McKinsey to McKinsey Solutions/Research etc.

Question

A week ago I was recruiting for the consultant role within McKinsey but was unsuccessful at the final round. The partner said I did not meet the problem solving requirements but I had the leadership and interpersonal skills, therefore he offered to refer me to any of the other divisions and do an extra interview there. He also said that moving among the different divisions is possible, however maybe he meant Finata to New ventures for example and not to consulting.

What would you advice me if my ultimate goal is to be a consultant? Is it realistic to try and transfer in an year?

Answer 1

Hi Anonymous,

I would suggest the following:

Continue the process with Bain, BCG, OW, RB, ATK and equivalent top strategy companies first
If you are not successful go for the research path

I believe it would be easier to transit from a second tier consulting firm to MBB than from research McK to McK, as the job is pretty different. You can find some additional information on that at the following link:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/which-responsibilities-research-analyst-has-881#a1708

Best,

Francesco

Answer 2

I think it depends on what other offers you have at the moment. Even if you cant transfer to a consultant role after 1y of doing McK solutions, you will have a higher chance landing a good job with McK on your resume.

Also, I would ask the partner about the possibilities that he sees, maybe he refers to McK Implementation for example.

Answer 3

Hi,

If you really want to be a consultant I would recommend to apply to other big3 companies for several reasons:

There are not many cases, I've heard of a couple so far. But I would assume that mainly because if you go to research it means you have already made a choice not to work in consulting. I've never heard of anyone transferring from ventures since it's a new entity with completely different requirements. I would not expect that it will be easy to make this transition
As a researcher, you'll have to work with lots of teams, all of which are quite demanding. I don't know your background but I assume it will be quite hard to be a top performer in a 1st year, get all brilliant feedbacks and make this transition. Realistically I would think that transition is possible in 2-3 years horizon.

Best,

Answer 4

Can you transition from Implementation to Generalist?

Answer 5

Agree with Francesco, best approach to gain more barganing power in the negotiation to end up in consulting