Dear A,

I would recommend you 2 things:

1. Please, communicate to McKinsey saying that you have job offer from the other firm and try to push interview date for as soon as possible

2. Please, communicate to the firm that you need another four weeks to complete your application process, so that you can make the decision afterwards.

Hope it helps,

Good luck,

André

Answering your questions:

1) Unfortunately, sometimes the only option is to confirm the offer and then reject it later (but I would check the legal consequences in your country)

2) Tell McK openly that you have another offer in consulting and you have to give the answer asap. Unfortunately, an offer from the boutique firm is not the most solid argument (BCG / Bain would be better) so I would try not to specify the details of the offer.

It would also help to have someone in McKinsey who can talk to the HR and explain the urgency. In my case, I had a partner who told them that I had the other offers.

Best

(edited)

Hi Anonymous,

if you are ready for the McK interview, I would simply call them and anticipate the interview. I would personally NOT say you want to complete the process with other firms – would just sound they are not your first priority.

In case it is not feasible to accelerate the process with McKinsey, you have two options:

1. Ask the company who presented the offer to wait more – usually difficult to justify and risky in terms of final outcome. This doesn’t sound feasible in your case.
2. Sign the contract and continue the recruiting process with McK – you have to consider if this works for you from an ethical point of view.

Best,

Francesco

Hello,

I would be upfront with Mckinsey and problem-solve with them

Vlad, thank you for a prompt and detailed reply. Postponing the offer from the boutique firm is not an option at this point. The Partner called me earlier today to make the verbal offer; the recruiter already reached out to me to schedule a call to discuss the offer. I feel compelled to schedule that call for tomorrow because I don't want them to doubt my commitment at this point. Do you agree?

A few follow-up questions:

1. Asking for time to consider the offer and discuss it with my partner gives me one more week. I can add another week to that If I were to haggle over the salary a bit. I would still need to ask for more time if I want to defer the decision to until after I hear back from McKinsey. And realistically speaking, the ask for 4 more weeks can only be justified by telling them that I would like to complete the process with other firms that I am interviewing with. Is that a fair request? Is there a risk that they can rescind the offer?

2. I am not sure if I am entirely prepared for McKinsey but I feel 4 weeks is too much time. What should I say to them when requesting them to prepone the interview?

Thanks alot for all the advice!