Hi!

I have worked for several years for both BCG and McKinsey and covered different geographies at both firms. I honestly believe that this is nothing but a cliché if you relate it to the interpersonal behavior of the people. There is really no way you coan claim that either of the two are behaving more/less elitist/snobby/whatever at the aggregate level. Spot experience might of course vary a lot, depending on who you ask and his/her subjective experience.

That being said, there are a couple of deeper, "institutionalized" patterns that most people are not aware of, from which you could infer that McKinsey is less concerned with looking at what BCG does than vice versa. I can see this in alumni meetings that I attend - BCG folks are always very eager to hear from me how McKinsey was and whether/how it was different. At McKinsey meetings however, it is never really a topic of interest that I also worked at BCG. Another hint that speaks to the same trend is the importance of the "Why BCG/McKinsey?" question in interviews. For BCG, this is really important and a candidate should have a very strong and convincing answer why he/she prefers BCG over anyone else. At McKinsey however, this is not one of the "make or break" questions (unless you say something really stupid obviously) - you could interpret it as McKinsey sort of assuming that of course they are the candidates' first choice and don't need him/her to proove it (which of course could be called "elitist" ;-)).

Hope that helps, Sidi

Hi Robert,

congratulations on your offer! I would consider the following elements:

1. Where do you want to be in 5-10 years? Based on that, look for how many alumni are more present in that field. It is not relevant that McKinsey has more Alumni, if they are not related to what you really want to do in your life. If you are keen to digital or you still don't know, everything equal the McKinsey brand is stronger.
2. If you consider the average consultant/partner you talked to in each company, which one would you rather be? Quoting Jim Rohn, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you will spend a lot of time with your colleagues in the next years. Be sure you chose a company where people are close to the person you want to become.
3. What is your gut feeling telling you? Our gut feeling is able to catch elements we cannot rationalize, most of the time aligned with what we really want. After evaluating all the elements, if you still cannot decide I would recommend taking that in consideration as well for your final decision.

Best,

Francesco

Hi,

I like the idea of venturing with ATK. But, I would go there with an open mind and not pre-decide that you will leave in 1-2 years. ATK is a great place and you might like the people/opportunities there. And after 1-2 years, if you still want to explore McKinsey, that option is always there.

While you're at ATK, do what you're most passionate about and do it well. Getting great ratings and a couple of great projects under your belt can go a long way in your McKinsey interviews, if you decide to go that route.

Hope this helps!

Nirmit

Hi,

I don't have a good personal answer for you (though I have heard of Capgemini, not Bearing Point).

However, check out Glassdoor.com to see employee reviews of companies. this will give you a feel for culture, reputation, etc.

Link here: https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/index.htm?countryRedirect=true

Hope this helps!

Hi,

Definitely take a break! Also, I would concentrate on getting the right financial modeling skills and presenting your analysis in Power Point.

1) Financial modeling - the best course I know is Training The Street. Take Financial Modeling, Valuation, Maybe LBO. Also, learn pivot tables and the basic statistics tools

Excel and Financial modeling - the best course I know is Training The Street. Take Financial Modeling, Valuation, Maybe LBO. They have the amazing templates that you have to reproduce to be able to do that fast.

The key thing - throw away your mouse and put some tape on your touchpad. Do everything with your keyboard!

2) Power Point

• First, read "Say it with charts" and "Pyramid Principle".
• As a next step Google for MBB presentations on SlideShare and try to replicate them in PPT.
• Finally, take MBA some cases (HBS or any other) and try to derive the conclusions and put them on slides using MBB styles.

And finally - take a long vacation before starting your job;)

While in consulting focus on the following:

• Having a good DGL / career counselor, etc. (Each company has different names). This is a person who guides your development in the company, collects the feedbacks on you, and presents your case to a promotion committee. Make sure to have a person who is organized enough to collect the feedbacks in time, who is a nice person in general and who has enough authority in the company (i.e. Senior partner - the more power he has - the better)
• Choosing the project you work on smartly (i.e. collect the feedbacks on each and everyone prior to accepting the project)
• Perfect technical skills (Excel, PPT, Problem Solving)
• Good feedbacks on you from the client. Thus try to make friends with your clients (Both senior and non-senior role. Even a bad feedback from a blue collar can ruin your career)
• Ability to manage your own standalone workstream with minimum supervision. TOP performers bring the end products that impress others
• Being proactive - helping the team with daily routine, scheduling, etc. Participating in the office initiatives
• Establishing relationships with your managers and partners. Ideally, you should have multiple senior partners to be excited about you and to support you)
• Being lucky!

Good Luck!

Hi Anonymous,

No worries at all - act professionally and you will be able to run the recruiting process again. MBB are eager to attract exceptional candidates and as you mature your experience in other MBB firms your profile might become even more interesting for them in the outlook of a second application.

However, only remark I do - which I have seen candidates doing sometimes - do not ACCEPT an offer (maybe because you wanna buy you time e.g when you are are still waiting for other offers or to complete other firms recruiting processes) and then decline. This is seen as highly unprofessional. Rather negotiate to have more time to give an answer.

Best
Riccardo

I wouldn't worry too much about acquiring additional skills prior to your start at the firm. McKinsey has excellent internal training materials and will teach you everything once you have joined the firm.

If you insists on preperaing, I would brush up my excel and ppt skills. You can also try to network with people from your home office prior to your start. A lot of projects are staffed based on internal networking, so it is good to establish a network of contacts early on.

Hi Anonymous,

pushing back by a week will be very difficult, because, indeed, you will have induction sessions, basic training etc. scheduled together with your peers in most offices. What you could do though is to push back your start date until the next cohort starts. Depending on the office, this could be as soon as one month after your start date (in Germany for example, there are starting cohorts almost every month at McKinsey and BCG).

As always - just reach out to HR and ask!

Cheers, Sidi

Hi,

If it is an offer for a generalist there is no room to negotiate. You can ask for a higher sign-on bonus, but they will not let you lead the project from the beginning. You'll get back on track / salary pretty fast, dont'worry about it.

Alternatively, if you are hired as an expert - there might be some room.

Best!

Hi,

Several recommendations:

1. Ask the company how much time you have to consider the offer. Note that It's important to demonstrate the commitment.
2. Ask the other company to expedite the process
3. Try to postpone the offer from the first firm if you feel that you are out of time.

Here are some strategies on how to get more time with the offer:

• Be transparent - you want to finish the process with all companies (And it's not about the particular company. For example, Bain was giving me an Intern Role while McKinsey gave me a Senior Analyst)
• Ask for the time without explanation and if there is an urgency ask back why is the urgency
• Time to learn more from employees: Given with what I've seen so far I am happy to sign the offer but I might need some more time to talk to people, visit the office and learn more about the company
• Contract - Need time to check the contract details (it's not just about salary but also you can't have equity ownership as a consultant and you need to sell your businesses)
• Refer to feelings - you can say that you don't feel comfortable making a fast decision and need some time to reflect
• Family reasons - Need time to discuss with the partner

Best!

BCG 'may' agree to an extension, though that's not guaranteed. Note that they did feel comfortable asking me to defer my acceptance by a year a while back, so part of me would like it if you turned the table on them, ha!

Do the BCG interviews. If you do get the offer, great - but remember that statistically, you won't. Meanwhile, I suggest you accept the banking offer since that's the only job you have at the moment.

Let's assume for a moment you work in banking and now receive the offer. What to do, what to do? Yes, the experience & expertise you would develop in (investment?) banking - but that is also true to consulting. Could you get experience in both? Many people do that, typically starting IB after undergrad and MBB after MBA; the reverse can also happen, though not nearly as often (you are more likely to do MBB/Private Equity).

Ultimately, you need to decide what you really would like to do in the future. IB probably still has the edge for investment/M&A jobs, but MBB will open more doors in general - especially if you stay more than a couple of years.

I sincerely hope you get to actually face the problem. For now though, fI suggest you ocus on preparing your 1st round and don't think too far in the future. Good luck

Hi A,

Congratulations! However, offer is not a gurantee for a job.
After the signing, you should give required docs to a company to pass the security check. What is more,if I were you, I would negotiate a signing bonus, depending on your situation/role.

All the best,

Egor

I did purchase his program upon joining BCG, and even kept it for a little while afterwards. Honestly though, I felt it was (a) not nearly as impactful as his programs geared towards applicants - such as LOMS, and (b) probably more useful for a 22yo than someone with a bit more work/life experience.

Would I recommend it? Probably not, honestly. Travel, relax... perhaps read a couple of these resources you mention or do some excel, but above all enjoy these last few days of bliss - pretty soon, you'll be wishing for more downtime :)

PS: congrats on the offer!

Hi Anonymous!

I have a clear view here: just be open and honest! And if they ask why you would choose them over BCG, there is no problem with stating something like:

"I am not entirely sure yet, but I know that I thrive in settings that are highly professional and collaborative, but also small enough to carve out an individualized development path for myself and to potentially enable close mentorship. This is where I have some doubts with BCG (who are huge in Germany) and where I hope that you can help me understand how working for Bain/Strategy& (who are much smaller in Germany) would look like."

Such an answer has the nice side effect that the interviewer usually switches into "sales man mode" and tells you about the advantages of his firm, rather than grilling you.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi,

Several recommendations:

1. Ask the company how much time you have to consider the offer. Note that It's important to demonstrate the commitment.
2. Ask the other companies to expedite the process
3. Try to postpone the offer from the first firm if you feel that you are out of time.

Here are some strategies on how to get more time with the offer:

• Be transparent - you want to finish the process with all companies (And it's not about the particular company. For example, Bain was giving me an Intern Role while McKinsey gave me a Senior Analyst)
• Ask for the time without explanation and if there is an urgency ask back why is the urgency
• Time to learn more from employees: Given with what I've seen so far I am happy to sign the offer but I might need some more time to talk to people, visit the office and learn more about the company
• Contract - Need time to check the contract details (it's not just about salary but also you can't have equity ownership as a consultant and you need to sell your businesses)
• Refer to feelings - you can say that you don't feel comfortable making a fast decision and need some time to reflect
• Family reasons - Need time to discuss with the partner

Best!

Hi,

First of all congrats on the offer. Answering your questions:

1. I've only heard about similar cases with Bain. Well, it happens. I would not worry that much about the career slow down - McKinsey will bring you the fastest career you could have imagined. If you are concerned about the internship - I personally recommend applying to the other MBB companies since you have 6-9 months anyway. Chances are high you can get a better role there
2. As for the business acumen, here are some thoughts:

Business Acumen is actually about building proper industry and functional knowledge.

Focus on the most common industries in the following priority (sorted by probability of geting a case): 1-retail and CPG; 2-airlines; 3-Telecom; 4-banking; 5-natural resources; 6-tech

There are several sources of information that will help you develop the business sense:

1) Cases - you simply solve 50-70 cases and get a broad knowledge of different industries, common pitfalls and questions. The key here - find good partners who already had case interviews with MBB companies

2) Company reports, equity reports, IB roadshow docs - usually have a good overview of company and industries.

3) HBS cases - quite useful, but not sure if lot's of them available publically. Probably worth buying

4) Industry Books - one good book about airlines with numbers and industry analysis can give you all needed industry knowledge

5) News, Industry blogs

For each industry, you should understand:

• Revenue streams
• Cost structure
• Margins
• Key performance indicators
• Key revenue drivers
• Industry trends

I strongly recommend drawing the typical structures for each industry - profitability, value chain, etc

Then I will switch to getting functional knowledge:

• Marketing (Brand and trade marketing tools, etc)
• Supply chain (Ops metrics like cycle time and throughput time, distribution and delivery specifics, etc)
• Operations (Process optimization basics)
• Finance (Very basic Finance and Valuation)

Good Luck

Hi,

It's important to show the commitment anyway and they will always give some time. Although in some countries, time may become critical since companies may have dedicated starting dates related to international training or batches or immediate project opportunities. I had this problem with two of my offers.

But there still may be several strategies to get more time:

• Be transparent - you want to finish the process with all companies (And it's not about the particular company. For example, Bain was giving me an Intern Role while McKinsey gave me a Senior Analyst)
• Ask for the time without explanation and if there is an urgency ask back why is the urgency
• Time to learn more from employees: Given with what I've seen so far I am happy to sign the offer but I might need some more time to talk to people, visit the office and learn more about the company
• Contract - Need time to check the contract details (it's not just about salary but also you can't have equity ownership as a consultant and you need to sell your businesses)
• Refer to feelings - you can say that you don't feel comfortable making a fast decision and need some time to reflect
• Family reasons - Need time to discuss with the partner

Best!

Hi,

This situation is very unusual for an MBB company. At least for a generalist role.

I guess the only thing you can do in that situation - get another offer and use it as a leverage.

Best!

The second of the two methods you outlined gives indeed the economic value for the worker.

Together the two methods determine the “goal posts” of how overtime pay is determined for workers (sometimes legislation comes into play where overtime must be a minimum of 1.x times regular time pay). The final determination of the exact amount takes in to account the economic value that overtime creates for the employer. That is usually estimated by understanding the incremental profitability (vs. Profitability of regular hours) these marginal hours of work generate.

hope it helps,

andrea

Hey anonymous,

No, it's definitely not normal for any location to take so long to communicate the final results (it may take 1-2 days; in some exceptional situations a bit longer, but definitely not 2+ weeks). And, yes, regardless of the outcome, they will always communicate it!

Thus, I would recommend you to send them a very polite follow up email asking if they have a date on when they will communicate it to you (do not ask directly why didn't they say anything yet or if you have got an offer or not).

PS: despite not being a normal situation... this happened to me too. I just got an interview 2 or 3 weeks after the final interview, and at the time the interviewer told me that he had completely forgotten to call to tell me that I passed. 10 years latter this gives a funny story to tell :D

Best

Bruno