Help!!Just been invited for Mckinsey 1st round interview for an analyst role, after passing the Imbellus game.Details :

Hi Zadok,

I usually recommend the following to prepare (you may have already covered some of them):

1. Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have before the interview and allocate a time slot for preparation in your calendar for each day, working on the points below. Many people need 100+ hours to be ready before the interview so you can keep that as a benchmark
2. Read Case In Point or Case Interview Secrets for a general understanding of what a consulting interview is. Don’t focus on the structures proposed in the books, as they are not good enough nowadays.
3. Start reading good MBA Consulting Handbooks – you can find several for free online (Insead is a good one to start). Read the cases and try to apply your structure to solve them. Whenever you see there is something missing, upgrade your structure with the new insides. Try to read at least a new case per day – in this way you will absorb better the information with constant learning.
4. After the first 5-10 cases in books/handbooks and basic theory, start to practice live. PrepLounge can be helpful to connect with other candidates for that. There is a relevant part of the interview score that is based on your communication, which you cannot practice at all if you read cases only. Keep track of your mistakes and see if you repeat them. If so, try to identify the source of the mistake (feedback of experienced partners would be particularly useful for this). The case part should also cover math and graph analysis.
5. Before the interviews, be sure to prepare your questions for the interviewer –great way to show you prepared in advance and to connect with the interviewer for a good final impression.

If you want to spend few hours only instead of 100+ and cover everything mentioned above, I developed a program to do precisely that. I helped recently someone starting from almost zero to get a McK offer in around 2 weeks (you check the reviews of the program for references).

You can click on the following link to learn more:

https://u.preplounge.com/63phuq

After this program, you will know exactly what to expect in your interview, what to work on, and how to focus on the real differentiators to land a McKinsey offer.

Please feel free to PM me if you need more information.

Best,

Francesco

Hi Zadok,

First, please learn this valuable lesson: Prepare ahead of time for all opportunities...don't wait till the last minute.

Second, if you're going to get ready in time (2 weeks is incredibly short if you're starting at ground 0), you really need a coach. Get one ASAP...they'll make sure you ramp up as fast as possible (doing this yourself if going to be super stressful+challenging)

Hey there,

Congrats on the opportunity to interview with McK! Here is my advice on structuring your prep, specifically for McKinsey:

1. Read up on what is expected of you during the interview (McK career website offers some useful materials and videos to familiarize yourself with the type of interviews they are doing).

2. Practice the McKinsey sample cases on their website to get a feel for their focus on creative, non-standard, and interviewer-led cases and their 3 question types (structure, exhibit, math).

3. Hire a coach for one baseline session. You want to make sure to maximize what you get out of your preparation efforts early on to not waste any time.

The latter covers several points:

1. Establish a baseline score of your performance, which should be the guiding principle throughout your preparation journey
2. Create a tailored plan to elevate bad areas to good areas and good areas to excellent areas (with dedicated exercises in-between sessions and tailored case and personal fit sessions) based on the actual evaluation criteria of MBB
3. Teach you the correct habits and mindset right from the start so you can practice internalizing proper methods early on (and avoid learning wrong habits or faulty thinking that you would need to unlearn later on)
4. Set you up effectively for practice with peers as well as alone to strengthen your performance right from the start
5. Focus on what really matters, leaving out the noise that is floating around that once was relevant but no longer is, materials created by people who never saw a McKinsey office from the inside, perpetually repeated wrong advice that will hurt your performance, etc.

4. Work on cases with peers, practicing the approach and structure learned. It is important you stick to interviewer-led cases during your practice and that the cases cover the actual McKinsey question types.

5. Work on the exercises recommended by your coach to improve on your own.

6. In steps 4 and 5, build your skills: Elevate your performance in areas of weakness to become at least solid and robust in your approach and methodology; elevate your performance in areas you already feel comfortable to an excellent level. That way, you make sure to establish spikes in some areas of the case and have a solid methodology and approach in others, which will result in a well-balanced candidate profile and interview performance. That way, you can also make minor mistakes during the real case interviews, which will not hurt your outcome. For instance, if you struggle with math, there is no excuse not to devote 2 hours a day for weeks to work through math drills and calculation exercises. At the same time, you can devote 1-2 hours a day to structuring or chart interpretation exercises or full case interview drills.

7. Consider sprinkling in professional coaching sessions every now and then to calibrate your performance, get honest feedback, and effective advice on changes to your prep strategy, and plan

If you want to fast-track your McKinsey interview preparation, I am happy to help. I developed this program to fast-track your McK interview preparation and elevate your chances to pass significantly: https://www.preplounge.com/en/profile.php?id=337437#coaching-package

All the best!
Cheers,
Florian

If you can fully devote these 2 weeks for prep, it's honestly not too bad so don't panic. 

You need a coach to spend the time with. What you need in a coach:

- To be 100% sure that they are someone who was on an EM level with McKinsey
- Start as soon as possible
- Someone who can spend with you 2-3 hours per day (no more needed imo)
- Someone you can trust to not use you as a cash-cow (takes you anyway even though he/she is not sure they can really make your odds to pass reasonable) but a professional who can tell you " I can't" if they can't.
- Make a clear plan with them (on what to do per day .. etc)

Best of luck mate

On the plus side you know that you need to prepare at all costs for the first round in a short amount of time. I agree with Ian - a coach will help you pinpoint areas you are strong at and areas you need to work on in order to quickly get up to speed. Other than that there is a lot of advice here on how to prepare and what resources to use. Remember to not forget to focus on PEI - 50% of your score will come from there.

Best,

Udayan