What You Can Expect from Our Sessions
- Authentic simulation of an actual case interview beginning with ‘Fit/PEI’ and concluding with your summation of the case.
- Detailed post-session performance review that delivers assessments across critical performance areas including (but not necessarily limited to):
- Issue identification and structuring
- Problem disaggregation
- Communication & Presentation
- Generation of insights
- Case summation and identification of further insights
- Overall style and engagement
- Guidance for independent, post-session prep to build on progress achieved during session.
I will also run you through mock examples of how to distinguish yourself from the competition with effective tips that have proven effective for 30+ previous candidates who have gone on to land offers at MBB and other firms.
How You Should Prepare for Our Sessions
Be realistic
As much as possible, come to our first session with an objective self-assessment of your perceived strengths and soft spots.
I shall always allocate to my first-timers a rigorous self-review to optimise our time together.
Be curious
Your journey to success is still your own…no matter how much you prep with myself and with others. One of the best ways you get to show that ownership is staying curious and questioning everything:
- WHY did I commend your issue-tree but recommend a different way of prioritising the main branches?
- WHY do I believe that, contrary to conventional wisdom in candidate circles, practising hundreds of cases on a regular schedule is a vastly inferior way to a disciplined commitment to crack fewer than 50 cases by working in a more targeted manner?
- WHY is it so important to stay MECE not only in your initial ‘framework,’ but also in every response you give to the ‘major’ questions delivered throughout the case and all the way through to your final summation and recommendations?
Beyond the fixed session elements, prepare to use our time together to question everything you know or think you know about working in Consulting.
The more you understand, the more effective and authentic you will be at communicating with your interviewers in a manner that succeeds in getting them to view you as one of them.
Be thick-skinned
In the year I joined McKinsey & Company, a few of us calculated a rough percentage of sorts: 0.767%*.
That percentage was our best guess at McKinsey’s global acceptance rate. In other words, for every 1,000 hopefuls who submitted an Analyst/Associate application to McKinsey in the year I was accepted, only about 7 made it in.
This process upon which you have freely embarked will, unquestionably, be the most selective pageant you’ve ever competed in…for most of you, anyway.
Getting through is going to require your A-Game at every turn, and a mere ‘great’ performance will likely not cut it.
You must aim to be OUTSTANDING.
The path to becoming Outstanding runs through terrain of tough, but constructive, feedback. It always will. Every. Single. Time.
Accepting this, my recommendation to you to profit from such tough feedback is to realise 2 things:
1. The aim is to transform you into a seasoned candidate and a Day 1-ready Consultant.
Your success is my success, and any discomfort from pushing is to keep you eternally aiming for perfection.
2. Tough feedback does not indicate inadequacy on your part.
We will celebrate your milestones and your success stories. So, in the midst of tough feedback, hang on to those celebrations and realise that the tough feedback represents only a small (but important!) part of your overall profile.
*Disclaimer: this estimate is an unofficial assessment. Acceptance rates per cycle will vary and are not easily discernible by the general public.