504: A guide to difficult decision making (with Eric Pliner)

Many candidates forget to sanity-check their calculations in a case. That is a bad idea. Without a sanity-check there is no way to meaningfully assess the accuracy of your answer. More important, how you perform the sanity check is the key. All sanity-checks must involve the reduction of the answer to a number that you can intuitively compare to your own experiences. Unless you do this, you can never defend your answer.

10 Jul 20125min

I have written this from the perspective of the partner, since I was the partner leading this engagement. Consulting engagements at McKinsey and BCG, especially, tend to be naturally analytic in nature. This particular engagement was extremely so since the underlying analytic technique we were trying to use had never ever been successfully applied to a real environment with so many "messy" data points and random events. This podcast will be especially useful to those with physics, math and computer science backgrounds who want to see how consulting firms apply very creative analyses while sticking to the strict guidelines on analytic rigor.

4 Jul 201257min

Despite all the hype about BCG, McKinsey et al, you will only have a great career after these firms if you are astonishingly strategic in your career choices and also get promoted. If you do not get promoted you will spend the rest of your life explaining why you were not managed out - not a pleasant discussion since you will rarely be believed. This podcast explains some of the decisions you will have to make and how to make them.

28 Jun 201223min

Too many candidates do their case interview preparation in August and September. While we certainly think 6 months is far to long to spend preparing, we believe candidates need to create a list of their development area and use this to decide their preparation time. No time candidates are the same and weaknesses should drive the preparation time in its totality. Choosing average based on what your friends are doing is generally a very, very bad idea.

22 Jun 201218min

PhD candidates face three unique circumstances. First, they have to overcome the lack of available timing or guidelines for internship interviews since most thesis advisers will be unlikely to reschedule experiments and summer plans to accommodate McKinsey internship requests. Two, PhD's have certain stereotypes which they personally believe and exhibit such as they are less analytic than MBAs. Third, PhD's need to address the weaknesses consulting firms think they have like an inability to prioritize. This podcast touches on the main issues.

16 Jun 201219min

One of the greatest myths is that entering a case competition will help you prepare for a consulting interview and will impress a consulting firm. Neither is true and this podcast explains why. We specifically encourage our clients to avoid case competitions if they can. If mandatory, we insist they put in the least possible effort.

10 Jun 201220min

This general podcast describes some of the common misconceptions applicants and even practicing McKinsey/BCG consultants have about their own firms. It will be useful to anyone who wants to understand some of the broad themes and misunderstandings about the profession.

4 Jun 201213min

This podcast examines the 5 "hard" elements McKinsey looks for in a resume. Yet, the main value of this podcast is in discussing the things McKinsey looks for but is very hard to quantify and describe; what is the best bullet to write, what is an achievement oriented bullet, should education go to the top or bottom, should GMAT scores be included etc. These subtle inclusions all contribute to your resume profile and in our experience, we have never seen a resume that did not have to be substantially re-written.

29 Mai 201229min