just had my first round interview - overall, i think it wasn't too bad but how particular are they with small math mistakes? disclaimer - these math mistakes were caught before coming to conclusions and further analysis but i was just concerned that they would strongly take that against me
any thoughts ?
Hello!
With what you tell in the post, is not possible to give you a good answer on how "bad" or how big of a role those mistakes are going to play a role.
Can you give us some more details? I am sure other candidates will indeed find that insightful.
I can tell you that, in my 2nd round with McK, I did a math mistake and it didn´t "kill" me. I realised it quite fast, although the interviewer needed to tell me the classical "are you sure"?
Hope it helps!
Cheers,
Clara
Hi there,
It's difficult to give you a response right not, and even if we could, this would not change anything regarding your application. So I would recommend you to take some down time and relax, you will certainly hear from HR earlier next week!
All the best,
Mehdi
Hi Anonymous,
Not sure what exactly you expect here - your interviewers won't answer here and nobody else can give you a definite answer.
If you are interested in the general picture: if I still have the feeling that you are comfortable with numbers, and all other parts of the interviews were excellent, you don't need to worry. Otherwise you will be a borderline candidate at best and chances are decreasing massively.
Hope that helps - if so, please be so kind to give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!
Robert
Hi there,
A small math mistake, on it's own, is not a big deal. If the following holds true, you are ok:
1) You established a good rapport with the interviewer within the first 5 minutes (i.e. when they've already made up their mind about you). If they like you they like you
2) The math mistake was small and was not egregious
3) You noticed it quickly
4) You adjusted/adapted quickly and it did not affect the flow of the case
If the rest of the interview was well, a small math mistake is not an issue at all. The itnerviews get evaluated holistically and that of course means that a math mistake can be the straw that breaks the camel's back, but never the only straw. So relax and wait for the feedback.
Hi A,
I totally understand your concerns. But it is really hard to predict whether your mistake affects the outcome.
It depends not only on the fact that you did it but also how good you managed to fix the situation, to adjust it to receive a correct result.
Anyway, you should learn lessons from this experience to prevent such failures in the future.
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GB
Tbh I would rather care about someone that actually provides critical thinking and intellectual rigor instead of computation skills. And quite frankly, doing cases at MBB in real life is excel based and not as strategical as many wished it to be (activist PMO, etc.)
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