AcumenResource:Consulting Interview Preparation

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Consulting Career Prospects in McKinsey & Co Exploding myths & revealing insider information about The Firm, this issue looks at what it means to be a consultant at McKinsey & Co. and what does it take to get in there.

Career Path
Contrary to popular beliefs; in consulting Client Service; and not high funda problem solving ability; is probably the most important success factor. If we look at the career path of an MBA in a typical consultancy we observe the following stages of growth:
Partner Prospects, gets new clients, sets new goals for the project teams and suggests possible solutions

Project Manager Leads a team of consultants, ensures client satisfaction (basically, service on an everyday basis)

Consultant Interacts with clients, identifies core issues during problem solving

Analyst Collects information, processes it and finally analyses it.

Skills Profile
The skillset that Mckinsey looks for: Problem solving: Identification of the critical issues and accordingly, structuring of the problem. This is followed by an analysis, which in turn provides the foundation for recommendations.
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Managing work under time constraints: This not only includes having the ability to manage one's own tasks but also other team member's tasks within the operating time constraints. Communication skills: Again, contrary to popular beliefs, it is your written communication skill not oral communication that is more important. This is more so because communication skills are not needed in the initial stages of a consulting career because direct interaction with the clients is minimal. This is especially true for Indian consultancies. Team building skills: The ability to work and lead a team is also very important. In fact, 100% of a Project manager's time and 20% of a partner's time is spent in this exercise. Internal competition within a group does not exist and the emphasis is on capitalizing on the core competencies of each one of the team members to generate a synergic result. However, to maintain adequate control, the responsibility of a team's performance lies with the project manager himself. Client relationship building expertise: These skills are required at the project manager level and upwards. The importance attached arises from the fact the trust in a consultant-client relationship gets built over a 6-9 month period of continuous interaction. A consistent topnotch performance of the involved team over a prolonged period is therefore a must. A monthly progress review helps to build this credibility. Leadership qualities: This includes both people skills and entrepreneurial skills.

Job Profile
1. Strategy consultancy (Problem Solving) - Defining core competencies - Identifying business strategies 2. Operations (Implementation/Managing Work) - Operations process improvements e.g. improvement in blast furnace performance mostly driven by client

Problem Solving The McKinsey Way

The key principles of the McKinsey method of problem solving (only for non-dotcom and for nonfinancial Institutions) 1. End product or the answer first (governing thought) You work on a hypothesis, and see if it fits with what is happening. 2. MECE Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive Generate a set of solutions that are mutually exclusive (no repetition) and completely exhaustive (Contain all factors/parameters). For example: If the problem is: How can profits increase? The alternatives are clearly: a. Increase prices b. Increase sales c. Decrease costs An exhaustive analysis is carried out on each of the possible alternatives. Some of the popular techniques for analyzing include
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The 80/20 method 20% analysis, 80% answers Peel the onion method A hierarchical method in which analysis is done while moving from a higher level to lower level (i.e. going deeper into the problem)

Classical problem solving techniques hardly work in real life situations and therefore it is always advisable to work through first principles. Moreover, consulting never provides optimum solutions. This translates to the selection procedure also, where conceptual clarity is preferred to extensive knowledge of models for strategic analysis

Is Specialization relevant?
As far as McKinsey goes, there is hardly any importance accorded to which field you are specializing in. However, this does not discount the importance of fundamentals. Consultancies are looking for basic skills and not functional skills. Functional learning is expected to take place mostly on-job; depending on the field to which the consultant or analyst is being exposed to. Whatever additional information or advice you need, you are free to ask the people who are known as Experts in that particular field in the organization (at least in McKinsey). By the time, you become a project manager or a Partner you are expected to be a specialist in a particular industry or set of industries.

Lifestyle
Lot of traveling Hectic lifestyle Glamour (get to meet the crme-de-l a -crme of the top executives) Despair (Often, the recommended solutions for projects are not implemented) No ownership (One cannot stay long enough to see the implementation through in most of the cases, though this trend is slowly catching on)

McKinsey looks for

Well rounded individuals excelling in at least one area i.e. Be distinctly different from the crowd. This requires that you should be excellent in a particular field (proficiency level close to 100%), mostly academics, and be pretty good at the other skills (proficiency level above 70%-80%) People who can accept their mistakes and learn from them Ethical, consistent, confident, having clarity of thought, etc. The emphasis is much more on the fit of the candidate with the company.

Taking you closer to consulting E-mail: consultgrp@iiml.ac.in Visit us at: http://www.iiml.ac.in/consultgrp

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