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McKinsey & Company Does level and/or office matter for referrals at McKinsey & Company? A friend is willing to refer at the Associate level in my target office though I did not get any traction w/ the referral last year. I'm a Veteran so I also recognize there may be a resume translation issue despite the prior version getting me interviews with BCG and Bain. I have updated the resume since - though still wondering if there's anything else I can do to strengthen my case. Thank you in advance for any advice.
How much does a McKinsey 1 st year partner make?
Why Bain over the other 2?
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Mentor
I paid for MC Black Belt. I got it for the coaching sessions, and found them very helpful. The other resources are average to below average.
Fair enough!
Bcg provides access to CaseCoach, which definitely felt like a paid service. Its not a tailored 1:1 advising but very high quality content and practice cases there. I believe they helped me get an offer from them
Mentor
This is a huge resource BCG provides; recommend.
Nope. Looked a bit at the crafting cases videos, but nothing beyond that. Coming in as an experienced hire though, so perhaps that made the whole process seem a bit less daunting.
McKinsey
Mentor
As a coach myself, my view is you don’t need one, but getting one can help shortcut a few things (assuming a decent coach) -
1. Getting pointed feedback and a bit more of a “sophisticated” lens at your performance. This can be invaluable if you are plateauing or getting a lot of generic feedback which doesn’t seem to help.
2. Shortcut some of the time spent on casing with others (the give one/get one can get tiring and long). You can also align it to your pace/convenience vs. broader availability.
3. Get a candid and calibrated view on any recruiting questions to manage anxiety vs. guesswork
Side comment - don’t do a one and done session with a coach late in the game, it’s a waste of time as you need time to address feedback. Too many people come to me 3 days before final rounds and I can’t actually really help them much at that point. If you are gonna spend the money, do it with about 2 weeks to spare so you can actually fix things.
Being fully transparent, my success rate for candidates with more than 1 session is about 70% with an n of about 30 (assuming final offer), if you factor in “making it to final” as a gate that number goes up. I have 0 idea how people at other coaching places make their stats up, but getting even close to 90% is all BS to me!
Thank you for the insight!
Mentor
I watched YouTube videos and listened to some free podcasts about case interviews. Thankfully that method worked fine because I had zero dollars to try much else back then.
I also used MC black belt and was very pleased with the results. Got an offer from bcg and Bain and some tier 2s. I recommend it highly.
However, I do agree with the above that starting with pro coaching is probably not the most efficient. Work out the early struggles with friends, random people, books/websites, etc. first. I’d incorporate coaching after ~10 cases or so.
Right, thanks for the input!
For me, yes 100%. I spent about $300 on 3 sessions with a former MBB interviewer and found it invaluable. I also subscribed to rocketblocks and did a ton of mock interviews with people I met on various internet forums. I’m a big believer in leaving no rock unturned. At the end of the day, it was worthwhile just to know that I gave the interview process my all and had no regrets. Ended up with an MBB offer and couldn’t be happier with the ROI on my investment.
Mentor
I did it for a few hours and I found it helpful. It’s not something you NEED but I wanted to put my all into it and not regret things later on. It ended up being a $3-400 expense for me. That’s nothing in the grand scheme of things and all of us have spent that much on stupider stuff.
I did it with an ex partner and It was important for me in building confidence as I found I’d flatter due to anxiety / stress in the partner rounds in previous attempts. Happy to connect you to the coach if you’re interested.