I have heard this a few times. Is it still the case? Is it the case in all offices? I'm thinking about the Paris office
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No cover letter for Mckinsey?
Overview of answers
Hi Anonymous,
The cover letter is optional in many offices.
However, I'd rather look at it more like an additional opportunity to present yourself, rather than merely another optional document. It gives you the opportunity to highlight your fit to McKinsey in a much stronger "story-based" way than the chronologically structured resume.
Hope this helps - if so, please be so kind to give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!
Robert
Hi there,
Some McKinsey offices don’t have cover letters as a compulsory requirement, but this is not true for all the offices. Unless they specifically mentioned not to attach a cover letter for your office, I would add one just in case.
Best,
Francesco
It depends on a particular office.
Some, indeed, do not require it but I would recommend having one, just in case.
Having an extra chance to share your motivation and attractive sides of your profile for the company would not hurt anyway.
GB
It was optional for me in North America, and I didn't submit one but was still successful.
I don't know about Paris, but I think it never hurts to add one. There were a few times in the process where I was worried and wished I had submitted one!
Hi there,
I've actually looked into the data through a data analytics project I ran at my Alma Mater.
Turns out, cover letter is a table stakes item for most companies but NOT McKinsey.
So, there was no coefficient for "Submitted Cover Letter" when the target variable was "Invited to Interview", when Company = McKinsey. Meaning those who submitted cover letters did not have a higher chance of being invited to interview than those that did not.
However, important to note that this is only correlation and cannot automatically be assumed to be causation (i.e. those that didn't submit cover letters were, perhaps, stronger candidates in the first place).
You can read more here about my research:
https://www.spencertom.com/2018/07/01/data-driven-recruiting-part-1-networking/
https://www.spencertom.com/2018/08/05/data-driven-recruiting-part-2-invite-only-events/
All that being said, why wouldn't you submit a Cover Letter? There's literally no risk. I highly advise you submit a Cover Letter as there is only upside to doing so.