The McKinsey case interview. There's a lot to know, and a lot to read about
McKinsey case interviews but there's also a lot that you never knew. Hi, I'm Jenny
Rae, the Managing Director of Management Consulted, and for the last eight years
I've been training people to succeed in McKinsey interviews, along with my
amazing team that is ex-MBB. We've noticed a couple of things that most
people don't know - even the day before they're about to walk in to their
McKinsey interview - that we thought it would be helpful for you to know. Number
one, in a McKinsey case interview, the interviewer did not do the case that
they're using. This is an important factor because they're relying largely
on a script that they walk in with. The script was created by a central bank in
McKinsey. They learned the script and they're following it as they go, so when
you ask for information or contacts or insights outside of the script they
don't have it. That's why the McKinsey cases follow a command-and-control
methodology, or an interviewer-led methodology, because they don't have
information other than what is in the written case that they're going to say.
Number two, in a McKinsey case interview, it's really important that you
understand you're being scored on every action you take throughout the case. This
is different from a Bain interview or a BCG interview where, in contrast, you're
scored mainly at the end of the case, but for McKinsey you're scored for your opening,
for your structure, you're scored as you go through each one of the
pieces of the case - the quantitative and the qualitative pieces - you're even
scored on your conclusion. Having those scores gives a more micro view for
them about what your performance areas are that are strong and also what your
weak areas are, and they're able to compare and contrast across multiple
entities but it can be a little off-putting when inside the interview -
somebody in the interviewer chair is actually writing about you as you go
through the interview. They seem slightly less engaged, but you
need to know what they're doing and you need to make sure that if you have one
section of the case that's not going well, you recover in the next part and
you don't treat it as just one macro view. Next, something that a lot of people
don't know about McKinsey is that because the math is pre-planned there is
usually one additional piece of data or one missing piece of data in every
McKinsey math question. Understanding that and identifying what it is is a key
to solving McKinsey math and when you figure out what the missing piece of
data is, or what the extra piece of data is, the McKinsey case interview becomes
actually pretty transparent. If you have no idea that there is a missing piece, or
if you think they're making multiple missing pieces, then you have a lot more
dialogue that's unnecessary with your interviewer. Finally, the
fourth thing in a McKinsey case interview - you will have the second
hardest math you will face inside case interviews. So, if you haven't been
practicing math for case interviews, then you need to make sure before you go into
McKinsey you practice in a very specific way. Because the math is
pre-scripted - it's on the script that the interviewer walks into the room with -
they're able to test deeper concepts and harder calculations so you will be
dividing by seven, you'll be multiplying by 17 and a half, you'll be doing
calculations that are more challenging than in other interviews, and you need to
be ready for that. Just in case you're wondering, by the way,
this is the second hardest math. The hardest math that you will likely find
is in an ATK interview and those are incredibly difficult so make sure that
you're practicing not only in a deliberate way for McKinsey but even in
another level if you have those. These are four things
that most people don't know when they're about to walk into a McKinsey case
interview. We you hope that you find them enlightening and insightful. We are
full of insights and tips that we've gathered over the 2500+ clients that
we serve a year, and our 3.5M readers. You might even have more -
we'd love to hear from you about your experience in the McKinsey case
interview, and we're here to answer your questions at www.managementconsulted.com
or on social.