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

Hi Anonymous,

first of all a disclaimer: I am a man, so I definitely have blind spots here and there and maybe see things for better than they really are. But I'll do my best to give an objective answer.

All your questions are justified and the observations are 100% correct.

Consulting is still male-dominated, and the more senior it gets the more so. Tons of reasons for that, many of them related to compatibility of consultant lifestyle with family.

The good news is that I believe that the industry has relatively little gender bias or gender discrimination, especially when it comes to recruiting. The firms in Germany that I have worked for and with or that I know well from close friends (Horváth & Partners, goetzpartners, BCG, Bain, McKinsey, SMP, EY, to name a few) are very conscious of this imbalance and actively try to work against that.

So I believe that being a woman definitely doesn't hurt your chances during the recruiting process. It may even help just a little bit (but really only a little bit).

During work, you'll obviously encounter the everyday sexism both from clients and colleagues. Consulting is not a safe haven from that, although you'll mostly be working with young, highly educated and relatively progressive, open-minded individuals (as colleagues), so there are definitely worse places. I hope this sexism doesn't manifest itself too much in your formal evaluations and feedback on your work, but it will definitely happen in everyday situations. Sorry about that!

Regarding the long-term: That is up to you. I believe the way to senior roles is wide open for women. But, consulting is a really tough job to align with family, even under the best of circumstances and even for men in more traditional family settings (man as the sole / main breadwinner). So I am aware that the sacrifices that are demanded from women to get there and the conflicts regarding expectations are infinitesimally higher for women than for men.

I can only encourage you to try to be a trailblazer because our industry needs more of them. But I am aware that it's asking a lot.

Hope this helps,

Elias

Hi,

What is the role?

If you are talking about McKinsey Digital - these roles are not that much different from McKinsey Generalist. The major difference is a separate staffing. You will have a different staffing coordinator who has to approve all your projects. In general, it gives you more opportunities since you can be staffed both on IT and generalist projects.

Specifically, McKinsey digital is working on IT strategy, Agile transformations, etc. It also depends on the country where you apply - while in US you can expect a lot of Digital projects, in other countries most of your projects will be in various industries and functions

All of the above has the following implications on the interview process:

• You should prepare similarly to the regular McKinsey interviews (i.e. cases and fit parts)
• You should be ready to solve specific cases related to IT (e.g. agile transformation cases. The case process itself will be very similar to the regular Mck interview)
• You should be ready to talk on IT topics (Hint: read as many articles on McK website about digital transformations)
• 1-3 of the partners on your interviews will be from McKinsey Digital. You can collect some information about interviewing with them in advance (background, cases, questions, etc)

Best,