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Your experience with McKinsey Imbellus digital assessment?

Assessment Digital Imbellus McKinsey PSG
New answer on Mar 06, 2021
3 Answers
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Anonymous A asked on Mar 05, 2021

Hello all,

I will be doing McKinsey's Imbellus digital assessment in 2 days. Has anyone done it lately and what was your experience?

I have already read the content of the previous posts here, like the answers the coaches posted which was helpful to be familiar with the game a bit. However, I would really appreciate if someone who has done the test lately to share some insights.

I promise to share my experience here once I'm done ;)

Thank you

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Anonymous B replied on Mar 05, 2021

Hi,

I just did the Imbellus assessment one month ago.If you have already done your research on the matter, you won't experience any trouble completing the assessment. There are basically two types of game that you have to complete: the first one is eco-system building and the other one is about protecting a flower from invaders on a round by round basis.

While the second game was pretty easy to understand, managing to create an eco-system that is sustainable is a bit more complex. There is a lot of data and you don't really get the time to make sure that all the choices you make are correct.

My best advice would be to keep track of the time and to remain calm during the assesment. I don't know how much the test accounts for your overall performance but I didn't get any feedback on my performance. I believed that I failed the first game and still got invited to interviews later on. In a nutshell don't stress too much about the test, it will be fine.

Hope this helps, best of luck for your test !

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Anonymous A on Mar 06, 2021

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I still have a couple of questions if you kindly help with 1) Do you think having an excel on the side is helpful for the eco-system? 2) Is the eco-system mainly about balancing calories needed (It seems that the other factors like depth and so can be easily balanced)? Thanks again

Paul on Mar 06, 2021

1) I didn't have an excel on the side, I just drew a table on a piece of paper with the most important information. I think that an excel can be helpful but only if it is really well laid out so you don't lose time typing in all the information. 2) Yes, the eco-system is mainly about balancing calories needed and calories provided but making sure that you take into account some constraints such as eating rules. The other factors such as depth, winds, etc only matter at the end when you place your eco-system on to the map. The way it works is that you can divide species into two or three groups were all the species of the same group share the same factors in terms of depth, salinity, etc... So what I did is that I focused only on species within the same group (i.e sharing the same factors) and then selected the ones I wanted to balance the calories. Hope this makes sense, it's quite hard to explain. Don't hesitate if you have other questions :)

Anonymous A on Mar 06, 2021

Thanks a lot! Yes - a couple of more questions if you might :) 1) How do you recommend the time allocation to be? 2) What was the trickiest part for you of each of the two games and how did you overcome it? Cheers mate

Paul on Mar 07, 2021

1) I would say around 35 to 40 minutes for the first game and around 20 for the second one. I finished the assessment 10 minutes earlier because I rushed a bit through the first game so definitely take more time on the first game. 2) For the first game, the trickiest thing was to really understand eating rules, i.e understand which animal is eating forst, second etc... Selecting animals that have the highest calories provided first can help. Drawing a small eating cycle on your piece of paper also helps. For the second game, I would say the tricky part is that you can change your strategy depending on what the predators do because it's on a round by round basis. So take time at each turn to redefine your strategy and don't rush too much.

(edited)

Anonymous A on Mar 08, 2021

Thanks a lot for the help Paul!

Clara
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Mar 06, 2021
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

Have you seen PrepL´s library? There are some prep materials that can be useful there.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

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Francesco
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Mar 06, 2021
#1 Coach for Sessions (4.000+) | 1.500+ 5-Star Reviews | Proven Success (➡ InterviewOffers.com) | Ex BCG | 10Y+ Coaching

Hi there,

It seems you already know the basics of the game.

If you want to really deep dive into the preparation, you can find at the following link a sum up of tens of candidates and the best strategies to crack the Imbellus scenarios in the guide I wrote:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/mckinsey-imbellus-game-secrets-48

Besides the descriptions of the scenarios and specific tips for each of them, you will also get the following ad-hoc material:

  1. Excel tutorial to Manage the Ecosystem Management game
  2. Food chain templates to optimize the Food Chain
  3. Rules of the Game for the Chain
  4. Examples of Chains working and not working

Using them you will save several minutes during the game.

If you have any additional questions after going through the guide, please feel free to write to me and I will reply within 12 hours with any additional tips or suggestions you may need.

Best,

Francesco

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