Does my Entrepreneurial Drive story have to be in a situation with tight schedule?

Hi,

I never heard of a tight timeline requirement. What you can do - tall the full story and highlight that coming up with a new creative approach itself took less than a week

Best

Hi there,

Stop right there! You cannot prepare a story for every question/scenario. Likewise, you cannot plan for every single case type / industry!

Rather, you're preparing stories that a versatile / flexible and that you can adapt/adjust based on the question asked!

So, don't worry about the detail of "tight schedule". Another might ask "with technical skills required" or "in the context of x". Instead of preparing infinity stories, just make sure you're ready to adjust and answer the question's nuance! I.e. if they ask for timeline, use the exact same story, but just emphasize a bit more the tight timeline....weave it into your story.

Practice with people asking an array of questions and hire a coach to do a dry run!

Don't be overly focused on some of these very detailed aspects of your question. Overall, you need to cover the following aspects with your stories:

• Entrepreneurial drive
• Personal impact
• Inclusive leadership

Your stories might work for one of these dimensions, but can also cover several. If you have 6-7 stories well prepared that each cover 1-2 of these dimensions, you can easily get through 5 interviews and tell fitting stories, even if 2 or even 3 interviewes should ask for the same dimensions.

I had three of these questions in my interviews, and one interviewer asked me about a situation with a "tight timeline". However, no one specified the timeline and I simply provided more detail about the constraints we were under overall (including time constraints, though they weren't that short) which was okay with them.

Overall, you will be asked (in each PEI question) about the challenges you were facing. It doesn't always have to be a time-based challenge, but make sure you focus on how your actions overcame the one or more challenges you were dealing with. This was a big part of my interviews, especially in the final round. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Absolutely not! They have nothing to do with one another tbh. If so, I would see the time constraint as a common denominator of Leadership stories, not Entrepreneurial.

To deep dive on the topic, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB" has been recently published in PrepLounge´s shop (https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/integrated-fit-guide-for-mbb-34)

It provides an end-to-end preparation for all three MBB interviews, tackling each firms particularities and combining key concepts review and a hands-on methodology. Following the book, the candidate will prepare his/her stories by practicing with over 50 real questions and leveraging special frameworks and worksheets that guide step-by-step, developed by the author and her experience as a Master in Management professor and coach. Finally, as further guidance, the guide encompasses over 20 examples from real candidates.

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• Motivational questions > https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/motivational-questions-fit-interview-preparation-201

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Hi there,

Your entrepreneurship story should focus on how you achieved something extraordinary outside of your typical area of influence. Limited time may be a factor but it doesn't usually work as the main challenge of your story.

Best,

Alberto

Dear A!

Your entrepreneurial experience story should not necessarily contain the tight deadline element- it should be more focused on the entrepreneurship, so I think you have already created several platforms for global communication of people or you were engaged in other projects or entrepreneurial ventures- rather speak in a structured way more about them. The elements about tight deadline-for this you can create a separate story, but it doesn't necessarily has anything to do with entrepreneurship.

I hope it helps!

Best,

Andre 

Hi there,

A tight timeline helps to make it clear you achieved something difficult and in conditions similar to the ones of a consulting project.

However, there is absolutely no requirement to have a tight timeline of a week as part of the PEI.

A tight timeline could be even months, according to what the task is. Plus you can express the challenge you had with the task in other ways.

If you have good stories ready, structure them to show you initiated and achieved something overcoming major difficulties. This is what the drive dimension is really about. If the interviewer explicitly asks for a strict timeline, as Vlad said, you can refer to a part of the story which was done under time pressure (but not necessarily the whole project).

Best,

Francesco

Hi Anonymous,

A tight deadline makes your overall story a bit more dramatic - but by itself it's not a necessary ingredient to a successful PEI.

Why? Time-pressure will be a constant challenge during your consulting life at McKinsey, that's why it's nothing spectacular by itself.

However, there are many other topics to be considered in the Entrepreneurial Drive dimension - you can find a cheat sheet for the most important topics to cover here in the PrepLougne shop https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/guides-8/the-secret-mckinsey-pei-cheat-sheet-42 which is basically an excerpt of my Ultimate McKinsey PEI Prep eBook.

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

Robert