MarquisParker.com // Truth & Wisdom

One of my friends who is a first-year at Darden just hit me up asking for advice on things to look out for as he prepares for his McKinsey interviews next week. In response, I sent him this email and thought that some others might benefit from the advice, as well.

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Wow man, I remember what it was like to be in your shoes lastyear and McKinsey had me terrified. I'd come to Bschool to end upwith them and I was shocked to make it to the second round...evenif they ended up dissing me for the internship opportunity. Thankgoodness for second chances  

In terms of advice, here are some things to look out for when
interviewing with McK or other consulting firms:

- The most important thing is to go in there with an air of confidence, 

but not to the point of seeming cocky. Companies likeMcKinsey want to see candidates that appear to be confident intheir skills, but they don't want those candidates to give theimpression that they believe they've got the job as soon as theywalk in the door.

- Be ready to do some quick data interpretations at some point in
your cases. Thinking back, I believe that, in over half of my
mcKinsey cases, the interviewer handed me a table at some point
and simply asked “So what do you see here?” or “what does this
table tell you?” Questions like this blew me out of the water
last year because I was totally unprepared for them, but, this
time around, I learned the art of stalling in those situations to
give myself more time to think about it. Just be ready for those
sorts of questions and don’t be caught off-guard.

- Make sure you have a good set of stories to tell for the “fit”
portion of the interview. The interviewers will all get in a
room after the interviews and go through the candidates one by
one. Many candidates will have one or two good stories, but,
after those, they’re pretty much tapped out. The McKinsey
interviewers will likely specifically ask you to give them
stories that you haven’t used in your other interviews that day
because they want to get as many instances of how you work as
possible. Some types of stories you should be thinking about are
ones where you led an intiative or team toward a common goal, you
failed despite your best efforts, you had to deal with a
contentious situation in a team or leadership setting, you had to
overcome some large obstacle to reach your goal, etc.

- Be on the lookout for subtle clues from your interviewer about
where they want you to go. In interviews with most companies, the
interviewer wants to see you do well (unless they are a total
prick), so, unless you really don’t get along with him/her, you
may end up getting some small hints about the direction you
should take. For example, in a profitability problem, you may
start off talking about the revenue side of the issue and the
interviewer may stop you part way through and say “it’s great
that you’re looking at the revenues, but what about the costs?
what issues do you see there?” It may not be as blatant as that,
but I think you get the idea of what I’m talking about. Just be
willing to change directions if you feel like you’re being asked
to do so.

- I know this one may sound basic, but use graph paper when
you’re doing your cases and use two separate pieces of paper: one
for your structured analysis and information gathering and one
for your math. This will allow you to make your notes as clean
and organized as possible. McKinsey always takes your notes from
you after an interview and I have a feeling that they look at
them during the reviews to see how well you structured your
thoughts, so make it as easy as possible for them by making your
notes as clean and readable as you can.

- Wherever possible, make use of tables, graphs, and charts when
you’re giving your solutions to the problem. They don’t have to
be professional looking by any means, but they go a long way
toward showing that you know how to present information in a
structured fashion, which is of utmost importance in Consulting.

- Here are some topic areas that you should ramp up on before
your interviews:

1. Profitability (revenues, costs)
2. Industry attractiveness/Market issues (total size of the
market in $, # of competitors – minimum efficient scale is useful
here, whether the market is growing/shrinking/stagnant)
3. Mergers and Acquisitions (financials –> will it be
profitable; produtc line synergies; market reaction to the
merger/acquisition; culture/morale issues)
4. Product introduction (potential market for product, cost to
introduce product, expected revenues/profits, competitor
reaction, does the new product fit your company’s product line)
5. Marketing (pricing, placement/distribution channels, product,
promotion)
6. Topics that show deeper business insights, such as unions,
long-term contracts, costs (fixed vs. variable, direct vs.
indirect), supply/demand issues (and their effects on pricing),
culture/morale issues and their effects, and operations

- The most important thing to remember is to be as structured as
possible with your thinking…you don’t necessarily have to crack
the case, but you do have to show that you know how to break down
a problem into pieces that you can attack one-by-one to get to a
solution.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to
hit me up when you get back to the US.

-Marquis