McKinsey - Tell me about yourself

Dear Melissa,

I agree with your underlying idea to keep it structured and including topics which are heading into the direction of consulting ("Realization you wanted to do consulting", "What you did to pursue you consulting goal", "Why you are here in front of them now").

Some additional thoughts to consider to have a great answer to this question:

1. ABS - Always be structured (and McKinsey is the most pickest firm in this respect) and follow a top-down approach. In other words, start with the high-level picture/key message which you want to convey before going into the details.
2. Carefully draft your key message. The main idea of the key message will circle around demonstrating your fit to McKinsey and the consulting role including your motivation. In a slightly exaggerated way I can say that you need to develop a storyline demonstrating that with all previous activities in your life you can logically only end up in the consulting world / McKinsey. So you need to think how all your activities so far are related to consulting and what you learned within those roles which will make you a strong consulting and thus hire for McKinsey (topics usually circle about problem solving skills, leadership, persuasion and drive).
3. Don't repeat the obvious from your CV. Please don't make the mistake to repeat what can be obviously read and understood from your written documents. It will not add any value to the discussion and it's not a client-centric way of communicating.

Hope that helps!

Robert

Hi Melissa,

your structure is good, but I would not be too dogmatic about it. After all, you also want to use your self-presentation to tell the interviewer what he/ she cannot find in your resume, i.e. your motivation. The purpose of the self-presentation is to get to know you better as a person and to convince the interviewer that it is indeed very logical that you are now discussing the opportunity to work as a consultant. That is to say, you need to present a common thread in what you have been doing so far which now logically culminates in this interview. It is this logic that you want to convey to the interviewer.
If you achieve to get this message across using the structure you presented, fine. If not, restructure.

Let me know if you have further questions regarding your self-presentation.

Best regards

(edited)

Hi there,

Agreeing with our experts, I would also suggest you mention your social-extracurricular aspect. Remember, interviewers are having an interview with many people and it is easy to forget roles, achievements, etc whereas it is difficult to forget if you climbed to Everest, etc....

Cheers

Serhat