Alle Fragen zum Tag and Bain - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hello!

At this point, the situation is evolving so fast that it´s difficult to predict, since the situation changes day after day.

Logic sais that, as well as clients are slowing down... so will consulting companies. This will inevitbly lead to a slow-down in hiring -but not a total freeze, as there was not a total freeze after the fall of Lehman-.

For people who are currently in the recruiting process, as per what I am seeing with my coachees, interviews are not being cancelled. They are either being posponed (with a determined date, not in an undefined way) or they are being shifted to video-conference.

Given that you are not still in the pipeline, little can be done. You can maximize your chances by getting a referral -this would at least ensure that your CV ends up in HRs desk instead of in the black hole of CVs-.

Feel free to PM me with your CV and CL for review.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hello!

Don´t worry about that. Once you have your MBA, particularly from a target school, the previous experience does not matter. I know plenty of examples to show.

MBB also rely on the selection criteria from the MBAs schools, and once you pass that... you are fine.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hello!

At this point, I don´t think anyone can give you a certain answer -we are living a situation without precedents and it´s evolving by the day, so everyone, companies included, and in the wait-and-see attitude.

Personally, I think that it´s very very unlikely that this happens. However, not so unlikely that they ask some of the BAs/associates to start some months later, if there is not staffing for all.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Congrats on getting your offer. In my experience, people that do the following really stand out and typically secure a returning offer

1. Be proactive, don't wait for the project manager to give you instructions. Try to suggest things you could do and when you incur a problem, go back to your manager with a suggestion for a solution not just with the issue

2. Be precise and quality check your outputs before sending them out. Check for language, labels, anything.

3. Take notes and share them with the team as and when required

Hope it helps!
Marco

Hi!

Honestly, digital McKinsey cases will be no diffirent than any other McKinsey cases. It's not about practicing content, it's about practicing three types of questions asked: 1) Hypothesis tree/issue tree 2) analyzing tables and graphs 3) doing math in case context – c'est tout.

Therefore, it's no different whether to practice on cases about diapers or about cloud solutions – looking for the cases with specific content is just a waste of time.

Hey A,

it's:

1. Assosiate
2. Senior Assosiate
3. Consultant
4. Manager
5. Vice President
6. Assosiate Partner
7. Partner
8. Director
9. Executive Director

Hope it helps.

Best,

André

From my perspective absolutely yes. The biggest benefit for me was to realize that the preparation material and case frameworks that you can find online are just very immature tools that don't really explain how you have to think (!!!) when addressing strategic questions. None of the fundamental principles and logic that underlie such strategic problems can be found in Victor Cheng etc., and only after starting my coaching program I started to understand this. It took some time (about 6 sessions) to fully grasp and master it, but once I got the hang of it I received an offer at every firm that I interviewed with, including the MBBs. I would never have been able to do this on my own - at least not without an incredible amount of luck.

And at least in my case, compared to the delta in lifetime income, the invested expert cost is not even measurable...

Hi,

These types of cases are actually pretty traditional, especially for McKinsey. The reason why people think that they are rare is that the casebooks (that are in general not a good source of cases) almost don't have them

Feel free to reach me if you need a prep on them.

To provide a bit of structure, there are several types of non-profit cases:

1. Factors influencing the price (What are the factors influencing the price of oil? Factors influencing the price of real estate?)
2. Macroeconomic cases (How will you improve life expectancy in a particular city? How will you decrease the unemployment?)
3. Public sector non-profits (Increasing the revenues of a museum; increasing the revenues from tourism in a city)
4. Redesigning the processes (How will you develop a new anti-monopoly regulation?)
5. Non-profit investments (A billionaire is building a new school. What are the factors to look at?)
6. Ops and cost-cutting (How to reduce the traffic jams on a bridge? A garbage processing facility is out of capacity, what should they do?) - I personally consider them as a separate type of cases that is pretty traditional in the offices performing a lot of ops projects.

Best

Hi,

It really depends on what's your objective.

1) If your objective is to to get a referral - the best way is to tell your background, ask if you fit and ask for their advice in prep.

2) If you are working on your fit interview prep - ask things like "why consulting"and "Why Company". It will be very useful to get the insider information about the particular office

3) If you are warping up with your prep - just do a mock case or test your fit with them

Best

Here you can find a reliable mock test:

https://www.jobtestprep.co.uk/sova-assessment-practice-test

Hi,

I have been working in the BCG office and I did the interviews also for Bain and Mckinsey, where I have many friends. It's really hard to summary the differences between these 3 offices but I will tray to address your points:

• Culture: The working culture is really similar in each office, the customer comes first, no matter what. Mckinsey is maybe still the office where you feel "more exclusive" but probably also the more though for work. Bain and BCG have developed a little "start up" attitude with some small initiatives that make your life better.
• Growing: BCG has been impressively growing in the past years (double digit per year), while McKinsey has slowed down a bit in Italy . Bain has just joined the international network and is in the middle as growth.
• Type of projects: I would say no difference between McK and BCG (there are often teams of both companies for the same client). Bain is doing these kind of projects but also differentiating a bit focusing on small projects (that's why you could experience double staffing even as new hire)

All of them are excellent offices and place to work, but you should try to understand which office is closer to your personality, also looking around and knowing people working there during the interviews. One aspect that you should consider is also the MBA policies, that are quite different between them.
I know that is difficult to understand differences between them from outside, I had really hard time to decide which offer to accept.
Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss more about it, I can share with you which were the drives of my decision and some general insights.

Best,
Luca

Hello,

I think that you should just try to better motivate your choice and build a solid story around it.
Think about it: HR staff knew since the beginning your background story, but they invited you to start the process. Why?For sure they didn't do that just to waste their sources' time.
More than likely there was something that didn't convince your interviewer during the fit part of your last round.
I wouldn't stop and I would just try to reinforce your preparation for the fit part of the interview. It's full of people coming from other jobs after short time in consulting.
Regarding re-applying at BCG: usually you have a 1-year ban after failing the interview.

Hope it helps,
Luca

Hello!

THe mini-MBA from McKinsey is a super-super-concentrated 3 weeks program.

Have you considered doing an executive MBA, so you can make it compatible with your work? Most top programs have the E-version.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hello!

You have nothing to worry about: the application is not only grades and averages, but it´s considered as a wholistic thing. There are no such things as "below X GPA they don´t even consider you, they only hire the top 20% of the class, etc.". If your reasons are good, this won´t be a problem.

As you mentioned, the cover letter is the place to talk about those mitigating circumpstances that you mention.

Cheers!

Hi Alex,

Hope you are well.

Congratulations for getting invited for PST / Imbellus test. This means you have successfully passed the CV screening phase, which is a significant hurdle in itself.

To answer your questions:
1) I believe this is not the case. Getting invited over a PST means you have already passed the CV screening. Given the very large pool of McKinsey prospective candidates who goes through CV screening and PST, the HR team would unlikely have the team to categorize the profiles in terms of priorities, unless for a clearly distinctive ones.

Even considering this, the fact that you have been invited to sit on the PST within a very short timeframe previously would actually indicates you are on the priority pool.

What causes the delay is the rescheduling request you have asked to the team. Again, mind that there are enormous number of profiles going through CV screening and PST. If one profile cannot attend a session, they would still need to process the other profiles waiting on the pipeline, hence the profile that requested rescheduling, will need to be pushed to the back.

This action in effect displayed meritocractic traits of the Firm, where they treat everyone equally at the PST stage. Rescheduling of one profile should not mean pushing back the long array of other profiles on the queue.

2) Yes, you will. The HR team had to process a great number of profiles on the pipeline, hence delays for rescheduling is to be expected. Also, it is completely fine to follow-up and remind them occassionally, as it would serve as a reminder to them and easen up their workload. Since it has been 3 weeks, reaching out to them at once is advisable.

3) I do know a number of prospective candidates and Firm members who experienced similar situation in the recruitment process.

Fingers crossed you will get a confirmation on the test soon.
Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
Nathan

Hi,
I have met 3 dear Chinese colleagues in McK office in Milan :) Answering to your questions:

1. With a bachelor you can get only a 3-month internship in consulting in Italy. To get a full-time job you need a MSc. Bocconi is well considered in consulting (30+% of Italian consultants come from Bocconi).
2. You should be very fluent in Italian (almost C2). I am sure that at University you will improve it a lot.
3. Enjoy your courses, get top grades, make international experiences (Erasmus, summer schools, ...), make professional experiences and eventually - not needed - an entrepreneurial experience.

These would build a strong profile not only for consulting but for all the Italian market.

Enjoy your time in University,
Anto

Hi,

You will never have such a case at MBB interviews since it's too financial. Thus it's irrelevant.

Max what you can have is doing some simple DCF valuation on paper using company's profits and some discount rate

Best

Hi Tabitha,

I will give my input based on my experience giving final rounds at a tier 2 firm as well as my own experience moving to MBB.

First of all it's important to take official feedbacks with a grain of salt.

(1) For legal and marketing reasons firms are very careful regarding the feedback they provide. I've been part of final round discussions with partners were we discussed interviewee's attire, the fact they have spouses or not, age, ... for obvious reasons we won't say that we didnt hire someone because you wore the wrong sweater.

(2) Depending on the season/office/position you apply the demand for new hires will be different and that will impact the threshold for giving an offer. A common myth is to think MBB will always hire regardless of their needs. I've discuss with a MBB partner that putted very blunt "at this period in the year we have reach our target quota, anyone can still apply but they will only be hired if they are a superstart, otherwise waiting until January is better."

Now, this is not to say that you should disregard your feedback. You have mention a specific point that you could focus on.

If I was in your shoes I would do the following:

1) Status quo. What other firms are you currently in process, what firms could you potential still apply and what is the timeline to do so

2) Honest assessment. Get an unbiased opinion on where you currently stand today. This means, PEI, case, Q&A, ...you only know how much work do you need to do if you know where you stand

3) Develop a "work plan" for the remaining of your time taking into account the feedback you received

Happy to discuss this on a call if you would like

Hi Javar,

It may depend on the office, but based on my experience you need an MBA or 3-4 years of consulting experience to be considered as a Junior Associate in most offices. I can advise you to get in touch with HR directly to better understand their requirements.

Best,

Deniz