Consulting Q&A - Stelle Fragen rund um Deine Karriere in unserem Consulting-Forum

Hello!

Sorry to hear about the situation. On the other hand, congrats of being one of the two survivors!

Honestly, I do agree with the opinion that seems kind of a downgrade from MBB. Is this office in the same region? Because then I don´t see either how different can the circumpstances be.

Another option that you don´t mention is a transfer to another MBB or even inside your MBB to another locaiton, have your considered that? Sames goes for getting international staffing -I know for instance in the US there are hands needed atm-.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hey there,

I have written a detailed article on the PEI and will share some quotes from it below:

1. Learn about the PEI dimensions

Below are the three dimensions plus some ideas on what to include:

a. Entrepreneurial Drive

• Set a goal for yourself and pursue it relentlessly against all odd
• The focus here should be on overcoming obstacles, showing ambition and dedication as well as ingenuity

b. Personal Impact

• Persuade a group or individual to adopt a certain idea or plan of yours
• The focus should really be on the influencing tactics you used to reach your desired outcome

c. Inclusive leadership

• Show that you can manage a diverse team, leading it to a successful outcome
• The focus here should be on all traits that make a great leader (e.g., inclusiveness, mentor, mediator, go-to person, people person,...)

2. Select the right stories with the right content

When it comes to the selection of your McKinsey PEI stories, you need to think about three dimensions in the following order:

a. Fit with the actual dimension that is asked. The stories need to fit the criteria set out by McKinsey to match with Entrepreneurial Drive, Leadership, and Personal Impact. For content ideas see above.

b. Diversity of experience. Your stories should be from different walks of life, e.g., jobs or careers, universities, extracurriculars, etc. Don’t take all stories from one experience.

c. Recency. In general, the more recent the better. Unless you interview for an experienced hire or more senior position, your stories should not date back more than 2-3 years.

Make sure that

• you draft two stories each to always have a backup story in case the interviewer rejects the first story
• you are aware that the interviewer might interrupt you a lot to ask detailed questions, which means your stories need to go very deep as you should be ready to answer very focused questions such as ''what did you say at that moment?'', ''How did he react'', etc.
• create catchy headlines for each story that already convey the main message
• you create content for each story to be able to talk freely for around 10 minutes

3. Learn how to communicate them most effectively

Communication is key in the interview. Speak like a consultant, follow a logical, top-down structure, and make sure to

• focus on yourself and your own role all the time
• keep the context brief and really focus on your own actions (context 2 minutes, your actions 8 minutes)

I have developed a framework specifically for the effective communication of McKinsey PEI, the SCORE framework. Reach out if you want to know more about it.

4. Shortcut get it right quickly: Book a session with a coach that knows these dimensions in and out to make sure that

• a. they contain the right content
• b. they are communicated in the most McKinsey-like way
• c. you can anticipate and prepare for the detailed drill-down questions the interviewers will ask

No story I worked on with my candidates has ever been rejected. Reach out if you need help!

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there,

Good question!

First of all, you should clarify the objective of the client

Once you have done so, you can analyze which market would help you to achieve that particular goal.

Say for example that your goal is revenues. This would be given by:

• Market size
• Market share you can get

Say market size is equivalent: given the goal, the best market will be defined as the one where you can get the highest market share.

A fragmented market may be good (and a concentrated bad) in terms of market share because:

1. Barriers to entry are low (you could enter – unlike a concentrated one where that may be impossible – so at least get some market share)
2. The reaction of competitors is probably low
3. It is easier to get market share from the weakest players (at least some of them should be worse than you)

But a fragmented market may also be bad (and a concentrated one good) in terms of market share because:

1. Competitors will continue to enter the market in the future
2. It may be difficult to grow (which is why the market is fragmented in the first place), unless you have a disruptive product or service

So overall, you should consider both the plus and minus of the fragmented market, and evaluate accordingly if it is the best.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hi there,

No need to make it complicated. Just call HR and inform them of your situation and they will try to accommodate it. These things happen on a daily basis for them..

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there,

Please be careful with the prior answers - you will not necessarily be given a case.

I've helped a number of individuals in the higher role track (i.e. Director, AP, etc.) and it's actually quite rare that a formal case is given. Rather, you should expect more "Brainstorming" questions.

It's hard to find resources out there to help you, which is why I created the following case: https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/candidate-led-usual-style/intermediate/roma-solutions-senior-expert-level-tech-case-240

Granted, that case is for more of a Digital/Tech role, but it should give you a good idea of what to expect. Feel free to reach out for more information on what to expect and how to prepare!

Hi there,

Thanks for linking the case. The math here is quite tricky, but the case is correct!

Men's Market

So, for Men's market we multiply the market size ($100m) times its growth in 2 years (1.25^2). This is correct as the market grows 25% per year.

We then multiply it by .1 *.95^2 because "Market shares have been declining or stagnating in the last two years". Men's market share has been falling by 5% each year.

Teenagers Market.

The teenager market is $50M (exhibit 1) and it's growing by 10% each year (Exhibit 1). Therefore we do $50M * 1.1^2.

The teenager market share is 25% (exhibit 2) and not declining (text above the math). Therefore we mutiply the above result with 25%, or 25% X 1 (no change).

Hello!

Congrats on your offers :)

I would go for #2 given your description of what you would like to do in the medium and longer term. BTW, thanks for mentioning it, since many times many people ask similar questions in the chat without really describing what they want to do next, and that is precisely the answer.

In any case, something that I don´t understand is why not (1) doing an MBA before -to accelerate the whole process- and (2) shoot for Consulting in MBB/Tier 2 already.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hello!

I believe there is a typo, since that 30% does not make sense to me.

Cheers,

Clara

Hi there,

Below are some of the key industries covered (not really sure about RB). Most of the firms with the exception of OW cover all sectors, so there are for sure other opportunities besides the ones listed. You can also get an idea of the coverage by looking at the specialization of partners, whenever they have a profile online on the local website (BCG for example does so).

• McKinsey ⮕ Financial Services
• BCG ⮕ Pretty diversified. A few years ago they were very strong in industrial goods. Less financial services than McKinsey
• Bain ⮕ PE and Luxury. Focus more on smaller companies compared to McKinsey and BCG due to the fact Bain in Italy had a different structure and internal rules compared to Bain globally (also had initially a different name, "Bain Cuneo") and was fully integrated the global system only a few years ago
• OW ⮕ Financials Services (including Risks) almost exclusively

Best,
Francesco

Hello!

Loved that you included the fact that you longer term goal is MBB, since we get so many of these questions in this chat and I always give the same answer "depends on what u want to do later :)". Well done

This said, since your target is MBB, I would honestly go with the boutique.

This said, there is no bad option, and both will help you as long as you create impact and later are able to communicate it.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hi,

You can use the rule of 72.

For example, if you know the revenue will grow from 100M to 400M in 12 years and you need to know the CAGR:

1. 100M will double and grow to 200M in 6 years
2. CAGR = 72 / 6 / 100 = 12%
3. Note that you can take 70-72 depending on what is easier to calculate

Best