McKinsey offers 'Take Time' in many offices globally. This basically allows you to take 10 additional weeks off for 20% less pay (in addition to a pretty generous vacation allowance already in place). Therefore you can quite easily do a shorter version of your trip even at McKinsey if trave does not work out before!

Best,

Udayan

Hi,

Don't worry about it. You can select any date. However pls keep in mind that if McKinsey urgently needs you - they might cancel your plans last minute (don't worry, they'll cover all the expenses)

Best

Hi,

If McKinsey gave you the chance to decide the starting date, you should not worry about it. They made you an offer and are not going to cancel it just because you ask to start a month or two later.

If you really feel you want to do this travel, you should do it, also because after starting in McK, you would not have much free time to take a vacation for that long!

Thus, be clear with the HR that you would like to start in month X, if they say no problem, you should go and don't worry at all! On the other side, if they say they would prefer you to start earlier (but I wouldn't see why, since they gave you the freedom to choose), then you'll negotiate an earlier starting date.

The important thing here is to be clear and honest. Just ask HR if it's ok to start in March or afterward and don't worry. You'll have plenty of time in your future career to work!

Hi Anonymous,

You are flexible about your starting dates still and in reality nobody at McKinsey cares if you start a couple of months earlier or later. Maybe you don't really like to hear that, but you are 1 specific person in a big pile of applicants, so McKinsey won't have an issue if you want to start a bit earlier or later (unless you are an experience hire with a highly specific skillset, which is needed for a project which is already sold and needs to be staffed ;-)

So take your time now, will be not clear when you will have next possibility to do so in your life and enjoy your trip as much as you can! (ok, McKinsey offers in many regions paid leave .. but in practice it's ofently a bit more difficult to arrange than it's possible for you right now!)

Hope that helps - if so, please be so kind to give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

Hi there,

In my personal opinion, once you start, you're locked in. You're "stuck".

So, you need to get out of your system whatever you need to. Go and travel! McKinsey won't think any different of you if you start in March (or April for that matter). No one cares! If you haven't done the things you wanted to do beforehand, you're going to feel restless and that's no good.

That being said, I have two additional things to keep in mind:

1) Also consider a couple weeks of "nothing". No travel, no nothing. You want to be bored before you start McKinsey. Get well rested, relax, get "full" with energy and readiness for what's going to be a tough ride!

2) Covid isn't going away. I want to make sure you understand that January/February aren't going to be any different to today in terms of covid. The most optimistic scenarios say that the developed world will be full vaccinated end of Q1/Q2 next year. About 4 Billion people and most countries won't have the vaccine until the end of 2021 optimistically. Just making sure in case you're planning your travel around an assumption of some sort of return to normalcy.

(editiert)

Hello!

Congrats for that offer.

Honestly, disagree with other opinions.

Travel? Where? How? The whole world is in lockdown atm! ;)

The uncertainty is higher than ever, so most likely many plans that we have/had for the upcoming months are totally going to waste.

For sure it´s super important that you take your time and rest, and only start when you are ready. however, this year precisely... I would secure things asap.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Congratulations! I've been asked this question many times by offerees where my consistent advice has been to take as much time as you can before starting! I'm especially convinced with the current COVID restrictions where new joiner training, teams working remotely and not meeting clients, etc. will minimise the full McKinsey experience as well. (Some may argue that we will have had a cure by then and life will be back to normal...)

Your time at McKinsey will hopefully be a fulfilling and rewarding experience but it also requires significant commitment and focus. Yes, there are things like Take Time where you can take extended leave but it's also important that you are joining when you feel ready.

Lastly, I always make the suggestion to take time before joining as it's an opportunity to broaden your horizons and become a more interesting and knowledgeable person. Clients will often see you as a driven and smart consultant but with limited experience and knowledge. You can't compensate for that but being an interesting and charming person goes a long way, both with clients as well as in the team room!

Hi there,

I really think that one of the biggest advantages is that you can choose the start date and finish all the things before. Working in consulting is interesting, exciting, and worthy indeed but is very time demanding.

My personal advice would be to take the time and go traveling! Use your chance to enjoy the last carefree days, who knows when will be the next time?

GB

Hi there,

Congrats on the offer! If you can choose, go for the options you like the most. Unless they mention they would prefer you start earlier, there won’t be issues.

You won’t regret the extra time traveling when you start working ;)

Best,

Francesco

Congratulations!

Are you asking if we think travelling will be possible between Jan and March? Man, if we knew....! Once you started to work, longer travels will not be as easy anymore, so go for it!