Hey, my view will be that regardless of COVID its competitive & tough anyway. COVID may have made the bar go higher slightly as firms needs to get their resource demand & supply planning extremely accurate given current difficult times. Plus client situations have changed on short notice- budget cuts, change of strategy etc.

In terms of prep, ignore all these external factors that not in your control and focus on holistic preparation- CV, Referrals & interview performance. Make it easy for the interviewers to say Yes to you.

In theory the bar is always the same. The impact of hiring numbers really depends by firm and office so it's also hard to generalise. For example, many offices at McKinsey are still interviewing and hiring similar numbers to pre-COVID.

Hey there,

Recruiting has definitely picked up again this year and McK even stated 2 weeks ago that they are planning to hire more people this year than ever before: https://strategycase.com/mckinsey-global-recruiting-update-february-2021/

I am expecting a very good recruiting year 2021.

Cheers,

Florian

Hello!

I would not say higher, but there are for sure less slots, which makes competition even "wilder"

This said, focus on what you can action, which is your own performance. If not, you are dedicating mental space for something that you cannot really action.

Cheers,

Clara

Things are definitely turning around now - not as bad as last summer for sure

Hi there,

The bar is always high and always the same; the pandemic makes it harder to make decisions in general, including the hiring process.

GB

Short answer: yes. I've seen candidates who should have made it in normal times, not receive offers.

That said, things are getting a lot better (the worst period was March 2020-August).

Anecdotally, hiring did take a dip early last year but since Sept recruiting has taken off, and there seem to be fewer slots creating competition. Of course no one will have a clear answer on this