McKinsey Middle East First Round Interview!

Hi there,

Yes, they may interview in January as well. Whether it is enough time or not depends on:

1. Your current level of case preparation
2. The material you will use to prepare
3. How many hours you can dedicate per day

Many candidates need 100h+ to land an MBB offer when they start from zero.

I would recommend the following steps to maximize the likelihood to land an offer:

1. Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have before that and allocate a time slot for preparation in your calendar for each day, working on the points below.
2. Read Case In Point or Case Interview Secrets for a general understanding of what a consulting interview is. Don’t focus on the structures proposed in the books, as they are not good enough nowadays.
3. Start reading good MBA Consulting Handbooks – you can find several for free online (Insead is a good one to start). Read the cases and try to apply your structure to solve them. Whenever you see there is something missing, upgrade your structure with the new insides. Try to read at least a new case per day – in this way you will absorb better the information with constant learning.
4. After the first 5-10 cases in books/handbooks and basic theory, start to practice live. PrepLounge can be helpful to connect with other candidates for that. There is a relevant part of the interview score that is based on your communication, which you cannot practice at all if you read cases only. Keep track of your mistakes and see if you repeat them. If so, try to identify the source of the mistake (feedback of experienced partners would be particularly useful for this). Be sure to focus on both behavioural/PEI and the case part. The case part should also cover market sizing, mental math and graph analysis.
5. If relevant for your target office: prepare for the Imbellus. You can find the guide I created for it at the following link. You won't need any additional material after it: https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/mckinsey-imbellus-game-secrets-48
6. Before the interviews, be sure to prepare your questions for the interviewer –great way to show you prepared in advance and to connect with the interviewer for a good final impression.

If you want to spend few hours only instead of 100+ and cover everything mentioned above, I developed a program precisely for that. You can click on the following link to learn more:

https://u.preplounge.com/63phuq

After this program, you will know exactly what to expect in your interview, what to work on, and how to focus on the real differentiator to land a McKinsey offer.

Please feel free to PM me for any questions.

Best,

Francesco