Timing McKinsey case

Hi Anonymous,

I agree with the comment of Vlad on the final conclusion. In terms of the direct answer to your questions:

• a McKinsey interview is usually structured as 5-15 mins icebreakers and fit questions, 25-35 mins case and 5 mins for your questions. Obviously, you could be extremely fast in cracking the case and complete it in 20 minutes. If that happens, sometimes the interviewer may ask additional questions he/she would normally not ask, or just spend more time for the questions at the end
• as mentioned by Vlad, it would be extremely unusual if the interviewer would not ask for a final recommendation. The McKinsey interview is structured to cover all the major area of the case (initial structure, graph, math, creativity question, final conclusion, etc). If the interviewee goes too long in an area, the interviewer usually leads it directly to the next. The interviewer could also move to the next area if he/she understands in advance you are able to crack that area, to concentrate more on other parts.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hi,

You might not solve the full case, but they will always ask you to provide a recommendation. In many cases, the interviewer will just interrupt you and ask for the recommendations. It does not necessarily mean something bad.

1. Consultants want to save the time for your questions at the end of the interview. Actually, in many cases, they don't even expect you to go through the whole structure and get a final answer.
2. Consultants may be testing several things:

• Are you comfortable enough with providing preliminary recommendations based on limited data? (Imagine a CEO whom you met in the elevator and who wants to know the preliminary findings)
• Will you make a mistake of providing a recommendation with a high level of certainty without having a proper supporting data?

As a result, there are two problems that you may face:

1. In the interviewer-led cases, you have to answer the questions that the interviewer asked you and very often these questions don't all link up
2. In many cases, you can't provide a definite recommendation since you don't have enough information and were interrupted in the middle of the case

Addressing the first problem you should:

• Provide the recommendation for the initial objective of the case
• Put everything else you have discussed in the additional part

For example:

1. Our objectives were to understand why the profit is declining by X and how to bring the profit back within one year (Don't forget that your objective should be measurable in terms of money / other metric and time)
2. According to the analysis we've done so far, my recommendation is to shut down the division A and to concentrate on the divisions b/c if we want to increase the profit, and there is a number of reasons for that.. (Remember that your arguments should include numbers).
3. You provide the arguments a) First of all, problems in Division A are the major driver of the decline in profits - 90% of the decline in profits refer to Division A. b) Secondly, the decline is driven by the contracting market size that is shrinking at xx percent and is not expected to improve in the near future. c) Finally....
4. Additionally, I would like to check the following... (In the last bullet, you simply provide a list of other things you have discussed, but they were not the part of the original objective / the things you slightly discussed but haven't come to any conclusion, like the questions on creativity)

As for the second problem - Indeed, in many cases, you can't provide a definite answer.

Imagine a case when you have to make a decision whether a PE fund should acquire a company. You make a proper structure (Market, Competitors, Company, Feasibility of Exit) and in 25 min of a case, you've managed only to go through the Market and Competitors branches of the analysis. What will be your recommendation?

In this case, you have to provide a Soft Recommendation:

1. You start with an objective ("Our objective was to understand whether we should buy this company")
2. You provide a preliminary recommendation highlighting the uncertainty("According to the limited data we have so far, our preliminary recommendation is to buy this company and there are three reasons for that..." or "Purely based on the data we have about the market it looks like it's a good idea for a number of reasons..")
3. You provide the reasons ("First of all the market is big at X and growing at Y, Secondly the competition is fragmented with the target company having x% of the market. Thirdly...")
4. You Mention the pieces of data that you need to provide a full recommendation ("But to come up with a final recommendation I would like to look at the company financials, key capabilities and..." or "But to be 100% sure in our recommendation we need to check...)

Best,

Vlad