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

I would suggest you to look into the industry focus, project types, and working approaches of these two companies.

Hi,

I'd be happy to provide you a BCG-specific case based on my experience interviewing+working here!

Hi Panos,

A few points to answer your questions above:

1) McKinsey pays for your MBA/post-graduation degree if you have received a rating of 'Clear and Accelerating' (2nd highest; usually top 25%) in your last rating cycle

2) They will pay a maximum of 2 years worth of tuition. If you're thinking of law school or PhD, you'll have to cover the duration beyond 2 years. However, McKinsey does cover expenses for books and insurance, and lets you keep your firm laptop as well, which is a very sweet deal. In fact, you get a signing bonus (25-30K) when you re-join.

3) This one is interesting. During your post-grad, if you do your summer internship at McKinsey, they pay the tuition to your school directly. However, if you plan to do your internship elswehere, you still get the tuition money but it's sent to your bank account, implying it is treated as income and is taxed. When you're looking at tuition fees of >$150K, that is pretty significant. (55-60K)

4) One you come back, you're expected to stay for a minimum of 2 years. If you decide to leave after 1 year, you will be liable for 50% of the tuition/expense McKinsey covered

It's truly amazing to see how much McKinsey cares for it's employees. Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Nirmit

I am a specialized consultant working 90% of the times in energy projects. Happy to help if you could little bit explain your question in detail.

Do you stand a chance? Yes, absolutely. I started my career in Germany at a time when I spoke decent German but (1) make grammatical mistakes, (2) still clearly had limited vocabulary, and (3) couldn't write very well. Your German is much stronger than mine was

Does this mean your linguistics skills won't be an issue? Obviously not. But it is possible to get in, yes.

Hi,

I will also have my 2nd round in Germany soon (maybe we could get in touch).

As I know from friends that work at BCG, the real-life interviews will also test the weaknesses that you showed in the first round.

It can range from:

• getting information from a client during a taxi ride
• producing an executive slide for a partner based on multiple slides you receive
• convincing colleagues over lunch about an idea
• writing an email to a client
• ....

Hope it helped a little bit. BCG says you can't prepare for those short interviews.

I think you can already go through some situations and train things like producing slides etc.

Dear Anonymous A,

Congratulations on your interview invitations from DETECON and SENACOR!

As already mentioned above we also offer several cases in German. To see our German cases, just change the language to German by clicking on the German flag on the bottom of the page or click on the following link: https://www.preplounge.com/de/case-sammlung. You can of course still change the language back to English :)

Best,
Your Talent-Management Team

Hi,

The recruiting process is exactly the same. However, the German market is bigger and thus hiring more people.

Best

Hi Anonymous,

it seems like the PST has been largely abandoned in the German office. But honestly - the best strategy is to not ask here, but instead pick up the phone and call the recruiting ladies at McKinsey and BCG. They will be able to give you the most reliable information on the current process at their respective firm.

Cheers, Sidi

MBB does not ask you for salary expectations

Best

Hi Anonymous,

it is not true that you need to put your salary expectations on every application in Germany. It is common practice in most industry corporations, but NOT with large strategy consulting firms. Speaking for MBB, it is definitely not part of what is asked for and you should not include it in your application letter! The salary is standardized anyway.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi Anonymous,

I believe you are pointing to the right direction. Actually, I always recommend to ONLY network with Partners and Junior Partners. It is much more powerful, and the quality of insights you will get is much much higher. And if done correctly, the response rate tends to be even better than for junior folks! What you need to do though, is investing into a really thought through and concise message which brings across your point, highlights your similarities and gives an outline of what you would like to get the partner's insightsand/or help on.

This approach has proved to be outstandingly effective! Much more than messaging Engagement Managers or, even worse, Associates (which are still very junior roles in the grand scheme of things).

Cheers, Sidi

Hey,

I have worked with Bayer Consulting in the case of a university project and my experience was that they were also often traveling but only to Bayer locations. Nevertheless, I would say that they are less traveling than MBB or other external consultancies. However, as you have mentioned it depends also on the inhouse consulting company, as SMC consultants travel a lot.

Other inhouse consultancies I know are i.a. Telekom, E.ON, Volkswagen, Porsche, Allianz, DB and Mercedes-Benz.

I hope this helps a bit.

Best

Hi Anonymous,

I would strongly recommend to always start with your strongest argument, i.e., what YOU bring to the table. Your motivation is rounding off your storyline.

So here is a structure that tends to work very well:

0. Subject line which clearly indicates the purpose of the letter (i.e, application) and the position

1a. Short first paragraph* outlining ~3 central requirements that you believe are needed to excel at the job you apply for (--> ask yourself "what makes an excellent consultant?" --> https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/what-makes-a-good-management-consultant-1710)

1b. Second paragraph where you give evidence how your skills, experience, and track record lead to a strong match with exactly these previously outlined requirements

2a. Third paragraph outlining your motivation to work in consulting

2b. Fourth paragraph outliningyour motivation to work at the specific firm

Cheers, Sidi

* If you use a referral, you can start the cover letter with a short sentence where you mention the corresponding person within the firm.

Hi Anonymous,

speaking for MBB:

• Conditions are fixed and identical across all cities in Germany (non-negotiable for fresh university graduates)
• You get a lump-sum relocation allowance (you could call this relocation bonus)
• Starting salary around 70-75k for master level ("Fellow" at McK / "Associate" at BCG), around 100-110k for PhD/Top-MBA level ("Associate" at McK, "(Junior) Consultant" at BCG).
• Possibility for firm car (or corresponding mobility package as an alternative at McK) on top. Here the policies differ a bit across the firms.

Hope this helps!

Hi Anonymous,

German fluency traditionally was a quite important requirement in the German consulting industry. This requirement has softened a bit in recent years, however mostly driven by the increase in variety of jobs and roles within MBB firms. For example, data scientists or digital specialists might well get an offer despite not being fluent in German. For generalist consultans this remains a challenge though, given the intensity of client contact that is required.

One thing that still differentiates the German consulting culture from many other geographies is the focus on details and backing up each and every claim or hypothesis with rigorous analysis. This oftentimes leads to the "German disease", where the main body of a a given document just represents a small share of the doc, while the appendix takes about 60-70%. The impact on the work-life balance of the teams is obvious... One of the reasons for this is that German business landscape is still deeply rooted in engineering, and a big share of top level clients are PhDs (PhDs are still much more highly respected in the "public perception" compared to MBAs! A couple of years ago, a Bachelor degree would not even be regarded as a proper academic degree by most seniors in the German business landscape). These clients are very detail-oriented, and backing up every claim with rigorous analysis is oftentimes required to earn their respect and trust.

Hope this helps!

Cheers, Sidi

To your first question, I don't think it matters. An argument can be made to apply earlier (classes haven't filled up yet) and after (new projects in January may give an boost to recruiting for example).

Second question... I'd just try to join a large / reputed company for the brand name, or a start-up for the breadth of experience. Either way, you will also be judged on your career trajectory. If your main objective is MBB, one place I probably would not recommend is internal consulting however. Others here may disagree btw, I'd welcome the exchange of ideas

You also didn't ask but I'll tell you anyway: I'd focus on Tier2 before MBB, just so you have more experience by the time you interview w/ the big guys.

Good luck

Oh, I did not know that, sorry. I purposely did not show you my approach, because I wanted to see your ways of solving this problem without me influcencing you.

My approach would be like this:

1. Estimate #km^2 in Germany
2. Estimate #km^2 in Bavaria
3. Estimate total motorway length in Bavaria
4. Calculate total motorway length in Germany

to 1. Estimate #km^2 in Germany:
- Assumption 1: Germany is a rectangle
- Average width of Germany: 400 km
- Average hight of Germany: 750 km
-> #km^2/Germany = 400*750 km^2 = 300.000km^2

to 2. Estimate #km^2 in Bavaria:
- Assumption 2: Bavaria is a rectangle
- Average width of Bavaria: 60% of Germany = 0.6*400 = 240 km
- Average hight of Bavaria: 40% of Germany = 0.4*750 = 300 km
-> #km^2/Germany = 240*300 km^2 = 72.000 km^2
-> How big is Bavaria compared to Germany?
72.000/300.000 = 0.24 -> Bavaria has 24% of the area of Germany

to 3. Estimate total motorway length in Bavaria:

length of motorways/Bavaria = length of motorways between biggest bavarian cities + length of motorways to other regions (states, countries)

to 3.1. length of motorways between biggest cities:
- Assumption 3: Motorways are usually between big cities
- How many big cities do we have in Bavaria: 6 (Munich, Augsburg, Nürnberg, Würzburg, Bayreuth, Regensburg)
- How is the geografical distribution of those 6 cities in Bavaria:
-> Assumption 4: equally distributed (see illustration)
- How many motorways are connecting these 6 cities: 11 (see illustration)
- 3 horizontal
- 4 vertical
- 4 diagonal

- Lenght of "horizontal" motorway:

1/3 of width of Bavaria because of distribution assumption:
-> 1/3* 240km =80km

- Length of "vertical" motorway
1/4 of height of Bavaria because of distribution assumption:
-> 1/4* 300km = 75 km

- Length of "diagonal" motorway
-> Pythagorean theorem: a^2 + b^2 = c^2
-> c = (80^2+75^2)^(1/2) ~ (12.000)^(1/2) ~ 110km

-> total length of motorways between biggest bavarian cities:
3*horizontal + 4*vertical+4*diagonal = (3*80 + 4*75 + 4*110) km = 980 km

to 3.2. length of motorways to other regions (states, countries):

Assumption 5: Each city has 3 motorway connections to cities outside of Bavaria:

- 4 of those cities have 1 vetical, 1 horizontal and 1 horizonatl motorways
-> 4* (1*75 + 1*80 + 1*110) = 1060 km
- 2 cities have 1 vertical and 2 diagonal motorways
-> 2* (1*75 + 2*110) = 590

--> total length to other regions: 1060 + 590 = 1650km

--->> Total length of motorways in Germany = 960 + 1650km =2610km ~ 2600km

Assumption 7: Distribution of motorways in Bavaria is the same as in all german regions.

to 4. Calculate total motorway length in Germany:

2600km = 24% total german motorway length

-> total germany motorway length = 2600km / 0.24 ~ 2600km * 4 = 10400 km