Too structured in Brainstorming

First of all, congratuations!

As other experts suggested, it's necessary to clarify what exactly “too structured” means in the feedback.

The brainstorming part is to see a candidate coming up with sufficient sensible answers / hypothesis / explanations / ideas / etc., and ideally there would be something innovative. It does not require a structure to do so, but a certain structure helps you communicate your answers clearly with the interviewer.

Good practices I see from experts as well as from strong candidates:

• A top-down approach (structured brainstorming), refer to this article “Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box” from HBR. If you happened to use this approach, there are potential risks of: 1) spending too much time, 2) laying out the entire structure when communicating your answer. The solution is to do it mentally, and give the answer in a simpler structure.
• Bottom-up approach, more often used by people for whom coming up a lot of ideas is easy. Then just “structure” the laundry list first before sharing back, but don't over do the structure, 1 level should suffice.

Thank you for producing such a fascinating essay on this subject. This has sparked a lot of thought in me, and I'm looking forward to reading more. Thank you for producing such a fascinating essay on this subject. This has sparked a lot of thought in me, and I'm looking forward to reading more my web site 

Hey, congrats first of all! 

I could imagine that you used frameworks to create your brainstorming structure. I would ensure that the brainstorming section does not include any frameworks - keep them in mind when thinking about drivers but do not use the framework itself as a driver (e.g., customer, company, competitors). 

BR, 

Alessa 

Hi there,

That's a bit of an odd feedback to receive. 

Would you mind sharing the question and answer to understand this a bit better (feel free to DM if you want to stay private).

Cheers,

Florian

Feels like you created a full scale structure to answer a simple question… There should be some structure on these qualitative questions, but the answer cannot be about the structure.

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on the progress in the application process with McKinsey thus far!

I would be happy to share my thoughts on your question:

• First of all, if possible, I would highly advise you to clarify what the feedback was really about if you don't seem to understand it.
• Moreover, from an outside perspective, it sounds like you overdid it with the structuring in this qualitative question. In these questions, the most important criterion is creativity, not structure, even if it has to be structured. Therefore, try to shift your focus slightly in order to be successful in the final interview round.

You can find more on this topic here: How to succeed in the final interview round.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare for your upcoming McKinsey final-round interviews, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen