problem. I just got the signal right with the BCG style. It's kind of up to you. I mean, you realize, Hey, I want to calculate the revenue now. And now you have to kind of. Uh, label it for yourself. This is a math problem. If necessary, get out a new sheet of paper. Tell the interviewer that this is how you want to go about the math part of the problem. If it's once you finish the math calculation, you kind of have to identify. Have got the year one revenue. What's the next? What's the next phase? Is it a brainstorming problem now? Is this enough revenue for the client? If not, I need to turn this into a brainstorming question. So I think it's up to you to kind of label When are you doing brainstorming? When when are you doing that?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:28] You're kind of leading.
bmeNerd: [00:20:29] The McKinsey, you're.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:30] Leading the transitions a lot more in the BCG interview versus McKinsey. They'll kind of prompt you. They're kind of sorry, they're just leading you. Mckinsey leads you through the transitions a little bit more versus BCG. You kind of have to really just tell them when you're ready and what's next. I almost think that's a lot harder. You know it.
bmeNerd: [00:20:50] Is. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:51] Yeah. It's scary because you have no idea if you're going down the right path or if you've made a big misstep. Right. Maybe they do correct you and kind of put you down a different path. But tell me so tell me a little bit about your time at McKinsey. It sounds like you had a lot of success there. Where the engagement is interesting was that did you feel like you were able to add a lot of value coming from an academic background, or was there a really steep learning curve?
bmeNerd: [00:21:18] You know, in some ways there was a steep learning curve in some ways, actually. There were times that McKinsey where I felt like, Wow, this is exactly like academia. I'm kind of surprised there aren't more PhDs here. The times I felt like that was whenever I'd be looking at a slide deck from another team, and I was trying to take some of the learnings that they did for my particular case that I was working on, on my particular project. It felt a lot like academia. You know, you're doing a literature review, your understanding what's the state of the art, what's been done in your field? Kind of like writing that introduction section of a paper and having a bibliography. A lot of the slides are really dense with like charts and stuff like that, and that just felt a lot like academia at times. But at the same time, there were there were areas where there's a really steep learning curve. I think spending all day on the phone, spending all day around a conference room table with other people working in teams. That's that was completely I wasn't used to working in teams that intensely and that that for that much time during the day in PhD usually by myself just kind of floating around in my own box.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:27] Was it uncomfortable? Was it uncomfortable for you?
bmeNerd: [00:22:30] It was at times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely having to go into it, realizing that when I when I'm going into a phone call, I want to use that other person's time effectively. I've got a there's a particular way to go about structuring the call, communicating to everybody what, what the calls about. Things were a lot more relaxed in meetings and during grad school. He just kind of showed up and talked about ideas. So it wasn't comfortable. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:56] Yeah, I can imagine. It's tough. You're used to kind of doing your own research for so many years and kind of being your own director, and then you have to go in and be part of this like fast moving team and on call, like you said, on calls and doing all these meetings, probably intimidating a little bit. So tell me a little bit about the decision to kind of to leave and what was what were you looking for? What prompted that and kind of what you're what you're up to now?
bmeNerd: [00:23:25] Yeah, well, even even when I got to McKinsey, I my long term goals were to be an operator of a business, to be to be a leader in a business, potentially own a pal. Mm hmm. And that's the kind of leadership that I wanted to to develop more of at the time. I decided to to lead McKinsey. I think in McKinsey you develop a lot of a lot of skills around thought leadership, and then there's more skills around people leadership and taking risks that I wanted to develop. And that's that was ultimately what led to the decision to leave. Now, now what I do is a big part of my role is is not the day to day is not too different from what I did at McKinsey. And as someone who's like an internal consultant for a CEO, I work on thought leadership, structuring problems, collecting data, story, lighting storylines and PowerPoints and making recommendations. I think what's most different is there's also a project management component of my role to the. So that involves implementing some of the recommendations that I make and just making sure it happens and leading the teams of people that we need to get involved, making sure that we get the funding that we need. Presenting proposals, following through on the on the various processes that we need to go through to get the funding that we need. So there's a few things that are different.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:50] Do you feel like it's it's at a size that's a good fit for you where like you can you can make enough, have enough of an impact still? Or do you feel like is there an entrepreneurial bug in there somewhere for you? Or do you feel like it's it's fun because you're you have the resources of such a large company that's doing really well to kind of move move markets. I mean, realistically, right? You know, that some of the stuff you're doing is probably massive in your running large teams, right? So what's your feeling on that? Do you enjoy kind of the position you're in being kind of in your senior leadership or at senior leadership?
bmeNerd: [00:25:27] I do. Yeah. I like the roll a lot. I like the kind of thought leadership that I'm able to bring in, the kind of impact I'm able to have. If anything, I think that just achieving more skill, you know, doing it in increasing positions of responsibility would it's I think that would be the only difference.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:51] That's great. How do you feel? What do you feel is more valuable in terms of your your work now, the time, the year, year and a half at McKinsey or the five years doing your PhD?
bmeNerd: [00:26:04] I think definitely the the year and a half at McKinsey, because a lot of the same kinds of tools, approaches to problem solving. I'm able to carbon copy that and it's use exactly that in my current role and it's very effective. I think that the time doing FD fed into what I was able to do at McKinsey and why I was able to be successful there. Sure. And it's allowed me to. I think a lot of those skills I'm able to nest into the problem solving approach that gained from McKinsey. So I definitely think it was valuable. That's helpful. The five years of PhD, That's helpful.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:45] So in terms of before you jumped from McKinsey, can you tell me about how you kind of went about your job search? So you kind of knew you wanted to be on the operations side, operations strategy and you know, you want to senior leadership role. How did you go about that? Where is it recruiters? How did you even find such what seems like very attractive position, interesting position. I mean, obviously a lot of doors, obviously a lot of doors are open to you with the PhD and the McKinsey on your resume. Right. But just out of curiosity, like, what was your approach for that?
bmeNerd: [00:27:16] Yeah. You know, there are a couple of different channels, and I really explored all of the different channels available to me applying to jobs on board, kind of a traditional route, working with headhunters who reached out to me. And then the other one was. And then also just networking with people. It's called the cold messaging people. But what was what what was most effective was actually using Mackenzie's Alumni Job Board. And I think that was effective because immediately I was able to identify positions that were a good fit for my skill set. And also I was able to identify people that I'd want to work with. I really do. I'm a big, big proponent of the problem solving tools and the approaches that McKinsey uses. And I appreciate that my boss today thinks the same way as me. So I'm glad I the way I was able to find him. And he's a he's a former McKinsey consultant as well. Yeah. I was able to find him to the McKinsey Alumni Job Board so that was the most effective channel, I think, applying to job boards. Sometimes I apply to roles that my skill sets are not best suited for. And even if I got those roles, I wouldn't probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:26] So that whole process of using the Alumni Job Board makes a ton of sense. Know you're going to work for somebody that's been through learning the same tools. Think similarly how to structure problems, how to solve them. So it's a kind of a natural fit. Tell me a little bit about just the process, the interview process. So you're there, obviously not giving you case interviews anymore. Is it what's the what's the interview like at this more senior level? Is it more like fit? Tell me about a time when you had a challenge managing people. Is it more like that or is it just a softer skills? I'd love to hear a little bit about that.
bmeNerd: [00:29:02] Yeah. You know, it was ironically, at times it was frustrating because I felt like it wasn't structured enough. Yeah. Sometimes I questioned my prospective employers because they didn't really interview me in a structured way. Yeah, but the questions were more about just, you know, it's a little ironic, but the questions were more me asking them questions. And my guess is, you know, now, even now that when I interviewed candidates for my team, I bring a structured approach. But I guess other other interviewees, other interviewers are more looking for is this candidate, how interested are they in their role? How much do they know about the company? Mm hmm. It was it was a lot more informal.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:48] Yeah, no, I would assume so. I assume so. And then tell me a little bit about is that the only place you interviewed or other other interviews, other kind of strategy and operation roles?
bmeNerd: [00:29:59] No, actually, I interviewed it a lot of other places. They say you can only leave McKinsey once. What what that means is that it's probably the only time, probably that I'll ever have the only opportunity I'll have to interview for across really any industry I interviewed for roles in public sector and medical device and automotive and so on. And so I just took the opportunity to explore a little bit to think about what industry I wanted to work in. What kind of what kind of company I want to work for a larger one private equity owned firm like the one I'm at today, or a publicly traded one. So I just explored and I definitely ultimately the decisions that I made were based on discussions with mentors of mine about which opportunity would be the best to choose from.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:50] How did you find those mentors? Just again, through the McKinsey alum network primarily. Or just your bosses, that one.
bmeNerd: [00:30:57] One of those mentors was actually a transition coach. So McKinsey's, when I decided to leave, McKinsey was just incredibly supportive. They not only have this great alumni board I've mentioned, they not only have a search time paid search time, but one of the surprises for me was that they assigned me a transition coach.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:18] It's amazing.
bmeNerd: [00:31:19] Who was a farmer?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:20] I didn't know. I didn't know all this. This is an unbelievable wow.
bmeNerd: [00:31:23] Yeah, he was great. Actually. I've actually retained him to be a career coach for me today because he was so helpful for me during that process. So he was one of my mentors. The other ones were just friends of mine who had worked at McKinsey prior.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:39] That's great. And so tell me a little bit about we'll call it soon, but just in terms of the other the other you mentioned something that was interesting, the decision between going public markets or maybe a private equity backed company. You ended up at a private equity backed company. Can you tell me a little bit or talk to listeners a little bit about the pros and cons of each? Or how you thought about it.
bmeNerd: [00:32:02] So. So I haven't I haven't worked at a publicly traded company until now. And now we're a subsidiary of one. But I can tell you about the essentially the advice I was getting from my mentors when I made that decision about going to the going to a private equity firm. And it really came down to what's your opportunity to have impact, what's going to be your exposure to senior leadership and what's going to be the exposure that you're going to get, the breadth of exposure you're going to get to different types of problems the company is facing. And the unanimous advice I was getting from my mentors was they're going to a smaller private equity owned firm that's looking to get transacted, that is looking to increase its EBITDA by aggressive goals. Every year you're going to get more exposure to the CEO. Your advice is going to be taken more seriously and acted upon more likely, and you're going to get exposure to a lot of different problems in the company and a lot of different functions, operations, HR for it and so on. So that's to me, it sounded like a better learning opportunity and to go to a smaller private equity firm rather than a private equity owned company rather than a larger, better established publicly traded firm.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:24] Yeah, I mean, I guess that kind of makes sense too, because if you're going to a large firm that's already been transacted and it's or gone IPO in the public markets, the CEO probably it's probably a larger team so you can you get less less air time with the with the senior leadership number one. Number two there's probably a little bit more conservative probably a little bit more conservative about making implementing kind of larger changes, system changes and whatnot. So maybe it's harder to implement some of your ideas. Would you say that's fair?
bmeNerd: [00:33:53] Yeah, I agree.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:54] That quarter to quarter pressure that the CEO has is real. Great. Well, anything you would kind of give your younger self, any advice you'd give to your younger self or to any of these listeners that are maybe ten years behind where you were or 15 years even?
bmeNerd: [00:34:13] Yeah. Or were you? Question Let me think about that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:17] Like looking back. Looking back, is there anything you would have maybe done differently or advice you'd give your younger self, maybe as you were graduating college in a really tough time?
bmeNerd: [00:34:28] Yeah. I think that the advice I'd give my younger self would really be to. To to really clearly define what it is that I'm that I'm trying to do, whether it's a case interview. What what are the different skills you're trying to work on and if it's just life in general is structuring it, what is it? What is it you want to do? What's important to you in life or what's what's important to you in the case interview? What are the skills? Where do you need to pay more attention? Just being more mindful of, of and better defining what is it, what it is that you're working on. I think there have been times where I've just worked so hard that I'm not really being mindful about defining what it is I'm looking for, what I need to work on. And to me, that's that's what made a big difference the second time around when I applied to McKinsey. And today as well, I think it's something I apply in my personal life also.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:23] That's great. We'll leave it at that. We'll listen. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street. Oasis Dotcom. Until next time
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