McKinsey Europe Interview - IT Consultant trying not to be overwhelmed

Question

Hi,

I am a Senior SAP consultant and have been contacted by Mc Kinsey Digital (Europe) for a potential associate role. As they are building a partnership with SAP, they are looking to develop this area further and are seeking experienced professionals to join their team.

I have received some resources (3 days ago) from Mckinsey to prepare for the upcoming interview, and while I understand the case study on a high level, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed as this is a new area for me. I am doing my best to analyze the materials, but I would greatly appreciate any guidance or tips on how to best prepare for this interviews:

Technical Interview: SAP experience or General Technical knowledge
Case Study Preparation

The 1st round interview date has not yet been confirmed, but I anticipate that it will be within the next two weeks. Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your support and insight.

Answer 1

Hi there,

Q: The 1st round interview date has not yet been confirmed, but I anticipate that it will be within the next two weeks. Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

If you don’t feel ready, remember you can always ask to postpone the interview – worst case they will say that’s not an option. Usually consulting firms are quite flexible and can grant a few weeks of extra time.

In terms of general preparation for the case interview part, I would recommend the following:

Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have before your interview and allocate a time slot for preparation in your calendar for each day, working on the points below. Many candidates need 100+ hours to be ready before the interview starting from zero so you can keep that as a benchmark.
Start reading good MBA Consulting Casebooks – you can find several for free online (INSEAD is a good one to start). Read the cases and try to apply your structure to solve them. Whenever you see there is something missing, upgrade your structure with the new insights. Try to read a new case per day – in this way you will absorb better the information with constant learning.
After the first 5-10 cases in books/casebooks and basic theory, start to practice live. PrepLounge can be helpful to connect with other candidates for that. There is a relevant part of the interview score that is based on your communication, which you cannot practice at all if you read cases only.
Keep track of your mistakes and see which ones you are repeating. This is very important, as otherwise you may do a ton of cases without fixing the real issues. If you find common mistakes, try to identify the reason for them (feedback from experienced partners would be particularly useful for this). Be sure to focus on both the behavioral part and the case part during the mocks. At McKinsey, you will have to prepare the PEI stories on 4 possible dimensions. The case part should also cover math and graph analysis.
Before the interviews, be sure to prepare your questions for the interviewer – a great way to show you prepared in advance and to connect with the interviewer for a good final impression. Ideally, try to get information on who they are and study their profile to have good questions to ask.

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If you have to do the PSG Solve game as well, you can find below the video simulation I created:

▶ McKinsey Solve Game Video Simulation

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Extra reading material:

▶ 4 Ways McKinsey Interviews are Different

▶ 4 PEI Dimensions You Should Know

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If you want to spend a few hours only instead of 100+ and cover everything mentioned above, I developed a program precisely for that.

You can check the program at the following link to learn more:

▶ GYM Program

If you have any questions please feel free to PM me.

Best,

Francesco

Answer 2

Hi there,

If you really value this McKinsey role (you should), then please please get coaching and delay the interview.

If this is a new area for you, you really need to get trained in the fundamentals.

Basically, the way most of these assignments work is they spam you with data/information.

Then, you need to take an objective-driven approach, leverage your framework, and cut through the noise (eliminating data that doesn't matter). Focus on data points/info that help tell the story, and make sure to outline your story before jumping into the powerpoint

This is hard. It will be hard to do on your own. The best thing you can do is invest in a coach to support you here.

Answer 3

Hi,

First congratulations for being approached by McKinsey.

It's true the that the preparation for McKinsey interviews seems to be really complicated. And to be honest, without preparation it is !

Having working for McKinsey for 5 years (and being an inteviewer) the good news is that finally it's like a math exercise, if you prepare well the exercise you will succeed !

1. For the case study, you have to practice using specific books (you will find easily on internet, do not hesitate to ask me in private messages) and/or you can be coached (even if it's quite expensive it's the most efficient solution for experienced hire).

2. For the technical interview, you just need to know what you already know :) and to struture well your answers (you can also be coached on that topic too)

Then you also need to prepare the fit part of the interview that should happen during the interviews, McKinsey loves these type of questions. You really have to prepare seriously this part as it's 50% of the rating and if you're not prepared, you re almost sure to be dismissed.

Overall, investing in your preparation should increase your success rate from 10% to 80%.

Hope it helps !

Answer 4

Hi,

congrats on the chance to interview with McK.

in addition to what Alexandre stated

1) I would try to postpone the interview date (having a proper engineered reason eg related to current job) - given you are starting now, having 1.5 month ideally would enable you to prepare thoroughly without rushing and massive pressure

2) I would sign up with a coach in Preplounge and ask for an “expedited” coaching package to kick-start the preparation in the 1st week and ramp up faster

Answer 5

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on the invitation from McKinsey Digital!

I think this is an interesting question that may be relevant for many people. I would be happy to share my thoughts on it:

First of all, I would highly advise you to reach out to an experienced coach to get meaningful help with developing a preparation plan and preparing itself. Please feel free to contact me directly.
Moreover, I would highly advise you not to feel like you need to accept the very first proposal for the first round of interviews, especially since you are working full-time and have less time to prepare than recent graduates. Instead, after clarifying your preparation plan, schedule the first round of interviews accordingly.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to address your specific situation, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Answer 6

Hi there,

the one thing I would like to add to previous answers is that you should not forget to prepare for the personal fit part of the interview (aka PEI - personal experience interview). This is the part of the interview that you can best prepare for, since you are asked specific questions around specific qualities you have shown in your past.

Pls get in touch if you like to know more/I can be of any help.

Andreas