McKinsey PEI - In the leadership question, is it strong enough to talk about captaining a sports team at university?

MBB McKinsey PEI
Neue Antwort am 30. Dez. 2023
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Anonym A fragte am 25. Nov. 2019

Is it better to go with this or something more work-related?

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Alberto
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antwortete am 30. Dez. 2023
Ex-McKinsey Associate Partner | +15 years in consulting | +200 McKinsey 1st & 2nd round interviews

Hi there,

Being asked for a leadership story you should focus on your best experience leading a team (of any size), either on a personal or professional situation. Keys here:

  • You leading style is and how you inspire the team to reach a challenging goal
  • Your teamwork skills to coordinate work and make everyone shine
  • Your ability to understand and act on team dynamics, even the personal ones (motivations, frustrations)

I hope this helps.

Alberto

Check out my latest case based on a real MBB interview: Sierra Springs

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Antonello
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antwortete am 25. Nov. 2019
McKinsey | NASA | top 10 FT MBA professor for consulting interviews | 6+ years of coaching

Hi,

sport activities are much appreciated by consulting firms, especially if at high level and with a captain role. Therefore I would deep dive it, by clarifying how it's been important to make you more emphatic in motivate different type of people and more effective in handle pressure and challenges as a leader.

I would even recommend to build another impactful leadership story based on a professional/school environment.

Best,

Antonello

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Francesco
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antwortete am 25. Nov. 2019
#1 Coach for Sessions (4.000+) | 1.500+ 5-Star Reviews | Proven Success (➡ InterviewOffers.com) | Ex BCG | 10Y+ Coaching

Hi Anonymous,

theoretically the sport team example could be fine, however it is critical that you show the critical elements for a STARR or PARADE structure and in particular:

  • A clear negative consequence if you would have failed
  • Specific actions you took related to a leadership position
  • Significant results

To decide between different examples, I would consider the following:

  • Which shows the strongest skills in managing people
  • Which shows the biggest possible results as a leader
  • Which is more unique and memorable

Hope this helps,
Francesco

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Robert
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antwortete am 25. Nov. 2019
McKinsey offers w/o final round interviews - 100% risk-free - 10+ years MBB coaching experience - Multiple book author

Hi Anonymous,

Generally speaking, the closer a situation is related to a "typical" consulting/work-related situation, the easier it is for an interviewer to transfer your abilities into his "consulting reality".

However, the context from which you take your PEI example is much less of a concern and hardly influences your PEI evaluation. It’s much, much more about your personal contribution to that specific situation (bonus: does that ring a bell with the “Anticipated consequence” of the PARADE framework?). So how did you (positively) influence this situation? What was your real-life value in that situation?

(The original full blog post from which I took the excerpt is located here and might be helpful in addition: https://pei.consulting-case-interviews.com/blog/right-mckinsey-pei-examples/)

Hope that helps!

Robert

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Udayan
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antwortete am 30. Nov. 2019
Top rated Case & PEI coach/Multiple real offers/McKinsey EM in New York /6 years McKinsey recruiting experience

I think sports captaining is a fantastic example for many scenarios. There's many real world applications, it is typically high stress, very strategic, requires leadership and people skills and are usually very interesting scenarios. So in short absolutely!

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Vlad
Experte
antwortete am 25. Nov. 2019
McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School

Hi,

It depends on the role you are applying to:

  • Providing an example from university is OK for an undergrad recruiting
  • It's not OK to use university examples if you have at least a couple of years of work experience

Make sure your story has a clearly defined:

  • Context (How you decided to step up and take a leadership)
  • Problem
  • Tools that you've used to solve it

Best

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Anonym antwortete am 31. Mai 2020

Dear A,

This is definitely a good example. You can use this story in case you don't have any similar experience of leadership in your career or you are really passion about it, your achievements and results are really impressing.

Good luck,

Andre

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Clara
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antwortete am 27. Mai 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

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Hope you find it useful!

Best,

Clara

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Alberto gab die beste Antwort

Alberto

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Ex-McKinsey Associate Partner | +15 years in consulting | +200 McKinsey 1st & 2nd round interviews
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