TIME TO SEND YOUR OUTPUT AT MCKINSEY

Hello! It is difficult to assess this without knowing more about the task and seeing your output. My general sense with these types of take-home research tasks is that they don't expect you to use the entire time block working - it is designed to provide flexibility for you to finish that task within that time block. For instance, they might expect you to work on the task for 4 hours, but will give you the 10 hours to finish it in case you are busy for the first 5 of those hours. So in general, it would seem like working 4.5 hours on a task that takes 3-4 hours on average is reasonable.

In any case, I wouldn't stress too much over the time you spent working on it - focus instead on the quality of your output. Is there more you could have done, had you had more time, or have you produced the best work you possible can? Are you answering all the questions in the task prompt? Is it sufficiently detailed, in your opinion? Thinking about these sorts of questions will better help you determine whether you need more time working on it. 3-4 hours of really good focused work is always better than 10 hours of poorly thought through busywork, so it is always best to be pragmatic and efficient instead of filling time just for the sake of filling time.

Hey there,

Generally, if you are given 10 hours and the time taken does not influence the evaluation, you should have invested more time.

More time = higher quality output up to a certain point. I believe that (as you correctly said) your results could have been better if you invested more time.

HOWEVER, you cannot change it now anyway so there is not need to think about it at this stage and focus on the next steps which will hopefully materialize.
 

Fingers crossed!

Cheers,
Florian

Hi there,

It depends if “more detailed” means you would have done a better job. 

If that’s the case, then I would have spent the extra time given it was allowed (they won’t know the exact time you spent anyway). 

If more detailed just means extra material not adding real value, then there is no reason you should have spent extra time by definition.

Best,

Francesco

Hi there,

I'm super sorry, but if you could have done better with more hours you should have.

They don't know, when you start, if you are working fully through it. Honestly, you should have taken as much time as needed (up to 10 hours) if it was going to make the task better.

You don't get any extra points for finishing “early”!

That said, I'm sure you did just fine…but, in the future, if they need you to submit by x hour or time, there's no need to submit early….it literally doesn't help at all!

Perhaps if you give more details it would be helpful to get the context.

That said, in general if you are allotted a certain time then there is no issue in using up the full time regardless of the quoted average (unless specifically mentioned that time is a scoring parameter).