| Topic Name: |
Hindsight |
| Message Name: |
Part 1 |
| Date Posted: |
02/21/2006 |
| Message: |
I??ve just received an offer and would like give back a bit by sharing what I??ve learned over the last 3 months of applying to consulting firms. I am posting this message in multiple parts due to the character limit.
I??d first like to thank everyone who posts on this message board as many of these comments served to educate me on the Firm and its hiring processes and/or entertain me when I was tired of doing practices cases and PEI work.
Specifically thanks to: ex-EM, HBS2003, SmartElec, APD_05, outlier_APD, and euc for all the advice on the Firm and applying, and to whartonkid for giving me the majority of the entertainment portion I mentioned.
I began my consulting application process applying to the big three and a few smaller firms I was interested in. As luck had it my application to McK had some routing troubles (I finished from an Ivy school in June ??05 but am working in TX presently) and I was pushed to the later hiring cycle for McKinsey.
Originally this pissed me off a good bit but turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The case/interview practice I gained with the other firms proved to be very valuable in my McK process.
Here??s what I experienced as an APD:
The first round consisted of a test and 2 group cases. David Ohrvall??s Crack the Case is very good prep for the APD test as his book really gets you used to the charts and math that I found in the test. The group cases aren??t difficult but be prepared to be very creative in your answers and look at every side of the possible solution.
The second round consisted of 3 case interviews and 2 PEI??s. McK??s HR process really starts to kick into overdrive after you make it past the first round and is frankly much more impressive than anything I saw at any of the other firms. You??ll have been assigned a ??buddy?? who will answer questions you may have about the Firm etc. I suggest that you collect a few names and emails from the other candidates in round 1 and practice as many cases as you can. I was doing practices cases a few times a week with two other individuals and we all ended up getting offers.
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