An undergraduate subscriber to The Consulting Offer shares his experiences using the material to interview at McKinsey Toronto. He is now preparing for his McKinsey  final round interviews which are 6 days away.

Hi Michael,

So, I am going to be doing my second round Summer interview on Friday at McKinsey Toronto.

Some points from the cases today, if you are interested (number 3 was interesting):

1. The first case was a retail banking case from South Africa. Although I had some knowledge of the business landscape in South Africa, and particularly of other African nations, your own podcasts on the Johannesburg office and Sub-Saharan gave me some great perspective, conversation, and judgment.

2. The second interviewer was a former investment banker from McKinsey Toronto BTO. He did not appreciate the broader issue trees and always forced me to narrow down to only one bucket for the analysis. In speaking to the third interviewer (he did not interview me, but we have had great conversations in the past), he noted that this interviewer was the opposite scale on the MBTI scale as were we: very specific, regimented structure. This was something I realized early and luckily adjusted to, after noting the awful socks he was wearing in order to pay attention (re: your podcast on noting imperfections).

3. The second interviewer also asked a surprising, if not too difficult question: You are my analyst. We have to valuate this private company. What sheets do we have on our spreadsheet and what data do we ask them for to fill those 3-4 sheets?

It makes sense, but the I-banking background really does push it.

4. My communication issues were there, but I believe the issue was just to sit back and relax more during the case. I got away with it due to great content and detail on PEI (re: your suggestions for quotes, conflict, understanding the persons perspective and reasoning through what they would want).

5. I got away with a pretty bad mental math error. Likely due to high quantitative test scores.

6. McKinsey-ites love talking about the strategy of the firm. I just made sure to ask them their background so that I could frame my questions better (i.e. the BTO interviewer was asked how BTO fit into the McKinsey strategy).

I will work on my development points:

1. mental math (slow down)

2. structure more concisely and deeply (this has to do with communication, as well as brainstorming and proper hypothesis development)

3. Keep using banter and business judgment to work through tough complex problems, but communicate the breakdown of logic better/more concisely.

Thank you for your help so far.

I also appreciate the note you sent out regarding changes to the program. This sort of equality/equity argument is extremely touchy and takes some fortitude to work through. I commend the effort to think and do the best job possible.

Sincerely,

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