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How to improve "to the point communication"

Actively preparing for interviews at McKinsey and BCG business acumen communication
New answer on Aug 31, 2020
4 Answers
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Anonymous A asked on Aug 23, 2020

Hello,

Unfortunately, I did not make it to the next rounds in my previous interviews and thus I am looking for ways to improve my performance.

The usual feedback mainly targeted two areas.

  • Communication: Too wordy and not “to the point communication”; interviewer sometimes get lost where I am in the case
  • Business judgement: Especially the use of sanitary checks could be improved, e.g. is that number I just calculated too high or too low? Here I sometimes miss a good reference point.

Thanks for your tips in advance

I want to be notified about updates regarding this question via email

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Ian
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Content Creator
 replied on Aug 23, 2020
#1 BCG coach | MBB | Tier 2 | Digital, Tech, Platinion | 100% personal success rate (8/8) | 95% candidate success rate

Great points and common areas of improvement!

Communication

It's easy to make something complicated, hard to make something simple. How to fix this?

Take a few seconds - gather your thoughts. Perhaps right them down. Take a quick breather to better formulate and then articulate your thoughts

Use signposting - Always preface what you will be saying. For example, when brainstorming you can say "I'm thinking about this in three main ways: A, B, and C. Within A we can look at..."

Practice with a coach - Other PrepLounger are fantastic practice but they are generally too nice! you need a coach who will really hit back and work with you to improve your answers.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Business judgement

Daily Business News/Thinking: Financial Times

Larger Thinking/Trends: The Economist

Crash course: BCG Insights, McKinsey Featured Insights

For the past decade I have read The Economist and the Financial Times daily. This built-up knowledge was instrumental in ensuring I had the right thinking+base knowledge for casing.

Also to improve your business judgement:

  • Reading through (and fully understanding cases)
  • Working on a mindset shift (happy to teach you a session in this)
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Clara
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Content Creator
 replied on Aug 24, 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

Honestly I disagree, since these are the classical feedback points that they tell most people and are not super insightful.

In any case, totally agree with the advises Ian gave - altought as I said, the feedback is too generic to be useful to action-.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

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Antonello
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Content Creator
 replied on Aug 31, 2020
McKinsey | NASA | top 10 FT MBA professor for consulting interviews | 6+ years of coaching

Hi, communication is one of the most important skills assessed during interviews in consulting and unfortunately, it is possible to seriously improve it in a short time only by simulating cases with senior people, former consultants or coaches, in order to have an experienced feedback and continuously work on it

Best,
Antonello

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Anonymous replied on Aug 26, 2020

Dear A,

I agree that feedback is too generic. So you can either skill up yourselsf in the interviews with a coach and apply to aother companies or start working on improving you CV in order to apply again after some time.

Best,

André

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