| Topic Name: |
Hindsight |
| Message Name: |
Part 3 |
| Date Posted: |
02/21/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
Also, McK??s webpage lets you look at other candidates and offerees. If you??re out of school like I was this will be very useful. I was able to find individuals I knew back at school who were also applying or had received offers and tap them for advice.
When you make it past the second round HR will discuss with you your office preferences which you submitted during the second round interviews. Because I interviewed towards the end of the normal hiring cycle I don??t know how much a difference my office preference sheet made. I was presented with two offices which I knew in round 1 had expressed interest and a third office that I had not listed on my pref sheet. I picked my office and the HR staff at that office set up my final interview.
The third round consisted of 2 more cases/PEIs and an interview with a Director who pretty much did whatever she wanted (mostly PEI but one quick math/concept question). My office also gave another test this round which I found much more difficult than the test first round.
General Advice:
First, by-and-large one can not afford any serious mistakes on the cases. I studied physics and math in undergrad but still found if very helpful to talk the math out and work as much as possible on paper. The interviewer may or may not give you an indication that your math is incorrect. On one case specifically I noticed a better way to solve the problem (it was a complicated problem with materials and different suppliers) about 30 seconds after the case had formally finished and I was asking questions. My previous answer wasn??t incorrect but it certainly wasn??t the best possible answer. I said to the interviewer ??something??s just struck me about this case?? and we jumped back into it. The interviewer??s mood totally changed and it was obvious that this was the answer that he had been looking for ?? I did the case for about five more minutes, redid some math and tweaked the conclusion.
Also, I think especially at McKinsey the interviewer will push you to be creative in your solution. One interviewer asked me to come up with 10 ways to increase profits at a gas station in a minute ?? no other details were given. I saw this sort of thing happening in almost all of my cases.
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Secondly, take the PEIs very seriously. The Firm is definitely looking for a certain type of person and the PEIs are going to be a big part of letting them know that is you. Your answers to the PEI questions need to be incredibly structured. The answer needs to have an interesting title and a clear outline. If the structure of your PEI answer is not obvious you need to redo it ?? this is middle school writing technique.
Third, as hard as it is you have to try to relax during the interviews. Thank god that I didn??t do my first case interviews with McKinsey because looking back I see how tense and anxious I was. That said, the key to relaxing on these things is practice. Then when you go into the interview just think of it like another practice case with a friend. I also found it very valuable to get a workout in before the interviews. For me personally I always feel better after a workout and I was glad to get the blood and muscles moving.
Obviously get a good night sleep before hand (I didn??t bring my own sheets like outlier_APD as the hotel sheets were probably more comfortable anyways) and eat a good dinner/breakfast before the interview ?? nothing too heavy.
I found the first and second rounds not to be too taxing but the third round I found most arduous. It was the longest of the three and along with a difficult test I found this round to have the hardest cases.
I can say that all the firms I interviewed with were very different but I think McKinsey has the most consistent culture of any of them and I never met with anyone at the Firm that I was not very impressed with.
Thank again to everyone who posts here on Vault. I looking forward to seeing many of you in the Firm.
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