Most applicants aged 25, without a university degree, professional employment or leadership experience have few career options. Read about 8 such women who followed a 3-step process to join McKinsey and BCG, and defy their past. Co-written with eight past members including those featured in this article.

Irina did not follow the path of a typical Ukrainian high school graduate. Unlike her peers who studied the arts, economics or mathematics at university, she did not have the luxury of pursuing post-secondary education. She could not afford the opportunity cost.

The only child to a widowed and ill mother, she had grown up with the expectation that taking care of her mother was the natural next stage of her life. Therefore, despite graduating 1st in her class, she pursued the unlikely path of shunning an essentially free university education to seek full time employment in Ukraine’s black-market economy. More.