I wanted to share this field report from a FFY who took a non-traditional route into consulting, had to prepare without the resources available on campus, and faced numerous disadvantages but still secured an offer.

Field Report:

You have undoubtedly changed my life. And I mean that in the most sincere, non-cliché way possible. It is because of the resources you have made available online that I was able to secure an offer from McKinsey as a Business Analyst… which I signed and returned yesterday.

I have a unique background, and am what I consider an unlikely candidate for a top 3 consulting firm. First of all, I have a liberal arts degree from [U.S. university] (a US top 40 that is not on any firm’s target school list).

Second, after college, I got a job at [ad agency], a top advertising agency, but not exactly a common (though not unprecedented either) route to management consulting. It was my achievements during my first two years [there] that I think caught McKinsey’s attention, and prompted them to reach out and ask me to apply. 1. I got promoted two levels at once right before my 2-year anniversary, and 2. I led the program strategy for a new practice area at [the ad agency], and was covered in the New York Times. (And maybe, 3. The fact that I work on [large client] which is a huge name).

But after I made it past the impressive resume part and the first 30-minute personal experience interview, I had to face the unpleasant reality that I wouldn’t just have this job handed to me as a result of my accomplishments. I had to learn how to do a case interview.

Now, I had heard of them, but never was interested in consulting before, so I didn’t fully understand what they entailed. Thus, I thought I would be OK with a few hours of preparation.

Then luckily (or as I felt at the time, unluckily), I read in one of your newsletters that successful candidates often have between 100 and 200 hours of preparation. I thought to myself that I could never fit that much practice in, given the fact that I still had to work at my normal job, and that I was really, really jealous of students who were on campus with resources, peers, etc. to help them (plus the knowledge that case interviews require a lot more preparation than a normal experience interview with four questions that any smooth talker can quickly ace).

But if ever there were story to give hope to experienced professionals, mine may be it. I gave up all my free time for about a week and had my first 30-minute case interview phone screen with a McKinsey alum. While I did well enough to move onto the next round, the results were rattled with constructive feedback.

According to my interviewer, I needed to work on analytical skills, quantitative skills and conceptual skills. So basically the whole case! I quickly went home and downloaded LOMS and found it was a complete gift (even though I paid for it, it was kind of a steal if you think about the value/compensation trajectory of working at McKinsey).

In total there were five rounds:

• 30-minute personal experience interview with the recruiter (phone)
• 30-minute case interview with an alum (phone)
• 1-hour personal experience and case interview with an Engagement Manager (phone)
• 1-hour personal experience and case interview with an Engagement Manager and problem-solving test (in-person)
• 3 1-hour personal experience and case interviews with Partners or APs (in-person)

It was a grueling process, but in the end I got the offer and in fact I was over-prepared (I re-read the post about Victor Cheng being too picky and was able to fully appreciate everything it and you had said). Literally, LOMS filled the void of not having a school, a career center, a consulting club, any of the normal on-campus resources normally available to student candidates — and very much helped me get the job.

I learned a few key things that I’d like to share with you and the rest of your readers.

1) Persistence. I know you’re fond of saying that many people who are successful have to face failure first. It might seem on the surface that I was successful on my first attempt, but please do not underestimate just how much rejection and disappointment I felt as I prepared for these interviews. At every round of live practice, I was met with former consultants who berated my inability to think outside marketing (this was big), do math (so frustrating) or apply a hypothesis-driven approach correctly.

I wanted to give up, and thought that my decision to use all my free time in [three] months to practice for cases was very much a waste of time if I didn’t get an offer. But I never gave up, I stuck with it through all five rounds until I had the offer in-hand. I was persistent even in the face of brutal, insensitive and hard-to-hear feedback.

2) LOMS is not a silver bullet. That means, it’s not going to do the brainstorming for you, the structuring, the math or the synthesis. When you’re in a case interview, it’s still you and you have to address the client problem at hand. If you can’t do that, you won’t pass. But LOMS does teach you how to do some really important things very effectively.

3) Synthesis. To me, the language of the standard close always seemed pretty straightforward. “We think you should do X, here are three reasons, so we think you should do X.” But I soon learned that concepts, ideas, even acts of verbal repetition that seem “straightforward” in everyday life are actually not so under the pressure of a real case interview.

But by practicing the synthesis so often that the structure became straightforward, even in the context of the real life interview scenario — I was able to focus on the part that wasn’t straightforward, which was the “X” in that sentence, as well as the 3 reasons. I actually found that, once the “straightforward” parts were “second-nature,” I was able to start annotating during the case, tracking the parts that I wanted to bring up during my synthesis — so at the end, I actually had all three points clearly marked and didn’t have to scramble to find them at the end. It was a remarkable experience.

4) Structuring. Another interesting note was the third example of the Fashion case (I think Case #9). In this best practice example, the candidate used a custom issue tree. It’s amazing to me that just by doing the active listening, repeating it out loud and truly understanding it, I was easily able to come up with my own issues trees in my case interviews. It was shocking to me, but as someone who is, like you, very interested in the psychology of learning (I was a psychology major in college and aspire perhaps to be a psychologist at some point in the distant future), I found it fascinating.

In the end, I truly believe that despite how much the firms may view case interviews as a measure of raw skill, I think they are much more a measure of how well you can do a case interview. There is, I’m sure, a direct correlation between preparation and performance and for me, a combination of over-listening to LOMS and over-doing the practice cases with anyone I could get made me shine on the day of my final round interview.

The feedback I got from two of the partners were respectively, “we were all really impressed,” and when I decided to join, “we’re lucky to have you.”

Thanks again for all you do for the vast community of WW CIBs and FFYs.

My Reply:

In a word, AWESOME!  Thank you so much for sharing the wonderful news and being so detailed and specific in your experiences.

Despite having numerous disadvantages — non-Ivy, no career center support, coming from advertising which is perceived as a non-analytical field with a huge bias against the profession from MBB, your initial inability to be hypothesis driven, the difficulty to think beyond the marketing aspects of a case, the relative weak math skills — you still did it!

In summarizing your disadvantages, my initial reaction was wow… there sure were a lot of them!

But I love that you persisted through all of it. Like anything, the ability to solve cases is a skill. And while this skill does require a fair amount of raw talent, like any skill, it can be developed.

I’m glad it worked out for you, as clearly you more than earned it. Big time congratulations!

One of the most profoundly important concepts in business (and in managing your career) is the idea of the Decisive Advantage.

The concept applies to any endeavor that involves competition — and more importantly deciding whether or not to even bother competing. It is this latter decision that most people rarely consciously consider. This is as true for aspiring management consultants as it is for your future clients.

Here’s why.

When placed in the middle of a competition, most people’s overwhelming initial instinct is to compete to win. This is especially true for very successful people.

This phenomenon is reinforced by the education system. If only 10 people can get an A grade in a class, most competitive and successful people strive to be one of the 10.

However, as you transition out of the academic world to the”free” world, you increasingly have the option to choose not to compete. It’s a profoundly critical decision to make, in both your career and for your future clients.

The essence of strategy consulting (as opposed to IT, human capital or operations consulting) is to consider the “big picture” questions that rarely get considered.

It is for this reason I find it quite ironic that some strategy consultants who ask their clients tough questions sometimes forget to ask themselves the same questions. Sadly, I include myself in this category – especially earlier in my career.

With this introduction to the Decisive Advantage, let me cut to the chase and give you the 80/20 of today’s lesson.

If you do not have a Decisive Advantage, do not compete - especially over the long-term.

This is especially the case when opportunity costs are high. If your client enters market A, they don’t have the resources to enter market B.  If you pursue career path A, you don’t have the time or energy to pursue career path B.

This principle is truer for businesses than for careers –but hopefully you get the point.

Now this principle of the decisive advantage is taught in all business schools and seems like common sense. Yet what I’ve come to realize over the years is that common knowledge is often not common practice.

In my business, I work a lot with smaller businesses, with the largest being Inc. 500 sized companies. As such, when I walk around town, I can’t help but analyze the businesses I see as I walk down the street. What I often find is that the majority of businesses have no real decisive advantage to speak of.

This results in many such companies either going out of business or squeaking by on “average” industry profits.

This pattern is certainly not limited to small businesses. The same issue exists with Fortune and Global 500 companies. For example, in the United States we have a retail store chain that used to be popular. It’s a chain called K-Mart.

K-mart has absolutely no decisive competitive advantage whatsoever anymore. I remember reading an article about K-Mart five years ago, and their new CEO read a research report that said 86% of Wal-Mart’s customers (their #1 competitor) drive past a K-Mart on their way to Wal-Mart.

It is absolutely brutal to be running a business (or to advise a client who is running a business) that has no decisive advantage.

Similarly, it is equally brutal to pursue or persist in a career path where you have no decisive advantage either.

That being said, it can make sense to pursue a particular job (like consulting) to acquire certain skills, experience or contacts to be used to achieve a longer-term objective.

This is the difference between a tactical decision vs. a strategic one.  A tactical decision is a decision you make that enables you to pursue your strategic objective (where you have a decisive advantage).

An example of this is someone taking a job working at McDonald’s in order to pay for night school. Working at McDonald’s isn’t the goal; it’s just a means to the goal. This subtle distinction is an important one to keep in mind.

Here’s why.

As you progress in your career, especially if you’re successful, you will constantly come across opportunities you could pursue.

Similarly, if you have a client with a successful business, there will be so many opportunities they uncover that they could pursue – a new partnership, a new product, or a new market segment.

It is not easy to constantly say “no” to these opportunities to stay “on strategy.” At every level of business, disciplined focus is extremely hard to achieve.

For example, in 1991, AT&T made a strategic acquisition of NCR – the National Cash Register company. Yes, the telephone (and now mobile) company bought a cash register company for $7+ billion.

For the life of me, I could not figure out why they would do such a thing. Maybe the price was right. Maybe the existing management team at NCR was incompetent and AT&T thought they could do a better job. All of these reasons are merely tactical reasons.

The fundamental strategic question is this:

What was AT&T’s Decisive Advantage in owning NCR? Why would NCR be infinitely more valuable in AT&T’s hands than as an independent company?

As it turns out, AT&T had no decisive advantage in this market. AT&T paid $7 billion for the privilege of losing even more money, until years later AT&T spun off NCR as a standalone company.

As I said, common sense isn’t always common practice. Just remember this rule of thumb:  Always have a decisive advantage in any market, business, or career path you enter– especially one for the long haul.

In any kind of high stakes competition, whether for your clients or for your own career, it’s VITAL to have a decisive advantage over the competition. Warren Buffet calls in the Durable Competitive Advantage. Michael Porter calls it Competitive Advantage. Regardless of the phrasing, the concept is the same:

NEVER compete in a competition where you don’t have a major advantage over the competition.

(I suggest re-reading that last sentence 3 times…. most people, including most CEOs I know, do not grasp that point)

Having taught this point to thousands of CEOs across the United States and to tens of thousands of aspiring management consultants, the most common question I get asked is, “How do I figure out what’s my decisive advantage?”

This is THE critical question.

Before I answer this, let me review WHY determining your decisive advantage is so important. It determines two factors in any effort: 1) the amount of effort required, 2) the likelihood of a positive outcome.

When you have a decisive advantage, the amount of work required drops substantially and the likelihood of success goes up considerably.

Yet despite this common sense rule of thumb, few people actually consider whether or not they possess a decisive advantage in deciding whether or not to compete or deciding how to compete.

One reason for this is many people are simply unaware of their own decisive advantage.

So let me address HOW you can figure out what your advantage is over everyone else.

To start, it’s actually very hard for you to notice your own unique talent, gift or ability that’s the underlying basis for your distinctive advantage. A part of the problem is most people take for granted their gifts… because often you’ve never known life without it!

For example, if someone told you that you’re a gifted listener. If you’re like most people, you won’t think of this is as a gift or an advantage over other people because you’ve never known what it was like to NOT be such a good listener. You’re just too accustomed to your own gifts.

The key to discovering your own gift is to realize you need to see yourself through the eyes of the people around you.

For managing your own career, this means asking friends, families and colleagues what makes you special or different from others? It means asking your boss, why did you hire me vs everyone else?

It means asking your parents, what were the 1 or 2 things you did as a child that was unique or better than other kids of the same age?

I often encourage my corporate clients to under a similar self assessment — to determine what they’re company’s decisive advantage in the marketplace. I have them call up their top 10 clients and ask them a simple, but revealing question.

WHY do you continue to do business with us?

If all 10 clients give the same reason, THAT is the company’s decisive advantage in that market.

You would think that most companies would naturally know the answer to this question. But in many cases they don’t. That’s because a decisive advantage is a RELATIVE comparison.

Even if you know your own abilities at an absolute level, you don’t always have a clear sense of the abilities of your competition. Without the benchmark, it’s hard to figure out your relative advantage or disadvantage.

What I find interesting about one’s decisive advantage is that it’s fairly persistent through time. For example, about 4 years ago I worked with a friend and colleague of mine Rob Berkley, an executive coach, to figure out my own gifts and talents. www.visionday.com

He had me ask my friends, families and co-workers many of the questions I’ve outlined above. In total, I asked 10 people to describe what they thought my #1 talents or gifts were.

The two themes that came up over and over again were:

1. Clarity of Thought
2. Good at explaining / teaching things

I had a few reactions:

1. It was surprising to me that other people thought my thinking was particularly clear. I mean my thinking is just my thinking. My thinking has been clear to me, but I just assumed everyone else’s thinking was just as clear. But, it turns out all of my family, friends and former co-workers disagree. While I don’t think my own thinking is that clear, apparently on a relative basis it is.
2. I never saw myself as a teacher. Yet, everyone else did. In high school, I was always the guy helping everyone else pass their college entrance. (They all did well!). In college, I was teaching financial planning and retirement planning to my friends studying sciences. I even help them setup their retirement accounts at the age of 19 years old. It didn’t seem like that big a deal to me at the time, but apparently to others this was not the norm.
3. Finally, 100% of the replies were more or less IDENTICAL. In short, everybody I asked thought “clarity” and “teaching” were my gifts… EXCEPT ME!

So here I was truly shocked by the answer, and all of my friends are shocked that I’m shocked.

I get a lot of emails from my readers about Case Interviews that are very consistent with the feedback from my friends. So even though at some level I don’t quite believe, the qualitative data strongly suggests that I’m a clear thinker that can teach.

It’s a hypothesis I try to, but can’t seem to, disprove, and thus I reluctantly accept it as true even though it contradicts my historical self image.

So the way to identify YOUR gifts and talents… which in turn is the source of your decisive advantage… is to ask OTHER PEOPLE what they think is your gift or talent.

The next step in the process is to have the COURAGE to avoid competitions where you have no advantage, and to pursue competitions where you DO have a DECISIVE ADVANTAGE.

For example, as a small business owner and a consultant that works with other small businesses, I come across a LOT of opportunities for investment, markets to get into, etc. It seems with every speech or article I write, someone suggests a business opportunity tied to that.

I have created a rule for myself. It is the same rule I apply to my corporate clients when advising them on company strategy.

Here’s the general rule of thumb, followed by how I apply it to my own career.

NEVER ENTER A MARKET WHERE
YOU DON’T HAVE A DECISIVE ADVANTAGE.

The Corollary is:

Get OUT of any market that you’re ALREADY in,
where you have no decisive advantage

(Note: This is very hard to do emotionally)

As it applies to myself, I turn down ALL business, investment, product-extension, and customer segment opportunities where my ability to have clear thinking and be a good teacher is not relevant and doesn’t provide an edge in serving customers.

For example, I would never operate a McDonalds franchise because my talents in clear thinking and teaching provide very little competitive advantage. It’s unlikely that a McDonalds restaurant in my control would be dramatically more successful than one run by someone else.

Another example, I realize one of my competitive disadvantages is that I’m not particularly creative or inventive. I’m a much better improver than I am an inventor. So I stay away from opportunities where inventiveness is the key to success.

Again, my strengths in clarity and teaching don’t provide any edge. It took my several years and huge financial losses to learn this lesson the hard way. That being said, I often work with clients that are great inventors and innovators — forcing them to have clarity in which market segment to focus on or teaching them how to build a business around a core invention or innovation.

I do consider accepting invitations to join the boards of directors — because my strong suit in clarity is useful here. But there are many roles in charities that I decline because I’m not very well suited for — namely anything involving lots of details, extensive coordination, complex scheduling, etc.

It is for the same reason that most of the people I do hire are very good at details–precisely because I’m not, and I know I’m not.

As you can see, seeing your own career and the world around you through the lens of distinctive advantage leads you to make different strategic decisions — about your life, your career (and the businesses of your clients).

It’s a useful perspective to keep in mind and one that I encourage you to adopt.

Sometimes, when struggling through yet another case interview practice, candidates might wonder: “Why consulting again?” Indeed, many other job opportunities have straightforward interviewing and hiring processes that don’t require hours of practice and coaching.

Below is a recap of four key reasons consulting provides a truly differentiated career opportunity. Generally, as the higher the prestige of a given consulting firm, the greater these benefits.

1. Compensation
2. Learning
3. Network
4. Subsequent opportunities

1) Compensation

Compared to many jobs directly out of undergraduate or MBA programs, consulting is rather lucrative. Certainly, some fields such as investment banking can top it, but the consulting salary beats out most others. Add in bonuses, 401(k) contributions, profit-sharing, and other benefits, and the compensation difference can grow further.

Sometimes consultants (particularly during a very challenging case) will compute their dollars per hour compensation, or the ratio of what they’re getting paid to their billable rate. While these figures might not look as impressive as, say, an engineering firm, some unstaffed time can bring the figures back into balance.

Looking at the compensation at Partner banking over a million dollars annually as compared to the compensation of a professional 20 years into a corporate job makes the figures all the more appealing.

2) Learning

Consultants learn a lot–fast. It’s essential for their career success and survival. A consultant can learn much about many different types of industries and business challenges through their variety of casework. These lessons enhance your overall business judgment.

The variety also provides an opportunity to sample many different kinds of work to see which is the best fit. The other fun upside to this variety is the different challenges provide real intellectual stimulation and keep the job from getting boring.

Consultants often get the opportunity to tackle areas of responsibility that are much greater than those normally afforded to people with a given number of years experience. As a result, they get to think about and work with issues that their peers may not get to see for years.

Many consulting firms also invest significant dollars in their knowledge management and training programs. Consultants enjoy the benefit of a firm’s collective knowledge through well-organized online knowledge management platforms that cover a host of business topics.

Multiple day trainings off-site at each step in the career path in appealing destinations such as Cape Cod, Cancun, and Barcelona are common investments at top firms.

Consultants also learn a lot because consulting firms employ an apprenticeship model. Consultants often work alongside some of the smartest people in business, so they pick up lots of tips, tricks, and thought processes from some of the best business thinkers available.

The project-based approach also means that consultants have the opportunity to team with many different types of work personalities. So consultants master more than just Excel and PowerPoint; they also accelerate their acquisition of soft skills.

The additional hours worked also results in more learning happening per day. I have heard a number of hiring managers and headhunters remark that a year of consulting experience is worth 1.5-3 years of traditional industry experience.

Finally, consultants learn quickly through robust evaluation and feedback cycles. Consulting firms often have some of the most sophisticated performance management processes in the world. Consulting firms are in the business of renting out brains–so attracting and developing world-class business brainpower are mission-critical priorities.

At many companies, the review and evaluation processes are broken or largely an annual formality to ensure that a paper trail exists when someone needs to get fired. At such firms, you might hear a manager say, “You were outstanding in every way, but I can’t give you a 5 [top performance score] because we just don’t ever really give out 5s here.”

At consulting firms, however, employees often receive 3-9 page documents detailing their performance with actionable recommendations for improvement. The review frequency also exceeds that of most firms. Reviews come at the conclusion of every engagement. Additional reviews aggregate and calibrate the results across engagements.

3) Network

Consulting firms also provide a stellar network after several years of work. The upside to huddling with brilliant colleagues in a client conference room for 10-13 hours a day means you grow close with your coworkers. These comrades know you well and are often all too happy to provide introductions to other opportunities.

Established firms also have dedicated alumni relations departments who provide useful resources and networking opportunities for consultants after they have left the firm. Consultancies invest in this area knowing that many of their new clients can come from former consultants.

4) Subsequent opportunities

Perhaps most importantly, consulting is a great springboard to many other opportunities. For instance, consultants at top firms have very good odds at getting into the top business schools. Many firms will also sponsor business school for consultants who agree to return.

A consultant can often see the promise of these subsequent opportunities right away. Sometimes, mere days into a consultant’s career, she’ll already receive phone calls from headhunters looking to place them at other opportunities.

Strategy departments of corporations particularly love to hire former strategy consultants. Private equity firms also enjoy recruiting former consultants. Finally, clients who love working with a particular consultant may want them to come work for them directly.

Consulting also provides a powerful resume stamp of pedigree that makes many other professionals stand up and take notice. Just as a Harvard or Stanford on a resume catches people’s eye, so does a McKinsey or Bain.

Like a top school, part of the attractiveness comes from the learning that you did while there. The other part of the draw comes from knowing that you had what it took to get in the prestigious spot in the first place.

Finally, note that “why consulting” is a common interview question at consulting firms. Generally, you’d be ill-advised to rattle off these somewhat generic four reasons (particularly the compensation part). Ideally, you’ll want to focus in on the more noble reasons for your interest in consulting and connect them to your personalized broader career plan.

The additional benefits of compensation, learning, network, and subsequent opportunities come at a cost, however. The first challenge is getting in. The case interview process is often counter-intuitive and takes a lot of practice in order to do well.

The second challenge is continuing to grow and develop amid potentially strict up-or-out policies. The third challenge is coping with the additional hours and travel demanded by the consulting lifestyle.

But for those committed problem-solvers willing to pay the price, consulting can be an ideal career choice.

Interest in Oliver Wyman careers has grown as the firm is currently the fastest-growing consultancy within the top ten. (Smaller firms have an easier time being fast-growing; so the top ten distinction is critical here.)

Below you’ll find an overview of noteworthy features associated with Oliver Wyman careers.

Company Structure

Oliver Wyman’s parent company is Marsh and McLennan Companies, founded in Chicago in 1905 and currently headquartered in New York. Marsh and McLennan is a large, publicly-traded professional services and insurance brokerage firm with over 50,000 global employees and $10 Billion in revenue.

The current incarnation of the consulting organization known as Oliver Wyman comes from a series of acquisitions and combinations that include the original Oliver, Wyman & Company management consulting firm and Mercer Consulting, both acquired by Marsh & McLennan.

Oliver Wyman’s four key consulting tracks can be roughly mapped to their legacy firms. Today, the four practices are:

1. General Management Consulting
2. Financial Services Consulting
3. Delta
4. Leadership Development

1) The General Management Consulting practice most resembles that of a traditional strategy consulting experience. Oliver Wyman consultants here gain a broad exposure across industries and issues.

Unlike the major strategy consulting firms, however, Oliver Wyman consultants tend to specialize into a given practice area earlier in their career. Four key practice areas for specialization include:

• Communications, Media, and Technology
• Consumer and Industrial Value Transformation
• Health and Life Science
• Manufacturing, Transportation, and Energy

2) The Financial Services Consulting practice is largely what people think of when they hear Oliver Wyman consulting. Indeed, Oliver Wyman has consulted over three-quarters of the top 100 financial services institutions worldwide.

People who start their Oliver Wyman career here specialize in financial issues right away. Consultants here tend to serve insurance, investment banking, retail banking, government agencies, payment processors, and private equity fund clients. While Bain has a deeper penetration within the private equity shops, Oliver Wyman is a contender known for its deep financial content expertise.

Financial Services Consulting engagements tend to tackle issues such as:

• Risk management
• Public policy
• Strategic IT
• Customer relationship management
• Corporate finance advisory

3) The Delta practice focuses on change management initiatives. They help senior management design and implement a wide variety of enterprise-wide changes. These changes can either be internal shifts of processes and systems or responses to the changing market environment.

4) The Leadership Development practice works on the people side of businesses. They work with key leaders to improve their capabilities to lead their client firms. Typically, Oliver Wyman focuses on developing the leadership of top executives using approaches such as coaching, experiential learning, and use of online learning platforms.

Career Pathway

The career progression track for Oliver Wyman careers resembles that of other consulting firms, with titles for each level as follows:

• Analyst
• Senior Analyst
• Consultant
• Senior Consultant
• Associate
• Senior Associate / Project Manager
• Associate Partner / Principal
• Partner
• Director

Oliver Wyman reports that they consider every hire a potential partner, and regularly boast about having one of the shortest times to reaching Partner. Each step along the way takes approximately 1.5 to 3.5 years, depending on merit. Going from Analyst to Partner within a decade is not unheard of.

Further accelerating the process, Oliver Wyman does not demand that Senior Consultants go to business school prior to advancing to Associate and beyond. However, Oliver Wyman will sponsor business schools for select high-performers who return to the firm.

Oliver Wyman recruits globally primarily from 100 of the most selective schools across five continents. For example, in the United States, their presence is limited to The Ivy League, Stanford, Northwestern, and University of Virginia.

They hire analysts straight out of undergraduate programs, while Associates are hired from top graduate business programs. The hiring process involves a mixture of both behavioral interviews and case interviews.

Travel

Whether or not you view travel as an opportunity depends upon your personal preferences. Either way, Oliver Wyman’s global approach tends to result in more international travel than firms with a local staffing model (e.g. Bain & Company).

Talent Programs

Like other top-tier firms, Oliver Wyman has some special programs to try and retain their consulting talent. Consultants can opt for a ten- or eleven- month year, which frees up one or two months for choosing an adventure outside the confines of the firm. Oliver Wyman consultants can also take a sabbatical for up to six months.

Other Oliver Wyman consultants opt for a six-month nonprofit fellowship with a partner organization, while still enjoying up to 40% of their Oliver Wyman salary to make up for reduced compensation. Finally, some opt to rotate into a six-month stint in another company within the Marsh and McLennan portfolio.

Altogether, Oliver Wyman is growing fast and managing to provide an appealing career option within the 2nd tier of management consulting firms.

While it sometimes seems that everyone wants to get into McKinsey, it’s worth noting that there are a number of top consulting firms that can give a career a real boost. While McKinsey, Bain, or BCG will probably provide the most powerful resume augmentation, every one of the 25 top consulting firms carries a blend of size and prestige that can take you places.

Below is a list of the 25 top consulting firms. While there’s some room for debate as to who belongs in the final spots (varying based upon geography and specialization), there’s a pretty good consensus on who belongs on top.

1) McKinsey & Company (www.mckinsey.com)
Many regard McKinsey as the firm that started the whole strategy consulting industry. Headquartered in New York with 17,000 employees spread across almost 100 offices worldwide, they’ve got a level of prestige that makes them desired by graduates from top schools worldwide.

2) The Boston Consulting Group (www.bcg.com)
BCG is headquartered in Boston, with over 70 offices and 4,500 employees. They do work similar to McKinsey and Bain and are known for having an approach that’s slightly more academic, emphasizing thought leadership more than the other two.

3) Bain & Company (www.bain.com)
Bain is the final member of the MBB (McKinsey-BCG-Bain) prestige trio and it competes for the similar work from Corporate boards. Headquartered in Boston, with 5,000 employees, their number one priority is client financial results.

4) Booz & Company (www.booz.com)
Booz & Company (often abbreviated ‘Booz and Co’) used to have three names in the firm (“Booz Allen Hamilton”) but is now independent of the US government practices that previously dominated Booz Allen Hamilton. Booz is headquartered in New York with 3,300 employees spread across 61 offices.

5) Monitor Group (www.monitor.com)
The legendary creator of Porter’s Five Forces, Michael Porter, co-founded this consultancy in 1983. The Cambridge, MA-based consultancy has now grown to 1,500 employees across 29 offices.

6) Deloitte Consulting (www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Services/consulting)
Deloitte Consulting is a part of the Big Four audit firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. They consult in three key areas: human capital, strategy & operations, and technology. They have 15,000 employees in the consulting practice and are headquartered in New York with 50 offices worldwide.

7) Oliver Wyman (www.oliverwyman.com)
Oliver Wyman operates in over 50 cities with 3,000 employees. They draw on the expertise from other companies within their parent company, Marsh & McLennan. They’re known for their financial capabilities and international acumen.

8.) Roland Berger (www.rolandberger.com)
Unlike many top firms headquartered in the United States, Roland Berger touts its European heritage. Founded in Munich in 1967, they provide strategy consulting in 46 offices via over 2,000 employees.

9) L.E.K. (www.lek.com)
L.E.K. tackles questions of strategy with 900 employees in 20 offices. They were founded in London in 1983. They emphasize five main capabilities: Strategy, Shareholder Value Management, M&A Support, Operations & Organization, and Marketing & Sales.

10)  A.T. Kearney (www.atkearney.com)
Headquartered in Chicago, A.T. Kearney has a rich history tracing back to the days of McKinsey. The firm split from McKinsey in 1939 and has maintained a focus on operations, supply chain, and manufacturing.

11)  ZS Associates (www.zsassociates.com)
Founded by Northwestern professors, ZS Associates was founded in Evanston, IL and has grown to over 20 offices around the world. They mostly tackle projects related to sales and marketing. They serve a variety of clients, but pharmaceuticals are still their bread and butter.

12) Accenture (www.accenture.com)
Headquartered in New York, Accenture is the world’s largest consulting firm, with revenues over $20 billion. It’s primarily known for systems integration work, but they also have a small strategy consulting unit.

13) Capgemini (www.capgemini.com)
Headquartered in Paris, Capgemini serves clients in a wide variety of industries through outsourcing, IT, and management consulting projects. Their life sciences division is known to be particularly strong.

14)  PricewaterhouseCoopers (www.pwc.com/gx/en/consulting-services)
Headquartered in New York, PWC’s consulting arm addresses issues related to finance, operations, forensic accounting, organizational structure, crisis management, and IT. Their engagements and focus largely emerge from their roots as an accounting firm.

15) IBM (www.ibm.com/consulting)
Headquartered in Armonk, New York, IBM backs up their technological consulting with a robust suite of computing-related products and services. Engagements can range from application management to business analytics to developing and rolling out a customized solution enterprise-wide.

16) Ernst & Young (www.ey.com/US/en/Services/Advisory)
Headquartered in London, E&Y’s consulting function provides advisory and insurance services for clients across all industries. A Big Four audit firm, E&Y has particular expertise in operational risk and compliance issues.

17) Towers Watson (www.towerswatson.com)
Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, Towers Watson (formed by the 2010 merger of Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt Worldwide) provides human resources, risk management, and reinsurance consulting from its 72 offices worldwide.

18) KPMG (www.kpmg.com/Global/en/WhatWeDo/Advisory/management-consulting)
Headquartered in New York, KPMG’s management consulting group tackles four key areas: Business Effectiveness, Financial Management, People and Change, and IT. KPMG is primarily a tax and audit firm, and another set of services between accounting and traditional management consulting. These services include Risk Consulting and Transactions & Restructuring.

19) Mercer (www.mercer.com)
Headquartered in New York, Mercer is another member of the Marsh & McLennan family. They have over 19,000 employees operating in 40 cities across the world. Mercer focuses on human resources issues such as compensation, benefits, communication, and change management.

20) Aon Hewitt (www.aon.com/human-capital-consulting)
Headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois, Hewitt is a leader in benefits consulting. Previously independenty operated, Hewitt was acquired by Aon in July 2010. Aon Hewitt consulting also works on engagements related to talent management, communications, and the people side of M&A.

21) Huron Consulting Group (www.huron.com)
With 14 offices growing out of Chicago, Huron assists a variety of clients but has some specialization within education, healthcare, and life sciences. Huron’s functional specialties include litigation, restructuring, and turnaround.

22)  Alvarez & Marsal (www.alvarezandmarsal.com)
When companies get in a real mess, New York-based Alvarez & Marsal’s professionals from 41 offices often parachute in to provide corporate turnaround and restructuring services. Sometimes Alvarez and Marsal provide detailed forensic accounting services to enable companies to re-list on stock exchanges. Other times, A&M will provide a CFO on an interim basis to straighten things out on the ground.

23) Hay Group (www.haygroup.com)
Headquartered in Philadelphia, the Hay Group’s teams from 86 offices provide a wide array of solutions to human resource challenges, from retention to training to motivation.

24) Altran (www.altran.com)
Headquartered in Paris, Altran is a leader in technology and high technology innovation consulting throughout Europe. They have approximately 15,000 consultants operating within 20 countries.

25) PA consulting (www.paconsulting.com)
Headquartered in London, PA operates in 35 countries with specialization in IT and innovation. They serve a wide variety of clients, including governmental agencies in areas such as defense and environmental sustainability.

Question:

Victor, first, thank you so much for the resources you’ve provided.  I have watched your lectures twice and memorized your frameworks, and I feel like they are very helpful.

My question pertains to differences between what I’ve seen from your approach and that put forth in Case in Point.  Specifically, when reading through the 25 cases offered in the book, I’ve noticed a few things:

Interviewees are not hypothesis driven.  They ask questions all the time without stating what their relevance is to the broader problem and what they hope to learn from them.

Interviewees will only sometimes lay out a framework.  Often they will jump right in to asking questions and then layout an improvised framework later.  Sometimes they will never state a framework or organizational structure for their thoughts.

Interviewees will often offer ideas without supporting data.  For example, in a competitive response case (# 4 if you’re interested), they are asked if they think that they should cut prices if IBM enters the market and does so.  They say, no, with reason “I believe that Eastern offers great products at competitive prices.  If customers like us, they’re not going to go to IBM to save a little money.”  The problem is that none of this was established by prior questioning in the case.  This goes against your mantra of always supporting your ideas with data, or at the least hedging and saying, “I don’t have the data to back this up, but my guess is…”

In general, the interviewee will maybe ask 5 questions to gather data before starting to offer ideas.  It seems like, just from watching your examples, that you generally ask far more questions.  Even if you have a feeling, you seek greater confirmation.

Interviewers will often ask for brainstorm-style recommendations.  These are not the type of concluding recommendations you talk about, with three reasons and data to support them, but more like brainstorm recommendations.

Interviewers will often turn the case in new directions. They will say something like “enough of that, I want to look at this other thing.”  In which case you seem to really have a series of short idea developments and answers, as opposed to one big problem that you have to deconstruct and solve.

When I did a practice case on the McKinsey website, it was also really a series of 6 small problems, offered by the interviewer, rather than 1 big problem to break apart.  Maybe this is the only way they could do it, given it was not a two person case.The interviewers in these cases don’t seem to have any problems with this.  Nor do the post case comments.  This is put forth as the right way to do a case.

In short, I’m confused.  The cases that I see in this book look very different from the cases that you modeled.  Yet you put Case in Point forward as a great resource (that’s why I’ve worked through all of it).  My feeling is that your way seems better, because it is more data driven.  Some of the things that these interviewees say seem fairly foolish to me.  But I also worry that maybe I’m setting my standard for data too high.

Could you please offer your thoughts on this?  Should I be expecting cases like those in Case in Point, or more like your examples?

Thanks so much for your time and help.

P.S. I haven’t listened to LOMS yet, but I plan to soon, so maybe that will answer my question.

My Reply:

There’s one chapter in Case in Point that’s really well done — the one on estimation questions. The other chapters I would generally disagree with.

So the short answer is (and of course I’m pretty biased on this), refer to my point of view anytime there’s a conflict between what I say and what’s said in Case in Point.

My approach to case interviews is not really an approach to case interviews. Rather, it’s the McKinsey approach to solving client problems which in many ways is very similar to the approach Bain, BCG, Monitor, LEK, etc., use to solve their clients’ problems.

As a general rule, clients value a consultant’s opinion, but they value a consultant’s factually-justified conclusion more.  It is what they ultimately pay for and can use as justification to others (shareholders, their board of directors, the CEO) for a particular course of action.

At McKinsey, we almost always had a hypothesis. Often the initial hypothesis was wrong, but we figured that out very quickly, precisely because we had a concrete hypothesis that was disprove-able.

So “my” approach to the recruiting process is based on being a good consultant at McKinsey, not merely being a good candidate.  It’s a subtle but important distinction.

Also my perspective is based on landing offers at 6+ consulting firms, being in the top 10% at McKinsey, and being a former interviewer at McKinsey. So my biases are based on what I’ve personally experienced.

Now for the case interview itself, the specifics will vary a bit by firm and change a little from year to year. But, the fundamental premise behind everything the firms ask you in a case interview is to find the people who have a very high probability of being a good consultant.

Now let me address each of your questions.

1) If the problem is open-ended, you should always state a hypothesis as a way to structure your problem solving. If the problem is close-ended, then in some cases a hypothesis is already implied by the interviewer’s question.

So if the interviewer says, “Based on the follow exhibit, what is the profit margin for product X under the new pricing changes?” That’s a “closed” question… meaning there’s only one single right answer. Just answer the question.

Other times, the interviewer might give you a case and might say something like, “The client wants to do X in this situation, but they’re not 100% sure it’s a good idea.” In this case, the client has already provided the hypothesis and it makes sense to just go with it.

So in this case, there is a hypothesis, but because it’s already implied based on how the case was framed, you don’t need to state one independent of what was already provided. Just use their hypothesis, say you’re doing so, and figure out how you will test it.

For example, if a client (or in your case an interviewer) asks you, “What should I do?” Given there are a million possible answers you could say, you want to start with a hypothesis.

If the client asks something more specific like, “I want to acquire XYZ company. Should I, yes or no?” Well that in-going hypothesis is “Yes, buy the company.” Now you just need to find a way to prove or disprove it.

If you are not hypothesis driven when the question clearly calls for one, you will get “killed” in an interview. That’s because interviewers hate unfocused, meandering question answering that doesn’t have a particular line of reasoning (the hypothesis) behind it.

2) In terms of whether it makes sense to use a framework or organizing structure, I would say 90%+ of the time you want to organize your thoughts in some way. Sometimes this is a framework, other times its just using a MECE issue tree.

One of the big reasons clients hire consultants is to take highly ambiguous problems where one doesn’t even know where to start in solving it, and simplify the problem in some way. The most common technique to simplifying a problem is to organize the problem in a way where each of the parts of the problem are easy to solve… and by aggregating your findings for each of the parts, you get your overall answer.

Having said that, you don’t want to force fit the wrong framework or inappropriate framework to the problem. It needs to be a relevant way of organizing your thoughts.

For example, let’s say a friend of you says, “I think I’m in love. I think I want to marry Jennifer. What do you think?”

In this case, the question is a binary one. The client (your friend) wants a yes or no answer. So in this case you could say, “Well let’s assume it is a good idea for you to marry Jennifer. What would have to be true for this conclusion to make sense?”  (Note – consultants are known for being highly analytical, though not necessarily very romantic).

Well, let’s look at two groups of factors –

a) Emotional

b) Non-Emotional

Within emotional, the most important question is: do you love her?

Within non-emotional, let’s break things down into five groups (unfortunately, not totally MECE):

B1) Values – do you and Jennifer share the same values?

B2) Goals – do you share similar life goals?

B3) Financial – Does marrying Jennifer have a positive, negative, or neutral impact on your financial situation?

B4) Social – Does marrying Jennifer have a positive, negative or neutral impact on your social situation and standing?

B5) Companionship – Do you enjoy her company?

B6) Other Stuff – (just to be somewhat MECE)

Now, I just made up what I said above. It’s obviously not an official framework. But it is a way of organizing the decision into “bite-size” chunks.  And if the friend says he loves her and if all the non-emotional factors are positive, it supports the “hypothesis” that yes, he should marry her.

And, very importantly, if one of the factors goes against marrying Jennifer, it allows him to have a more specific deliberation. So maybe he had some vague reservations in the back of his head about Jennifer. By organizing or breaking down the problem/decision at hand into its pieces, it’s easier to pinpoint the precise factor that’s bothering him.

The same is true with clients. If a client is 100% sure about a decision, she doesn’t bother calling in the consultants. When the client is uncertain, there is usually some reservation that’s giving her pause. Sometimes she will have a high awareness about what’s bothering her. Other times, its a “gut feeling” that this decision is not yet a 100% yet, but it can be hard to articulate why.

3) Unless you’re specifically asked to offer unproven ideas, in a brainstorming kind of way, I would not just shoot from the hip. Or if you do so, you can “think out loud” as part of your thinking process, but then immediately focus in on turning one of those ideas into a hypothesis or something you can analyze.

[Of the major firms, McKinsey does ask towards the end of a case a "brainstorming" type of question. And it's usually framed as "What other factors do you think would be relevant to consider (even if you don't have time to analyze)?" It's more a test of whether you can use common sense or business judgment to have an intuitive feel for "what's important," which is a slightly different skill than being able to prove what you say.]

The reason for this approach is that you’ll get killed by a client if you offer up an idea that they interpret as a conclusion, especially if you did not qualify it as an opinion or a hypothesis worth testing.

Keep in mind, when you work for a top consulting firm, your word is treated like gold.

So if you (without any data) say, “Mr Client, you should consider shutting down the Eastern region factory,” that client immediately tells all the other clients that “BCG says we should shut down the Eastern region.” And you get counter-attacked by clients who have a vested interest in the Eastern region.

The reason you have to prove what you say is because you aren’t speaking for yourself. You’re speaking on behalf of McKinsey, Bain or BCG. And it is assumed that what you say is what your firm says.

Now if you “conclude” that the client should shut down the eastern region, and you can prove why that makes sense, then you would of course state that conclusion to the senior client, even if they don’t want to hear the news.

In short, consultants are always in the cross-hairs for getting their ideas shot down. Oftentimes clients (often junior clients in the organization) do not want your recommendations to be implemented. They will try to discredit your recommendations, call “BS” on them, or find flaws in your logic or reasoning.  At times, it can be an intellectually skeptical and even hostile environment.

Consulting firms want to know if you can hold your own (and protect the reputation of the firm) in that environment.

If you’re just a smooth talker who can spout ideas, but when critically challenged, you collapse, they don’t want you.

4) In terms of how many questions to ask before you offer solutions or a conclusion to a client, you want to ask the minimum number of questions needed to logically prove your conclusions. Often this takes more than five questions to figure out what’s going on.

If you can do it in five questions, do it in five. If you can do it in two, do it in two. If you need 20, and 20 is truly the absolutely minimum number of questions needed to logical prove the conclusion, you ask the 20 questions.

Bottom line: proving your point efficiently (e.g., not asking unnecessary questions where the answers to the unnecessary questions would not actually help you prove or disprove the hypothesis) is the name of the game.

Also, 80% of the work in a case (and in a client engagement) is isolating the problem… figuring out the root cause of the problem. Often once you’ve defined the problem, fixing it is quite easy.

For example, if sales are down the last two years, the wrong approach is to ask a few questions and then start suggesting specific solutions like increasing the sales commission rate, or cutting prices. The right approach is to quantitatively and logically determine why sales have gone down the last two years… and then address the underlying cause which may or may not have anything to do with sales commission rates or pricing changes.

(As an example, maybe the competition introduced a new entry level product that’s taking market share away from the traditional product type that the client sells. In this case, the key question is whether the client should enter that market segment or not. If the market is moving away from the client, then sales commission and pricing changes end up solving the wrong problem.)

5) Sometimes interviewers, especially those from McKinsey, will ask for a brainstorming type opinions. This does happen and if it does, it is worth clarifying if the interviewer wants brainstorming type answers or only those conclusions you can prove.  If they’re looking for brainstorming, by all means given them brainstorming — though preferably by introducing categories of brainstorming ideas before you introduce the specific ones.

6) Some case interviews are deliberately “choppy” or fragmented. McKinsey in particular no longer has one big open-ended case. Instead it has a case that’s been artificially chopped up into five or six specific modules that are only loosely related to each other.  See LOMS for examples of this.  In these cases, McKinsey has taken an open-ended case and broken it down for you into discrete “chunks” that are more “closed.”

When that happens, you should answer their discrete questions.

For example, a case in this style might have a section where they want you to calculate profits for a particular product line under two different sets of assumptions. This is a test of being able to do word problem arithmetic. Just solve the math problem and give the specific answer.

Other firms will ask more open-ended case questions. In general, the open-ended cases are harder. The “closed” cases are easier because the open-ended cases have been pre-structured or pre-organized for you into discrete chunks.

7) Overall, the standard for data is high amongst clients and what they expect from their consultants. In turn, consultants set the standard high for candidates.  The only exception is when the data you’re asking for is more precise than is necessary to reach a conclusion.

For example, let’s say a company has a policy that they will only invest in new construction projects that have an annual return on investment of 15%.

In other words, a $100M up-front investment needs to generate at least $15M per year to be considered a good investment.

Let’s say you’re analyzing a proposed project to build a new factory. Let’s say the annual profit from this $100M investment is somewhere between $22M – $35M per year.

Once you know the return on investment (ROI) is clearly above 15%, there’s no need to waste energy in determining more precisely where in the $22M – $35M range the return will likely end up being.

But, if you conclude that this project is a good investment and you can not justify why you think that and preferably prove it with some data (quantitative and qualitative), you will get ripped apart.  I know this because as a consultant, if I went into a practice presentation with a partner and I presented something as a conclusion that I could not prove, he would yell at me and call me a moron — okay, not really, but he would talk to the engagement manager behind closed doors and take him or her to task for letting it happen.

Why does this happen? Why does anything happen in consulting?

Because some poor soul did this in front of a super smart client, and got intellectually ripped to shreds by presenting a factually unsupported conclusion… and some partner lost a client because of it… and some consulting firm got unofficially blacklisted from ever working in the company because of the crappy work that was done the one time some new consultant presented a factually unsupported conclusion.

Everything in the case interview process happens for a reason. What firms want more than anything is to have happy clients that gladly pay very large fees. Literally every aspect of a case interview can be back traced to some specific type of client situation the consulting firm wants to replicate, or negative situation they desperately want to avoid.

Saying something you can not prove, unless you were explicitly asked for an opinion or you qualified the statement as a not yet proven opinion, will get you fired from a consulting firm for the simple reason that doing so in front of the client will get the firm fired.

Finally, I would strongly recommend listening to the examples in Look Over My Shoulder. But, rather than pay overly close attention to the specific question format (which is essentially the premise behind all of your questions), I would encourage you to carefully study and emulate the thinking and communication process demonstrated by the candidates who delivered exceptional performances.

Many of the people who use LOMS, especially those who use it a lot (50+ hours of LOMS practice), end up internalizing the thinking and communication process demonstrated.  And when they actually interview, even if they get some unusual case question they’ve never seen before or they encounter some new case format variation that’s very new, they still do well.

The skills I recommend that candidates adopt are very transferable across case formats. Those that only “study to the test”… meaning prepare for a very narrow set of specific case questions and formats without developing the more general “consulting skills” that firms seek, will get thrown when they encounter a case question or variation not previously seen by them.

Similarly, consultants routinely work in industries, on project types, solving problems they’ve personally never encountered before. But the good consultants still do well because they have the kinds of thinking skills valued by the top firms.

Question:

Recently I interviewed with McKinsey and Bain in Eastern Europe, got to the final rounds at both but did not get an offer. Especially getting rejected at Bain was devastating as it would be my dream company because of the cultural fit.

My Bain interviewers encouraged me to get some more business experience, practise and reapply in 6 months.

For the practice part: cases with various partners + calculations. I eliminated my calculations problem after McKinsey and did 20+ extra cases with a partner. Still, I was surprised by how much I underperformed at Bain. I believe that since it was my dream (and last top 3) option, the pressure I felt decreased my performance. The feedback was that I did not focus on the most important part of the case. I think that more of deliberate practice and some stress management before the interview could prevent me from rejection next time.

For the business experience: here I am more puzzled. My options now are either joining a boutique or a technology start-up in a business development role. I am more inclined towards the start-up as I think I can have lots of impact and I like the people. At the same time I wouldn’t like to miss a second chance at Bain because of not getting the “right” experience. How much does the option matter for the later MBB prospects? Which one would you find more suitable if I still want to have a shot at top-tier consulting?

I would be grateful for your help! Thank you very much for all your materials and inspiration.

My Reply:

In terms of your next role, take the role that you would 1) excel at the most, 2) enjoy the most. If you got two interviews this time around, I’m assuming your resume to date is fairly strong. If the only reason you take your next job is to interview again for consulting (especially if you don’t like the interim job), I will tell you the self imposed pressure is much higher for a re-applicant than a first time applicant.

If you actually enjoy your work and if for some reason consulting didn’t work out in 6 months, you will feel less pressure and paradoxically are more likely to perform well. And who knows, you might not even accept the offer if you like your interim job a lot.

If you want some “insurance” that you can get the interview again, take the next 6 months to maintain ties with people you’ve met at the top firms. Take them out for coffee or lunch… though don’t ask for an interview (but if they offer to get you one, don’t turn it down). Just keep the relationship warm.

After that, actually do well at your new job – whichever one it is. You’ll learn the most this way, you’ll be better prepared for consulting, and you will end up with a strong alternative to consulting too.

MBB is an abbreviation that stands for McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Its an acronym used by candidates applying for jobs at what’s often considered the top 3 firms in the management consulting industry. Some will debate whether the first B in MBB stands for BCG instead of Bain or vice versa. In addition, some argue that given recent insider trading scandals involving the former Managing Director at McKinsey that perhaps BBM might be a more appropriate designation.

Question:

I’ve used your Case prep material and have recently been offered a job at McKinsey London. And I wanted to thank you personally. I found the videos a great starting point and the audio files of the practice cases (LOMS) to be great for what real cases could sound like. For someone with no consulting background- this was a treasure trove. I found a couple of highly rated cases (highly rated by you) to be especially useful and often listened to these audios on my way to school and back. And all the effort put in seems to have paid off! I am truly delighted at being offered a role at McK and I wanted to thank you for the great work you’ve done in making it happen.

Now that I have been offered a role and will be starting post completing my MBA, what do you suggest I do in the interim? Is there anything I could do between now and when I join to hit the ground running from day one?

Appreciate all your help again. Godspeed!

My Reply:

Congratulations on the McK offer!  Well done.

In terms of preparing between now and your start date. There are a number of ways to prepare.

1) Sign up for my newsletter for new first year consultants. www.caseinterview.com/new-consultant

2) Especially for starting at McKinsey in particular, there are several McKinsey-oriented books worth reading including a) The McKinsey Way, b) The Pyramid Principle, c) Anything by Gene Zelazney – he’s the person who developed all of the conventions for presenting at McKinsey (Templates, etc…) over the last 30+ years.

3) I have a program that shows the blueprint of what it takes to be successful in consulting. You might consider getting that as a resource. Its called How to Succeed in Management Consulting (HSMC for short)

4) If you aren’t yet proficient in Excel, take an Excel course… you will be using it a lot. Formulas, pivot tables, vlookups, what/if scenario manager, solver (these are all commonly used Excel tools).

5) Get a book on financial statement analysis – there are a bunch of these out there, I recommend two in the reading list in HSMC. The titles all sound alike, so I don’t recall the exact titles of the two I looked at and liked.

6) If you have a chance to get some practice in any kind of public speaking, that’s definitely worth doing.

Other than that enjoy the time between now and then– it’s one of the few times in life where it’s relatively low stress as the immediate future is fairly certain and favorable.