Preparation for McKinsey, Bain and BCG

Great to see you guys leveraging this platform (apart from your b-school consulting clubs) to find partners and crack cases. While you get into the intense prep, do take care of the following:

- Get your basics/knowledge base right. Core subjects in grad school/MBA need to be thoroughly understood

- Do not neglect FIT part, work on it and practice it during your networking conversations with consultants/ case cracking practice sessions

- Practice case cracking - At least 50 before you interview with any company

- Ensure case diversity while practicing. Let the issues come from different sectors, fucntions, geographies. Few strat, few ops, few finance, few marketing; similarly few interviewer led, few interiewee led etc.

- Periodically ( thumb rule : after every 8th case ) practice will a consultant or ex-consultant. Cases cracked with batchmates do not give you a true indication of your improvement curve

- Most importantly; see if you are enjoying these practice sessions. If you are not, probably you might not enjoy the consulting role.

All the best!

Hi Tiago,

thank you for asking your question on our Consulting Q&A!

To find a suitable partner for practising, I recommend you to post a request under the Case Partners section.

I collected some information of previous Q&As on MBB interviews and hope it is helpful for you. Please check the full Q&As, for more information.

On the application process, one of our users shared some insight:

Well, as you hopefully know already, McKinsey case interviews are interviewer led. That means interviewers lead and go through a list of questions they will ask you about the case, controlling the pace of the interview (so they might interrupt you for example and go to the next question on the list). That is the biggest difference I would say, as most other consulting firms do candidate led cases. In my experience, McKinsey interviews are a bit tougher because the interviewer will challenge you more, but I think this is also due to the first point I mentioned. The difficult part about this is not to get too passive even though you are not leading the case. So better elaborate and get interrupted than creating moments of silence. But don't just blab on and on without saying anything insightful.

Original Q&A: McKinsey Case Interview

Furthermore, as you hopefully know there is a difference in interview, as the personal fit part by McKinsey asks you about drive, leadership and impact qualities.

Our expert Guennael explains:

Have you ever taken a leadership position, in a sporting club, student organization, non-profit... even study group?

Drive is the fire in your belly: what do you do when you want something bad? Are you going to make it happen regardless of time commitment or difficulties?

Impact is the result your actions have had, typically on others. Did you raise money for your organization? Increase membership? Help a couple of poor kids learn how to read? If you hadn't been here, how much worse would things be? That is the impact you've had.

Drive typically comes before impact, but these are two very different concepts …(more)

Original Q&A: Different selection criteria of MBBs

Other Q&As that might be interesting for you:

• Bain Written Case
• McKinsey Personal Fit
• McKinsey Second Round
• Has anyone else gone through McKinsey's phone case interview?
• Hypothesis in McKinsey Interviewer Led Interview

Best of luck for your interview!

Astrid

PrepLounge Community Management

Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | twitter

Hi Rory, At what time would you want to meet? I'm free until 19h!

Happy to prepare with you. Please let me know if interested

Happy to prep - message me if interested

I'm looking for experienced case partners as well.

I've done a significant number of cases offline a few on PrepLounge. Let me know if you want to practice and we can find a time.

I may be a good option I have been training for 1.5 month 2 cases a day on avarage and I went to a boot camp

Hi, I have an interview with Bain in 3 weeks, please feel free to contact me. Thanks.

Hey - we need to link up.. I am in a similar situation to you too for McKinsey

Hey Summer,

Unfortunelty i wont be in Dubai over the next two weeks, but i find skype to be quite handy.

In case you are still looking for partners, I am more than happy to support for the next 10 - 14 days.

Let me know if you are interested ( Skype ID : Afifgh1)

P.S : I am currently an OW consultant and an ex- Deliotte consultant.

Cheers,

Afif

If you are interested, I am available for practice. Considering I recently joined and still have no meetings, it would be free of charge.

Meetings over skype in English.

Hello,

I am a strategy consultant, working in a small boutique in France. I ahve just joined the community of proplounge. I am interested to practice cases as I am planning to apply for consulting companies in the Middle East. I am very familiar with the process, I have done several cases and gave several ones to case partners an also to candidates applying to my company.

Let me know if you're interested. We can start beginning of the week.

Best,

Sofiane

...

Hey Siva,

Just drop me a message and we could try to come up with a schedule on when we can practice interviewer-led cases.

Thanks,

Julio

All sent and replied. Sorry for those that due to time conflict, I am not able to case with you. Good luck everyone. This week's schedule: intensive McKinsey style final case practice. Feel free to shoot me message.Or via y*****@n**.edu

Hi sonali,

I'm in for some practice!

Hi Sonali,

I'm actively preparing for Mck interviews now. Would love to have some practice sessionss with you.

Cheers,

Steven

Hi Sonali and Bee, I am happy to practice together too. Please accept some of my invitations on the meeting board. Thank you. Cheers, Alan

Hi Sonali! I'd love to practice with you. It seems that we have the same background too :) Feel free to set up the schedule. Hope to talk to you soon!

Hi, I also have an upcoming interview at BCG. So I am interested to find a partner to practice cases! German or english is fine for me :)

I've got my McKinsey interviews coming up in 9 days (eek!) and I desperately need someone to practice cases with! Preferably in German since I'll be doing the assessment centre in Munich - first German interviews I've ever done, so I'm nervous about that.

But English is just fine, so drop me an inbox. I'm flexible with times!

I'm interested as well. My e-mail address is <n****************@y***.edu>

Definitely Interested. Mine is in two weeks so looking to practice like crazy. Let me know if you're interested.

Have a BCG interview coming up. Would like to practise cases.

Thanks Gaurav, Very insightful!!

Hi there, I am interested as well. I have a BCG interview coming up in a few weeks.Just inbox me on Prep Lounge.

Hi guys, I'm preparing for Mc Kinsey as well. Would be happy to team up for some cases asap.

Hello, I am interested I am having my mckinsey interview on thursday

Hello,

I am doing an intensive preparation for BCG as well. it would be good to work together.

I am interested. Sent a message on gmail.