Iconoclast

Since I have apparently been having difficultly with "thinking creatively" I embarked on a mission to try and make myself a little more creative. The first step was to try and figure out why I might be thinking more traditionally and work on moving away from that.

While I was gone for Thanksgiving, I read a great book by Gregory Burns, who is a neuroscientist at Emory. The books is entitled "Iconoclast: a neuroscientist reveals how to think differently." Since I am a scientist by nature, I inherently understand that there is a biological underpinning that is the foundation for the way we think. Gregory Burns breaks this down very nicely and gives a very complete review of how we make decisions in the context of actual biology based on his work and others.

Since the brain uses so much energy in navigating our day-to-day lives, it has adapted over time to be as efficient as possible. As a result, the brain ends up taking a lot of short cuts. These short cuts are usually based on past experiences and what is familiar. It is this adaptation and our comfort with familiarity that is the basis for destroying our own creativity. Because it takes more energy for the brain to reach a novel conclusion than it does for us to base a conclusion on a familiar experience, creativity often suffers.

While the book is a few hundred pages long, this is the basic concept that you need to take away. Fortunately, once you realize how many of your perceptions are based on stagnant experiences, you can try not to fall into the "uncreative trap." Burns recommends putting yourself in new experiences with new people and seeing new things that you can't explain by past experience. Under these circumstances your brain will not be able to explain its circumstance based on past experience and will have to adapt and develop a novel perception of the situation....do this enough and your brains default mode can become "develop a novel perception for every situation."

I think I am in a unique place to try to develop creatively. As a scientist, I get new data every day. Instead of trying to place my data in the context of what I already know, I can try to look at it context-free and try and develop my own interpretation. Maybe if I do this enough every day, I will finally make some progress.

Regardless of how much this actually helps me, its an idea and worth a try. I'll let you know how it goes!

Moving Forward

As it looks as consulting recruiting season is starting to wind down, I am guessing that my posts will become less frequent. That being said, I am anxious to hear updates from those of you who moved on to the next rounds and those of you who have/will receive offers.

I'm sure everyone will be interested to hear where you all are ending up. As for me, in the short term, I am going to get back to some science that I have neglected and keep my options open. Whether it is consulting next year, the pharma industry, or biotech, only time will tell.

I will keep posting things that I think might be relevant as I come across them. If you have any ideas, let me know.

Recent Retractions

Received a voice mail from a McKinsey consultant who kindly asked that I remove the cases from my post. It was not my intention to post cases that they had intended to use moving into the future. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I did not post cases after my interview as I did not want to disclose cases while others were still going through the process. Instead I had tried to wait until Tuesday afternoon when the last of the interviews had taken place; however, I should have, perhaps, waited until a later time.

My thinking was that a number of widely distributed case books contain cases from past interviews, a forum which seemed analogous to this. Sorry for the inconvenience. If you wish to discuss your individual performance on a case and work through how to improve for future interviews, perhaps that is best accomplished through e-mail (consideringconsulting@gmail.com) and not through this forum. I am still anxious to try and improve my own skill set even after a rejection!

Thanks.

McKinsey 2nd Round Case #3

RETRACTED BY REQUEST

McKinsey 2nd Round Case #2

RETRACTED BY REQUEST

McKinsey 2nd Round Case #1

RETRACTED BY REQUEST

McKinsey 2nd Round Rejection Feedback

So I made the phone call to the consultant and I did get some feedback that I can share with you. Firstly, I would say the feedback was a little strange, but perhaps reasonable.

He started out the conversation with some positives. I was very accomplished for someone may age, very dedicated, well spoken, and very likable. That being said, they "had some concerns." Their first concern was with the cases. He said that I did well on them, but that the feedback was unanimous. I seemed like I was "very well practiced," which can be a good thing, but apparently this can also be a bad thing in that I seemed to move through the case very logically and "without creativity with regards to the implications of the case."

Since the interview process is now behind me, I will discuss the cases I was given in detail in a later post and we can discuss the merit of this feedback...in my opinion, there wasn't a lot of room for creativity within the questions I was asked and we didn't ever get to the point where a true summary or implications were discussed directly.

With regards to the personal experience interview...one went very well and left them very satisfied, and one left them with some concerns. The "concerning" interview question was one in which I was asked to describe an experience where a conflict with a team member had an effect on the team dynamic. I talked about a time when I was leading a small team in a volunteer consulting project and a team member did not pull his weight and complete his tasks in a timely manner and how this prevented the rest of the team from moving forward. In the end, I talked to the team member, figured out he had a lot of stress in his life, negotiated a way by which he could contribute and solved the problem...blah blah blah. The consultant told me that he was concerned that it had taken me a while to address the emotional issues behind the team member not getting work done and that it seemed like my first inclination was that he just "wasn't a good worker" and he was concerned with someone that had that outlook towards people.

The reality of the situation was that this particular individual WAS A BAD WORKER in this circumstance! I actually went a great deal out of my way to make the situation amenable to him and make it possible for him to contribute. I realized he had a lot going on and worked through the situation to find a task the he could do well in a short period of time (although he had volunteered himself to do the tasks he didn't follow through on in the first place). That being said, he had made a commitment to our team that he refused to follow through on after several requests and on several occasions and when asked if he needed help, he had refused. It was only after a LOT of pressing and discussion that I was able to find a way for him to contribute at all. During my interview I didn't explicitly state that he was a pain in the ass and lazy because I didn't think it was right to throw one of my team members under the bus so I didn't fully disclose his faults...the funny part about this is that the team member I based my story on is now working for McKinsey in Europe despite being "unimpressive" (for the lack of a better word). I guess it goes to show that nice guys don't always win.

So beyond that, there isn't much to say. I suppose I could have practiced tooo much and that maybe that stifled my "creativity" some, but then again, I thought McKinsey was all about structure, structure, structure and fact based analysis and less about speculation and creativity. I think that creativity helps you develop a hypothesis, but that too much speculation (i.e. being overly creative upfront) also creates a lot of low-probability hypothesis that are unnecessary. Once you have narrowed down a number of broad categories, then hypothesizing about specific circumstances becomes more appropriate and less of a time sink, although I think I have learned that throwing out a few off the wall and unfounded thoughts will score you some creativity points even if it isn't really appropriate for the initial analysis. I also could have been more straightforward about my personal experience, but made a judgment call to be a bit more reserved in my descriptions, which also hurt me in the end.

I hope that some of you had better news than I did...I'd love to hear all of the feedback!

McKinsey 3rd Round Invites

PLEASE DON'T JUST READ-PARTICIPATE:

As you all may have seen, there is quite a discussion going back and forth in the comments section of the last post (caseinterview.com). What we are starting to see is a number of people are hearing back from McKinsey with the results of their 2nd round interviews.

If you feel comfortable discussing the outcome from your interview, please help us keep a running tally...might give us all a better idea of how they might be viewing hiring this year. Additionally, if you received a phone call from one of the consultants you interviewed with...please feel free to share the feedback you were given...I'm sure that will also help the group as a whole!

I will keep a running total at the bottom of this post--keep your eyes open for updates


So far the total that I have from those who have responded:

2 moving on to next round

15 rejected

caseinterview.com

Whenever interview season comes along, it seems like there are always a group of people who weren't too serious about getting a consulting job until they got a "surprising" invitation to interview with a firm.

For a lot of these people, doing cases isn't really something that they are familiar with and they need to get ramped up pretty quickly. I think the following website is a great resource for those kinds of candidates. I kind of hesitate posting too much help as I am actively competing for spots with all of you, but my poor judgment and personal avidity towards being helpful says to proceed.

Anyway, I think the site: http://www.caseinterview.com/ is pretty helpful for getting a broad overview of how to approach cases. There are 6+ hours of free video tutorial and a very helpful FAQs section to help answer all of the standard questions about consulting and the interview process.

I think this site is also a great resource for those of us that have been thinking about consulting for a while. It is always good to learn as much as you can and the guy that put this site together used to be an associate at McKinsey and conducted interviews there himself....his suggestions are probably pretty great and worth checking out no matter what stage you are at in your preparation.

McKinsey 2nd Round Interview

So I just finished my second round interview at McKinsey. We have been specifically instructed not to give any information about the cases until after interviews are completed, so I will not give too much detail in my discussion of my case interviews at this point.

Overall, I have 2 thoughts. 1) I'm glad that the interview is over and 2) I think it went OK...I'd give myself a B/B+.

The cases were rather typical. Evaluate a series of opportunities/proposals, launch a new product, and declining sales. Nothing too out of the blue. I did pretty well structuring my answers, didn't stumble toooo much with the math, and had good personal experience interviews.

I was surprised with how much I was interrupted during both the case and experience portions and asked clarifying questions or probed for deeper answers.

Overall, it was a good experience...we are supposed to find out our fate by Nov. 17th...a long time to wait! I'm sure I'll get another post up once I have some more time to collect my thoughts...right now my mind is a little numb.

Good luck to everyone with interviews the rest of the week!

The Personal Experience Interview

I have come to learn a lot about the McKinsey personal experience interview and how it might be a little different than what you are used to. I'm sure that you have all been told to develop "stories" that describe a leadership experience, a time you made an impact, or a time you had a conflict. I had been told that before too and I have stories to answer all of those questions. However, with during your PE interview, there is a right and a wrong way to deliver those stories.

We are all used to telling a story as a narrative...setting up the situation, giving a problem, giving a solution and then trying to tell about how we fit into that story. This is not the way to go about telling a story in your interview.

The interviewer at McKinsey is looking for very specific details regarding your situation. Actually, they may not even be interested in your particular situation at all. What they ARE interested in is what YOU DID in that situation. They don't care if a conflict happened at work, in the lab, or at home. What they want to know is what you thought and said in that situation and how you influenced change. To get to these answers, they will interrupt you and ask very specific questions. If you are giving a long narrative, you will likely be interrupted before you even get to what you did in a situation.

The best way to make sure you get the key points of your story in the interviewer's head is to take your narrative and give it a title...a lot like a newspaper headline. Then take your narrative and try to make it three strong sentences that describe the situation, what you did, and how it made a difference. The interviewer will then probe deeper into one aspect of what you mentioned and you can give them as much detail as they ask for at that point.

This technique ensures that you get the highlights across and also shows some structured thinking.

During everything make sure to emphasize YOUR role, YOUR thought process, and the results that YOU brought about. After all, they are going to hire YOU, not your team, your lab, or your family... And always always answer the specific question that you are asked!

Hope this helps. I'm working overtime trying to get my long and drawn out stories into a manageable 3-4 sentence highlight reel before tomorrow afternoon!

The Elevator Pitch

Today I did a practice case with a group of 4 candidates and 1 McKinsey consultant via a conference call. The case wasn't particularly interesting per se. It was a value chain case where a new piece of equipment was purchased that would decrease some production costs and increase efficiencies. There was a simple break even analysis to perform and then a decision to be made as to whether or not to invest in this "cost-saving technology." My particular question came at the very end when I was asked to summarize the case to the COO in the elevator.

To answer this kind of question, I've found it's useful to jot down the major points along the side of the page as you move through the case and then you can run through and hit the highlights in the elevator pitch. I went through all of the highlights and then gave the recommendation to purchase the technology.

What I SHOULD HAVE DONE was to first give my recommendation, back it up with supporting data, and then outline the next steps. The consultant was right when she told me that the COO wants the answer first and doesn't want to listen to the data first, not knowing where it is going to lead.

This is just a quick reminder and something I think will be useful in the interviews...almost every interview will end with asking you what your recommendation is.

Advice on Nailing the McKinsey Case

Today I had a talk with my "McKinsey buddy," the consultant whom I was paired with to help answer some of my questions about the interview process. This was actually a very helpful conversation from which I learned a few things about the case interview:

1) The process is much more important than the final answer (although the final answer is still important)
2) Add as much detail as possible-be specific in your analysis
3) Be creative...show you are thinking beyond a standard framework or canned answer

I'll give a little more detail as to what I mean above. First, structuring your answer is VITAL. The interviewer needs to see how you are working and understand your logic in order for them to assess your ability to solve a problem. This is what I mean by process...they want to understand how and why you arrived at a specific answer more than they care about what answer you arrived at. Interestingly, the same can be said for the personal interview...they don't care about the end result as much as what you specifically did to drive an issue forward (i.e. the process).

I was also told to add more specifics and more detail to my answers. The particular case involved an online video retailer that sold streaming movies through the internet. I would be asked about how to increase revenue and would say, "we could explore alternative revenue streams or charge for advertising on our website." A better answer would be to detail the exact types of advertising we should be seeking...for example, we are an internet movie distributor...people who watch movies may also play video games or may enjoy staying at home so we should look to target advertising towards these groups. The end message is be as specific as possible and try to make your suggestions applicable to the SPECIFIC case that you were given.

Think outside of the box a little bit. At the end of the case, you will probably be asked for a recommendation of some sort. In this particular case that I did, I recommended that we not invest in a particular company because it wasn't profitable. I was then asked what kinds of things I could think about to help make the company more profitable...it is here when you can try to really show some creativity beyond just the standard P=(R-C)x V framework.

As an aside, the consultant that I have been paired with was actually a student in the mini-MBA class that I taught this summer...kind of a small world when you think about it.

Preperation for the next McKinsey round

I just scheduled my next round interview at McKinsey & Company for Tuesday Nov 3rd from 12-3pm. This is the first day of interviews, which wasn't really my first choice, but some of the later dates had already filled up by this morning! I think that the 12pm time slot is much better than an 8m or 4pm and hopefully my mind will be at its sharpest then.

It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow so I am planning on working on cases ALL day. I think I will start out with going through some sample McKinsey frameworks and sketching out my decision trees in a MECE format on a white board. Once I really have the McKinsey style framework ingrained, then I will start to practice cases with some other people starting on Sunday and working through the rest of the next week. I think 50 or so cases should get me in the right mindset

I am lucky in that I have 3 friends from the consulting club that have also moved on to the next round that I will be able to practice with. My wife will also give me plenty of cases. I am also very lucky in that another friend from the club has already received an offer at McKinsey and can offer some advice on how best to proceed with my preparation. I am also going to be doing a lot of quick math problems throughout the week, just to make sure I absolutely do not get stuck on a simple division or fraction problem.

It is a little bit stressful thinking that 3 hours can determine the rest of your life, but hopefully with enough practice I can be great for 3 hours!

Good News with McKinsey

Made it through to round 2 of McKinsey Interviews!!! I was a sweating it the entire day and getting a little nervous after having not received an email, but they must have been working pretty hard to get the notifications out because it was after 10 o'clock when the email finally came.

McKinsey is really pretty great about making sure you are supported through the interview process. They set you up with a buddy to answer questions about McKinsey and the interview process, they organize a series of practice phone calls to make sure you get some additional case practice, and they provide you the contact information for other candidates who have moved on so that you can organize practice sessions with those individuals.

I am really pretty excited about the opportunity and am anxious to start trying to get a little bit more MECE! I think that I really have the ability to do well in the next rounds and am re-motivated to start hitting cases pretty hard. There is definitely a distinctive style for McKinsey cases so it will be important to work within the context of those cases.

On a sadder note, it doesn't look like Booz & Company will move my application forward...I am going to have a conversation next week to get some feedback, but I have a feeling it is just a general bias towards not hiring PhD's as they didn't place any emphasis on recruiting that particular skill-set...I'll give you a more definitive answer once I receive one myself.

McKinsey 1st Round Interview-Test and Case Workshop

So I've actually just completed my 2nd McKinsey 1st round interview. It seems from talking to everyone that there is a consensus regarding the test. I've spoken a little bit about the test in earlier posts so won't expand too much here. Just a few salient points:

1) The biggest obstacle to doing well on the test was time
2) No one really thinks they did "well"

After the test had been completed by all (about 40 people), group break out sessions began. Although they don't specifically say that you can't share the cases that you were given, they do collect all of your materials and notes so I think it is implied that they don't want you giving out any specifics. So, to be respectful to them...I won't divulge too much.

While the breakout sessions are "evaluative", McKinsey states that the primary driver for whether to move a candidate forward is the test. That being said, the case workshop is meant to be a tool to help prepare you for the next round (although I still think it has to help to be a stand-out performer in the group sessions).

For all of the breakout sessions I was in a group of 4. The first case involved a private equity group that was interested in purchasing a business. It was our job to evaluate the growth potential of the company and based on that provide a valuation analysis. After the case had been presented the consultant (an engagement manager) would ask each of the 4 group members a very specific question, i.e. if product x sells for this and our profit margin is this, how many more of product x do we need to sell to meet a particular growth target. We also had some more strategy focused questions. The take away message from this first group was that it was easy to stand out if you were able to make a nice coherent structure and sketch out simple decision trees to answer the questions. It seemed like there were not many case experts in this group and so just demonstrating that you had a logical approach to problem solving was a big advantage.

The second group case was much less pleasant than the first. The consultant was a little harsh in his delivery and was very short in probing the group for answers. I'm not sure if this was by design or just his innate personality that created this dynamic (of course our group could have contributed some too). This case was a company that produced a commodity good that had experienced a recent decrease in profitability...we were supposed to identify the cause of declining profits and work towards developing a solution to return the company to the black. During the first case the consultant would always explain how he would have answered the question himself, whereas this interviewer didn't provide much critical commentary. If he wasn't satisfied he just asked "anything else, anything else, anything else." We didn't have a laundry list of questions at the end so he just had us wait until the other groups were done...not the best learning experience. All in all, I think I performed all right in this interview too, although it wasn't the best environment to really excel.

After the cases had been completed, the entire group reconvened and we learned about the next steps in the interview process. As it turns out, we will find out if we are advancing to the next round or not by tomorrow. If we do advance we will have a chance to speak with some people from the offices we are interested in joining to help us make some final decisions on office preference. The next round of interviews are scheduled for the very beginning of November.

Even if I don't move on to the next round, it was a good chance to meet some new people. I was able to sell the consulting club some to people who are really interested. I even met someone who already knew who I was from following this blog! Anyway, we'll keep our fingers crossed for tomorrow...best of luck to all those who participated today!

Case Interview iPhone App

Occasionally google gets the ads right! I just checked out the iPhone app for practicing case studies and it actually looks pretty useful. Especially if you are just getting started with practicing cases and are looking for something that you can do quickly and that is portable. It is available at (www.upwardpro.com/Strategy-Consulting-Case-Prep.htm).

At some point there was an add with the link to the apps site on the side of my page to this particular website...for those of you iPhone junkies, it might be a good tool to help you prep for your interviews.

PS...I am not affiliated with the app in any way and can't personally endorse its use

Interview Info Forum

Just another quick thought....since it appears there are a lot of folks that have started taking interest in the blog, why don't we combine our collective knowledge to make this something really useful.

If you have interviewed with a consulting firm and feel comfortable sharing some anonymous information...please leave the details in the comments section of this post. The wider variety of experiences we have to draw upon, the more likely we are to be prepared for any interview situation.

Thanks for your help...I know the "collective we" appreciates your participation!

Don't stop working

No news on the consulting front. I have my McKinsey 1st round interview (IWAS) on Wed. morning and will certainly give you the update on what happens then. I am hoping to also receive some feedback on my informal interview with Booz and maybe set up a first round interview with Health Advances. In addition, there are a number of firms I am still waiting to hear back from after submitting a resume and cover letter.

While we are waiting for something consulting related, I thought I would share a quick thought with those of you, like me, with scientific/medical backgrounds that are considering entering the consulting world.

I know it is easy to focus on prepping for cases, building your consulting resume, and networking tirelessly, but this weekend I stopped for a minute to think about the dangers of doing so. Remember, you are a scientist or physician right now and hoping that you will be a consultant in the future.

This weekend I went to a memorial service at the Children's Hospital Boston for families who lost a child to cancer. This was the second time that I had been to this service and it is always an exceptionally strong motivational tool for me as a scientist. It is easy to get lost in the tedious nature of harvesting samples, processing RNA, running gels and doing western blots without really thinking about the consequences of your actions. There is really nothing more sobering than being surrounded by parents who are grieving for children whose lives were cut short by a terrible disease.

While I don't work in cancer biology, my research is focused on developing drugs to treat muscular dystrophy...a pediatric disease with 100% mortality. I'm sure that the parents of these children struggle in the same way as parents of children with cancer and while I have been focused on finding a consulting position, it is my current responsibility to give 100% to research that may ultimately ease the suffering of some child.

The moral of the story is not to forget why you are a scientist or physician just because you are becoming a consultant. You are still responsible for doing your best for in your current position to serve those who are less fortunate then yourself.

Bain & Company Rejection

Well the word on the street was that Bain wasn't going to hire more than 1 person this year and it looks like that is probably a pretty fair estimate. I just got my rejection letter from them this morning. Since I already have had or will have interviews with McKinsey, BCG, and Booz, I can't imagine that I got the ding from Bain because of my resume as much as the fact that they really must not be hiring.

I did like their presentation that they gave trying to sell Bain and it seems like being a "Bainey" is a pretty good gig...especially with all of the work they do on the private equity side.

The rejection was pretty generic so I'm guessing that my application really wasn't even given a second thought. In this kind of situation, it probably really helps to have known someone inside at Bain. I had met one of the consultants there a few times, but had never actually spoken more than once to the advanced degree recruiter...which is a definite negative when you are tying to get one of these jobs!

Anyway..here's the bad news:

Thank you for your recent application for the Consultant position at Bain & Company. We appreciate the time you have taken to apply. This year we have received applications from an unprecedented number of well-qualified candidates, making it impossible for us to interview all those who are interested in a position. After careful assessment of your application, we regret to inform you that we are unable to initiate discussions with you at this time.

We appreciate your interest in Bain & Company and wish you every success in your career.

Thank you again for your interest.

Comments

Hi All...just a quick request. I've noticed that the page is being widely read (>100 hits per day). If you wouldn't mind, please leave a few comments for me on what you think about the material that I've posted so far and please let me know what kind of information you would like to see posted in the future.

I want to make this as valuable as possible for the readers and I can't read your minds!

Thanks.

Boutique vs. General Management Consulting

I am by no means and expert on giving advice about all of the things that a generalist firm has to offer compared to a more niche consulting position, but after talking to a few folks who have had experiences at each of these types of places, I am finally starting to get an idea of what each job is all about.

Because I have a relatively strong health care background, I have only really been dealing with the boutique firms that specialize in health care, pharma, and biotech consulting. I have primarily dealt with 2 of these firms: Campbell Alliance and Health Advances.

The Campbell Alliance seems to be a little larger of the two organizations and has several offices around the country and internationally. The headquarters is in Raleigh, NC but they have regional offices in the following locations:

Boston, MA

New York, NY

Parsippany, NJ

Philadelphia, PA

Atlanta, GA

Chicago, IL

San Francisco, CA

Los Angeles, CA

London, UK

The last time I spoke with the recruiter for Campbell they seemed as if they were growing and would be hiring this next season; however, she was pushing the managed care consulting roles pretty hard so it looks like a lot of the opportunities they may have are in that space.

At this particular firm, they hire everyone in at the same level, as a consultant. This is equivalent to an analyst degree at another firm and is an entry level BS type role. While this might seem a little demeaning to someone with a PhD, MBA or other graduate degree (it did at first to me) there is a catch. While the large general management firms promote consultants every 2 years, at Campbell Alliance you are promoted as soon as you are "ready." That means you could potentially receive several promotions within your first year. I've done a little exploring on Linked-In and this appears to be true...a lot of people started with Campbell at one level and were promoted rather rapidly to a new position.

I also mentioned that I have been interacting a bit with Health Advances. This is a smaller group of maybe 50-ish consultants that solely focus on health care, biotech, and pharma. They are based in Waltham, MA. I had a great conversation with some of the consultants and one of the recruiters at the Harvard Biotechnology Club's career fair this last month and got a much better feel about their organization.

I was curious as to what kinds of business a smaller firm like this got...was it mostly small biotech or did they compete for large pharma business too? It appears as if they are a strong player in both markets, but they do a good amount of work in the small biotech/start-up space. This was exciting to me as I think that is where I might ultimately like to end up in the long term...developing strat-ups, building their strategy, developing strategic alliances, etc. I don't have any data to back this up, but it is my guess that these start-ups probably can't afford to bring a McK, BCG, Bain type and as a result working at these generalist firms might not give you the start-up experience if that's something you'd want.

The nicest thing I learned about this company was hearing more about their work model. They really don't travel all that much. At the beginning of each engagement, they meet with the client...learn about the problem, conduct the appropriate interviews, etc. Then they had back to the office in MA and work out a solution and don't return to the client site until the deliver the final solution. This is really a stark contrast compared to the larger generalist firms and makes a HUGE difference in your day to day lifestyle. The recruiter also told me that the typical work week is 50 hours and that weekends are always free. It seems like they may pay a little less than a McKinsey or BCG, but the trade off is in the free time and hours that you work for your money.

As a quick aside...LEK consulting also does most of their work from home and has significantly lighter travel schedules than some of the other large generalist firms.

So I've spent a lot of time talking about some of these boutique firms, but not much time talking about the larger generalist firms. When I initially considered general management consulting, I had this impression that you were required to work across a number of industries and that the "generalist experience" was encouraged. It turns out that this really isn't true. Every firm I've interviewed with has said they actually encourage you to specialize as soon as you feel you are ready. If I had been offered a position at BCG, I would have been working exclusively in health care! So for those of you who are worried about not getting to spend enough time in your "sweet spot" with a big 4 firm, don't worry!

I think the decision as to whether to go with a big generalist firm or a boutique comes down to 3 key factors:

1) lifestyle-travel requirements, time home, total hours worked/week
2) network- larger firms have a larger network when you leave
3)salary/benefits- McK, BCG, Bain probably pay a little bit better than the small guys

Informal Interview with Booz

Today I had the opportunity to meet with a Sr. Associate from Booz & Co for an informal interview. We met at a local coffee shop in Cambridge for about an hour...which is quite a generous amount of time for a busy consultant to offer.

We talked a little bit about my background and ambitions and a little bit about Booz. I really like the idea of working for a consulting firm that is newly independent, growing, and still figuring out exactly how it wants to operate. There is an entrepreneurial flare to Booz that I haven't sensed from some of the other large firms.

Booz is unique for a couple of other reasons. When you join Booz, you are soft alligned to an industry. This means that you are loosely connected with a practice group and not as directly affiliated with one office. This is important for staffing purposes. While one office may be enriched in a certain practice area, projects are not staffed in a regional model...the best person for each project will be staffed on that project...regardless of their home office. To me that is an exciting prospect.

As you may know, Booz & Co. recently acquired Katzenbach Partners, a boutique strategy consulting firm whose sweet spot was organizational strategy. The consultant I interviewed with shed a little more light on the purpose of that acquisition for me as well. As it turned out, when Booz split from BAH, they found they were a little weaker in organizational strategy and leadership change and that they were getting a lot of requests for work in this space...as a result, they acquired Katzenbach Partners. It is nice to see an organization recognizing their weaknesses and addressing them in a timely and appropriate fashion. It is always good to see a strategy consulting firm go out and execute a successful strategy themselves!!

About midway through the interview we went through a short case. It was a health care case that was a little unique. The client was a 3rd party payor. Other 3rd party payors were interested in offering a new product, a supplement to medicare parts A and B and our client is interested in supporting them by offering back office services such as claims support and customer service. Because we aren't in the business of dealing with medicare ourselves we have no interest in offering the new product directly, just supporting those that do. It was my job to build a framework for how to test whether this was a good opportunity for the client.

After some discussion, it seemed like it was a good decision on the revenue side; however, we eventually realized that the infrastructure we had in place was not sufficient to handle medicare related claims (as I mentioned we didn't deal in medicare and complying with all of the rules and regulations and the changing dynamics of the plans was too complicated for our client). In order to support this endeavor, the upfront investment would be enormous...in the end I recommended not to engage in this opportunity. I made a few long term suggestions....like, if the market for this product continues to grow and the product is profitable...maybe we would like to offer the product directly ourselves down the line instead of supporting those who already offer it. This would make sense since the upfront investment was so great...we should maximize the profits we return from that investment and being a middle man is definitely not a profit maximizer.

After we were done with the case, we talked a little more about Booz and I had a chance to ask a few questions. I wanted to be sensitive to her time and asked her how we were doing...as it turned out she really had to run so we called it quits. We left shaking hands and I will plan on hearing back from them soon. All-in-all...a very productive meeting. Yet again, I left with a good taste in my mouth about Booz...the people have all been exceptionally giving of their time and very generous in their reaching out.

Case Practice

So I have been practicing a lot of cases lately...trying to get ready for the interviews that I have coming up and for the interviews that I hope to have coming up! Tonight I have a 7 o'clock case practice session in Cambridge where I will meet a group of about 20 people to practice cases. I hope to be able to pair up with someone that I've never practiced with before so that I can get a new set of perspectives and criticisms.

I have found that the best resource for learning to practice cases is Marc Cosentino's book "Case in Point." Before you actually start practicing cases, I would recommend that you read the first 60 pages of this book...the intro is all about learning what an interviewer is looking for in a case and lays out a number of frameworks that are the foundation for structuring your answer to case questions.

When I first started to practice cases, I made 15 or so note cards with the type of case listed on the front, i.e. entering a new market, declining profits, competitive response, increasing revenue, etc... On the back of these cards I put the framework or strategy that Cosentino recommends using to solve that particular type of case. I would flip through these note cards when I was walking home from work, eating lunch, or on the train and within a week or so I had everything pretty well memorized. Once you know your frameworks, you can actually begin to be productive when you practice cases.

After you have been practicing for a while, it is important to develop your own unique twists to each of the frameworks so that when you begin interviewing it will not be so aparent that you are using a "canned" framework....you will loose instant points for lack of creativity! It is also important to practice with different people. Start practicing with someone who is also new to cases, but as you get better it helps to practice with someone that is an expert so they can really push you to become better. The night before an interview it might help to go over a case with someone that will give you some positive feedback just to get your self esteem back to where it needs to be before you deliver your best case ever!

McKinsey Interview-Round 1 Test and Workshop

So after languishing as to whether I would be able to re-apply to McKinsey, I ended up re-submitting my application 2 weeks ago. I just got the decision from them yesterday and it turned out to be good news:

Hello-

Thank you for submitting an application for a position with McKinsey & Company. We would like to invite you to participate in McKinsey's Interview Workshop & Initial Assessment (IWIA) in Boston on October 21st, 22nd, 26th or 27th. If you are not within or near Boston at this time, please contact me so we may discuss whether there is an interview location closer to you.

Since you've taken the test earlier this year, you will not need to retake it, but you will still need to come and participate in the group breakouts. Please understand the outcome of the IWIAs, however, is based primarily on the test while the group facilitators also provide input on your performance. Therefore, we would draw on your test score from the previous time that you took it. You can still sign up for a full session in our scheduling system on-line, and you could come an hour and fifteen minutes after it officially begins then.

So it's nice that I wasn't rejected, but a little peculiar that I am not re-taking the test. Last time I took the test, I wasn't invited to move on...if the decision to move on to the next round is "based primarily on the test" then what does that mean exactly? Is my test score good enough that I don't need to worry about taking it again? Is the test exactly the same as the last time so they don't want me taking it again? Are they just having me come to the workshop because I "complained" and this was the easiest way to appease me? I'm having a lot of thoughts as to what this actually means, but I guess the answer is really just a few weeks away.

If I move on past this round then they were serious about having me come back. If i don't move on past this round then it is more likely that they never really cared about bringing me back or they would have had me retest.

I'll let you know how the actual workshop goes. I'm participating in it on the 21st in the morning session (8:30-12:30). I'm hoping they will let us know our status within a few days after the session, although the last session they offer is on the 27th so we may have to wait until after that.

Booz & Co

Within the last year and a half, Booz & Co separated from its parent company BAH. BAH was bought by the Carlyle Group and focuses on government work whereas the newly independent Booz & Co is focused solely on commercial work and is poised to compete directly with the M/B/Bs of the world.

Unfortunately, Booz & Co doesn't do a lot of targeted advanced degree recruiting, although there is a nice section on their website that states they do hire PhDs, JDs, MDs and the like. I noticed that they are avid recruiters of HBS and Sloan MBAs and schedule a number of events with those institutions.

Using Linked-In, I contacted the Harvard (primarily HBS) recruiter and also a few partners from the Cleveland Office. I also sent a few cold emails to some of the Cleveland partners...the email addresses are easy to figure out.."their name @ booz.com." This was a wildly successful endeavor! Most of the time (75% of the time) I don't get a response to an e-mail or Linked-In request, but in this case probably 75% of the folks at Booz that I contacted actually responded back. This actually says a great deal about the organization to me and speaks very highly of the individuals they hire. Despite their lack of emphasis on hiring PhDs, they were very responsive to my inquiries and made me feel like I could be a valuable contributor to their company.

The partners that I spoke with on the phone were in the Cleveland office. They were both very nice and took at least a half hour out of their day to speak with me. We talked a little bit about work at Booz, the culture, and the different offices. Although I had initially been sold on going back to Cleveland and joining the Cleveland office at Booz, I have gently been redirected towards focusing on the Chicago office as they seem to be a little more focused on healthcare where Cleveland does more consumer/packaged goods and industrial consulting.

During one of my discussions with a Cleveland partner, he thought it would be wise to try and put me on the interview schedule. Within a week I got an email from a senior associate asking if it would be all right to meet and conduct an informal interview. I'm not sure what an "informal interview" means exactly, but I was excited to be a part of the process and I'm assuming that an informal interview could lead to a "formal interview."

We are meeting in Cambridge at a small coffee and dessert store to talk. I will fill you in on the details after they are available!

Using Linked In

Just a quick note that may prove to be as invaluable to you as it has been to me. USE LINKED IN! As you may have heard, getting a job in consulting is as much about who you know as what you know and it isn't always easy to meet the right people....you have to want to meet them and you have to work at it.

Having a better network than another applicant is just as important to beating him to the job as having a better resume. When a recruiter or a team of consultants are screening resumes, they may look at 2000+ in a couple of weeks and only commit to interviewing 50-100 of those applicants. That means that you only have a 2.5% chance of making it through the initial resume scan....pretty grim statistics.

If the people reviewing resumes recognize you, can put a name to a face, or even just remember that you've expressed interest in their organization, you will have a distinct advantage over the 1,900+ people they haven't ever heard of.

One of the best ways to get in contact with the people you need to know is through Linked-In. make a profile...a GOOD profile that sells your capabilities as a consultant. Remember, anyone that you contact through Linked-In will see your profile and you want it to be a selling point for you...if you have an intriguing profile, the odds of getting a response will be much greater!

I have found it is helpful to reach out to a consultant or a partner in an office that you are interested in working in. Ask to speak to them about their particular office or their experiences. If they agree to talk...shoot them a copy of your resume. Ask if there is a particular recruiter for their office that you should get in touch with...this is how I met the McKinsey consultant from the Cleveland office....and he eventually became one of my advocates and was instrumental to my re-application to McKinsey!

I have also made some really wonderful contacts with some smaller boutique consulting firms like the Campbell Alliance out of Raleigh, NC. Some of these smaller companies may not recruit at your institution, but this is a great way to reach out and make that initial contact and get on their recruiting radar.

Where to apply

Considering I have had interviews with both McKinsey and BCG during the past year and had been rejected by both, I figured my options were becoming more sparse. Since I had applied to McKinsey last year, I thought I might still have a shot with reapplying this year....until I got the following email from the Harvard McKinsey recruiter:

Dear Applicant-

You can re-apply but I don't think we will be able to consider you for a
position this year since you've recently interviewed with us.


--------------------------

APD Recruiting
McKinsey & Company
Office: +1 212 415 1569
eFax: +1 646 307 6583
www.apd.mckinsey.com


Really? I took one test on one day in the cold with less than a week to prepare and that excludes me from interviewing for the rest of the year? I refused to accept that as an acceptable response. I had recently been in touch with one of the consultants at McKinsey who was helping to lead the recruiting efforts for the Cleveland office (an office that I would love to work in). I shot him a quick email to see if he agreed with the recruiter....his initial assessment was that the recruiter was probably right and that there wasn't much that could be done to work around "policies." I was a little upset with this response as well, as I thought the goal of the recruiting process was to find the best possible candidates regardless of circumstance. Fortunately, the consultant agreed and was kind enough to send the following email:

Dear Applicant,

Sorry for the slow response on my end. I've been following up with our
local, regional and national recruiting teams, and, assuming you are still
interested, I would now suggest you reapply this fall. In brief, should
you decide to re-apply, you should carefully describe the activities you
pursued since your interview in both your cover letter and your resume.

I'm apologize if this email only adds to what has already been a confusing
and frustrating process for you. I would be very glad to speak with you
again. If I can be of any help, let me know and we can set up some time to
talk.

Best regards,

McKinsey & Company
200 Public Square, Suite 3900
Cleveland, Ohio 44114


This just goes to show that McKinsey is committed to getting it right. They are a world class organization with world class people and in the end, they will make the right decision...even if it takes some time and a little help from me!

With that email behind me, I could re-apply to McKinsey with a clear conscience! Here is the list of firms I have applied to thus far...most are management consulting firms with a little IB and PE mixed in.


Consulting Firms:

1) McKinsey & Co
2) Bain & Co
3) Booz & Co
4) LEK
5) Deloitte
6) Oliver Wyman
7) Leerink Swann
8) Health Advances
9) Campbell Alliance

Other:

1) Banc of America Securities
2) Goldman Sachs
3) Edgeview Partners

I will continue to update with progress reports as I hear back from each of these firms. Stay tuned...

The Decision

As I left from my last BCG interview, I was told I would hear back by the end of the next week. It was a Friday so I figured that mean by the next Friday, I would have an answer...I was wrong. If you remember from an earlier post, I mentioned that I think one of the weaknesses of BCG is their failure to communicate in a timely fashion. This was again exemplified by this situation...2 weeks had gone by since my last interview without any word...at this point, I figured it wasn't out of line to make a phone call and send a few emails.

I left a few voice mails and an email with each of the recruiters I worked with...just to see if they had an idea when I might hear back and reminding them that I thought I was going to hear back a week earlier.

That night at 6 o'clock, I was on the way out the door with my wife and my in-laws (they had come to visit from North Carolina) when I got a call from a number I recognized as the BCG office. I answered the phone and the consultant who was in charge of the Boston office recruiting was on the other end. He cut right to the chase..."I'm afraid I don't have any good news for you at this point." (Does that mean he was going to have good news for me at any point?) He told me that it had been a tough decision...two partners gave me the thumbs up and one had given me the thumbs down (guess which one that was)...because they couldn't reach a concensus, they couldn't offer me the position. I was actually very impressed by the kind of feedback I received...he took somewhere around 45 minutes reading me the feedback from each of my interviewers.

At the end of the conversation he told me to be sure to reapply next year if I hadn't already accepted a position with another firm. He also told me that there wasn't anything I could do to improve my application between now and then....I guess that's good to hear (knowing I have done well to prepare myself), but at the same time you always wish there was something you could do to give yourself a better shot the next time around.

I guess I realize that getting an offer is just as much about having a good fit with your interviewer on a given day as it is nailing your case. It is all fairly random as to if you get a case you can really hit out of the park or whether you get a case that you'll struggle through. I think this is why it is important to interview with all the firms you can....this increases your odds of meeting the right people on the right day and getting cases that you are comfortable with. Unfortunately I realized that you can do well on 4 out of 5 cases and not get an offer....

BCG 2nd Round Interview (2)

So after the initial disappointment of a poor decision round interview, I tried to recover and prepare for my third interview. This interview was scheduled at the end of the week (4 days after my first 2 decision round interviews). My motivation was waning, as I really didn't believe I could recover from such a bad interview....despite these feelings I forced myself to continue to practice cases and to think about my fit interviews.

Thankfully, this last interview was scheduled for 1pm and not another 7:15am start time! At least I had that working in my favor. When I got to the office, I actually had the red carpet rolled out for me...one of the recruiters came up and wanted to make sure I had everything I needed and then the consultant who was in charge of recruiting came out to meet me and wanted to see how everything had gone...they both ensured me that I was going to do great in my next interview and that they were "sooooo glad" I had come back on a second day and they were "soooo sorry" I had to be inconvenienced like that. It was all very nice and very sincere...I've said before that I REALLY like the people at BCG!

So my last interview was with the head of global recruiting for the health care practice...of course, as a partner, he also only leads engagements in health care. He was a Eurpean MD who also got an MBA from INSEAD. He had done some operations work before business school and done some consulting with Deloitte prior to joining BCG. He originally joined BCG in the London office and then transferred to Boston around 2004ish.

He used to sail, fly planes, and windsurf as hobbies before he had kids...sounded like a pretty exciting guy!

We started talking about my resume. He looked it over and said, "Wow, you've really done a lot...there's a lot here to talk about...what are you most proud of out of all your accomplishments?" I thought that was a pretty interesting question and I hadn't ever really thought about it...I told him that I was most proud of completing all 3 of my graduate degrees simultaniously and that I learned stick-to-it-ness and time management skills that were crucial for a career in consulting. I also said that these experiences allowed me to learn a lot from different people in a number of different fields and that I thought a bredth of experience was important in consulting as well.

We then moved on to the case. This was more typical of what I think a partner case is like...kind of ambiguous without a clear answer. He started out, "Our client is a global travel agency...we have travel agencies in all major cities and sell typical travel agency type services. This isn't a growth market and we are looking to diversify and grow. We have developed a new business unit, but we don't know what business this unit should be in....can you develop some criteria you would use to screen business ideas for me?" I told him that I would 1) chose something that was at least "soft-aligned" with our core business, that is travel related 2) I would chose something with growth potential and 3) I would chose something that we could afford to develop

He then asked me based on the criteria I had developed what kind of business I would choose. I told him that I thought it might be worth acquiring a series of hotels and that way we could expand the hotel chain to new areas and as a travel agency we could steer people to our brand of hotels. Hotels would also cater to business travelers which was a group of people that we weren't targeting with our old services...this would be an opportunity for us to expand and grow into a new market segment.

He thought that was an OK idea, but said that what they had actually decided to do was to develop a travel insurance program. This program offered a service to travelers....if they were on a trip and needed a cab, or needed medical help, or needed a passport, or needed to get a reservation somewhere...they were allowed 1 free call to our call center where a representative would take care of their request for them. We then talked about what kinds of things we would need to consider with opening this type of business unit, who we would market it to, and what the costs associated with operation would be.

At the end of the interview, I felt it had gone pretty well....still the question remained...was it enough to overcome the interview a few days before.

The end tally:

Interview #1: B+
Interview #2: C-
Interview #3:A-/B+

In an industry where only A's are acceptable, I was afraid a B average wouldn't make the team.

BCG 2nd Round Interview (1)

At BCG the second round of interviews is also their "decision round" interview. These are conducted by the partners and managing directors of the office in which you would eventually be employed. For me, that office was Boston.

Because I was being interviewed "off cycle," it was more difficult for them to find a single day when all of the partners would be around to interview me. As a result, I would have to come back to the office on more than one day. The first interview started at 7:15 am on a Monday morning...ugggh. This interview was with a partner who was part of the health care practice. He had a PhD from MIT, but was from Belgium and had been with BCG since 1999.

The 7:15 interview was not my time to shine. We started talking about my resume some and he asked about starting an antibody company that I had co-founded in 2004...we talked about that and what the difficulties were with getting that company funded and off the ground. From there we moved into the case. This was where I really noticed a difference between the styles of the first round interviews and the decision round interview. His question was "Your client is a pharma company that is less productive than its competitors. You have a team of 4 people to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it in 6 weeks. What do you have everyone on your team do?"

We spend a pretty good amount of time discussing what "productivity" actually means and how to valuate a pipeline...we got to an answer with how to improve R&D pipeline value and how to bring that in line with the competition by divesting unfruitful programs, licencing non-core products and focusing more attention of the products we could bring to market...that being said, we probably didn't ever address productivity for the rest of the organization...I don't know if I lost points there or not.

The next interview was where it all fell apart. This particular partner (HBS MBA) was in consumer goods....not at all involved in the health care practice that I was interviewing for. The resume talk went fine (I've gotten pretty good and selling my CV by this point...the whole key is to give an answer and then relate it back to why you would be a good consultant). The case was rough...actually VERY ROUGH! We were working with a toy store and over time we have seen the profit margins decrease. What is going on and what should we do about it? I didn't really understand exactly what he wanted. I kept thinking that because profits are a function of revenue and costs that either our revenue was decreasing or out costs were increasing. He said costs were not changing with respects to the toys were were buying and our revenue was actually increasing. I thought maybe the cost of rent or the fixed costs associated with owning a toy store may have changed...he said that wasn't relevant. At this point I was stuck...I threw out a few other suggestions and got the response "anything else, anything else, anything else." At some point he says, " for the sake of time, let's consider we started selling more video games which have a very low profit margin." From there I jumped through the hoops, determined why we were selling more video games, determined it didn't matter that we had a lower profit margin because our gross profits were still increasing, etc... In my mind, it was too little too late...that was an error that I could never recover from.

Waiting for yes

While I have always been extremely impressed with the people I met at BCG, I have learned that their weakness comes in communicating with candidates in a timely fashion. I'm not sure how big of a deal it really is...but I will say, from a candidates perspective, you are sweating it while you are waiting to hear back about your interview!! After the first round interview, I had my hand on my phone every minute of every day....I didn't want to miss feeling my phone vibrate when BCG called.

They had told me it would be 2-3 business days until I heard back....in reality it was 6 or 7. During that time, you can't help but play a few mind games. "Are they calling the best people first...will they wait for them to say no and then ask me if they have no other option?"

Regardless I heard back at 12:07 on a wed afternoon. One of the recruiters called and started out with "we have good news...we'd like you to come back for a decision round interview. This interview will be with 3 different partners. We don't know when we will be able to get the partners in the office at the same time so we can't give you an exact date, but will be in touch to let you know." Wooohoooooooo.

BCG 1st round interview (2)

My next interview was with a principal who had gotten an MBA at Wharton and then went to work at Sony Music in Cali. She left Sony after a few years and started her consulting career with LEK consulting in Melbourne before transferring to the Boston BCG office as a project manager in 2004.

The interview was very conversational right from the beginning. We talked some about my resume, but there weren't any scripted questions. Some of my research is done in collaboration with Novartis Pharmaceuticals so she asked what I liked and disliked about both the academic research environment and the pharmaceutical industry. Then she asked me how the things I liked and disliked would translate to making a good career in consulting. I talked about the intellectual pursuit of new ideas and liking the teamwork aspect of the collaboration and how both of those are very applicable to consulting engagements...she seemed to smile and think that was a pretty good answer.

Then we dug right into the case. This case didn't have any charts and it seemed like she might have made it up on the fly on the way into the room (she had a few numbers sketched out in pencil in the top corner of her paper that she kept referring to).

This case involved a larger commercial retailer..."think of it like a K-mart." They were thinking about adopting RFID technology. She asked me to think about what kinds of things I thought they could use RFID for. I regurgitated a bunch of ideas and when I mentioned inventory management she stopped me and said, "let's focus on that one for a bit." She told me that the store feared they were losing customers because they had been stocking out of goods and that they think using RFID may help prevent stock outs and that they would be able to increase their customer base by 2.5% with RFID technology. I was asked to calculate the average profit/customer based on some numbers and then calculated how much they would make by increasing their customer base by 2.5%. She gave me the cost of the RFID technology...cost per chip and then cost for the machinery to analyze the chips. The life of the machines was 8 years so I expensed the fixed costs accordingly. It turned out that it was just barely breaking even with the 2.5% of customers we gained. I decided not to implement the change because the 2.5% was a soft estimation and if we only gained 2%, we would be losing money on the investment. I also talked about how it would be nice to be able to pilot the venture, but that implementing RFID would have to be a company-wide implementation because of the distribution channels that are involved. Under that circumstance I mentioned that unfortunately a trial program would not be possible.

I asked a few questions...similar to the first interview and we called it a day....she walked me back to the lobby where we kept talking some about big pharma and she wished me well and I headed off on my way. Leaving the office I graded myself A-A+ on this particular interview...I really didn't think it could have gone better. The question was whether a B/B- and an A/A+ average was good enough to move on to the next round.

Through the grapevine I had learned that a high ranking official at the MIT consulting club had been dinged in the first round interview at BCG...which made me a little bit worried as to if I had done well enough...only time would tell....they said 2-3 business days until I would be notified with the results!

1st Round Interviews at BCG

Between the time I had been invited to interview with BCG and the actual interview itself, I practiced case-studies like it was my job. I probably did 30+ cases a week for 6+ weeks. I went to our consulting club's case practice sessions on Monday and Wednesday nights, read cases when I was at work, read cases while I watched TV, and had my wife give me cases every night and a few times on the weekends.

My interview was at 9:45 am at the Boston office on August 14th. I got a cab in the morning ( I sometimes get headaches on public transportation and this was not a good time for a headache) and got to the exchange building at around 8:30. I got a bottle of water and a banana at the coffee shop in lobby of the building and started to go over some flashcards with frameworks on them. I had already memorized all of the frameworks months ago and knew them backwards and forewords...it did help me get in the mood. I also made up a few simple profit margin questions and did the math quickly on a piece of paper to get the juices flowing. I sketched out the answers to personal interview questions---leadership, teamwork, failures, successes...that kind of thing. Once I had done that, I got my badge and headed up to the 31st floor to find the BCG offices.

I got in the office and was handed a set of bio's for the 2 folks that were going to interview me. One had just been promoted to project manager and the other was a principal. Both had very impressive backgrounds...MBAs from HBS and Wharton respectively. A piece of advice I had been given prior to this interview was to find something interesting in the interviewer's bio's to talk about with them on the way back to the interview. This makes sense if you think about it. Strike up a conversation...get them talking and keep them talking...establish some repose. The idea is that this congenial conversation will carry over into the interview and that the interview will become more conversational...they may even end up giving you help without even realizing it and undoubtedly you will have a more positive review if they felt they related well to you.

My first interview was pretty straight forward. The guy I was interviewing with had worked at Microsoft before coming to BCG (now a project manager)...I asked him if he was based in Seattle and talked about the hiking and outdoor activities in Washington and asked him how he liked it. Once we got into the interview, we talked a little bit about my resume. He asked me to describe a leadership experience. I talked about leading a small group of 5 people in a volunteer consulting project that we had undertaken to help a local 503(c) non-profit group develop their strategy to move forward. I talked about having to bring out new ideas in a diverse group of people and having to make sure the group reached consensus. That seemed to be taken pretty well and we moved on to the case.

The first case I got was a case involving a large office supply store. I was supposed to think of the store as something like an Office Max. The store had seen steady profits for 20 years, but recently started to see a decline and profits and thought it was because the industry trends were moving towards selling more computers and computer related accessories and focusing less on tranditional paper, pencils, and office furniture. He asked if I thought that shifting our focus towards computers and computer related goods was a smart move.

We talked about the general implications of the move some. I considered it analagous to an "entering a new market" question so asked all the questions about the market, the competition, the margins, barriers, how it would effect our existing business, etc.. Once we got past some of the general considerations, I was shown a number of charts. I was asked directly to calculate some profit margins for different products. Next we moved on to looking at some charts detailing the competition in the computer markets and another chart with the margins for computer sales (margins were different for different computers...high end vs. low end). Using those numbers I made the decision to enter the market with mid to high end computers (better margins and less competition from mass retailers). We then talked about how to rebrand the store to shift the focus from traditional office supplies to computers. All in all....not too bad. I didn't get stuck anywhere and kept the case moving and he didn't correct me at any point so I left thinking it was just OK....if I had to grade it, I would say B to B-.

We spent the rest of the time with me asking questions. What do you think makes someone successful at BCG, work life balance, favorite case, training when you start...that kind of thing. Then I was walked down the hall for case #2!

Bridge to BCG and McKinsey Insight

Both the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and McKinsey offer 2-3 day summer programs to introduce advanced degree candidates to consulting. The BCG program is called "Bridge to BCG" and the McKinsey program is called "Insight."

I applied for both programs and went to the info session for the BCG program at the BCG office in Boston. Before I get into detail about the program, I must say that the Boston office for BCG is absolutely incredible. It is on the 31st floor of the Exchange building and has an incredible view of the Boston Harbor....it would actually be a little tough for me to get work done with views like that.

Anyway, I heard the pitch from BCG and then did some networking afterwards...this proved to be KEY. I had already been VP of the consulting club for a month or so and had gotten to know a few Harvard students and postdocs that were pretty well connected with the BCG folks. This helped get me some nice introductions at this event. I met one of the principals in the office and also and probably most importantly was casually introduced to the recruiter.

I told the recruiter that I wouldn't be able to make it to the Bridge program in Boston because I had a wedding the same weekend and asked about doing the program in New York instead. I really enjoyed talking to the recruiter and felt like we were able to develop a nice report in a relaxed environment....this was invaluable to my later experiences.

While I went to the BCG intro event, I didn't do the same for the McKinsey program...all they actually offered was an online webinar, which didn't really appeal to me. I didn't see the value in a program where I wouldn't get to network they way I wanted to.

Back to BCG and Bridge...After we submitted applications, I never actually heard back from them. The deadline for hearing back was 2 weeks from the application deadline and that date had come and gone. I sent an email to the recruiter I had met and...no response. This went on for another week or so when all of a sudden I got a phone call out of the blue. "This is Molly from BCG...we loved your application and wish you could have come to Bridge in Boston...we can't allow people to do Bridge outside of their home city, but really loved your application. Instead of doing Bridge, we all agree you should really interview for a full time position to begin in January of 2010!"

I agreed to interview in early August and later discovered it was the recruiter I had met that had really pushed to try to bring me on board. Just a small lesson to all of the potential applicants....don't dismiss the recruiter as insignificant...they may actually be your biggest ally and have more power than you realize!

PS I didn't get invited to Insight either!

The Mini-MBA

What kinds of things would separate an average PhD candidate at Harvard from an outstanding PhD candidate in the mind of a recruiter? I thought about this for a while and came up with a short list.

1) Credentials--publications, awards, honors, GPA, test scores
2) A genuine interest in the profession---shown by volunteer work, work in a consulting club, etc
3) Leadership
4) Creativity-which is hard as hell to assess from a resume
5) Analytical skills-something with PhD's all have in spades
6) Some business experience or business acumen

There isn't much that I could do to develop leadership, analytics, or creativity in consulting club members, but I could teach them something about business by offering a mini-MBA course.

I began to develop the course based on the Steven Silbiger book "The 10-Day MBA." I would highly recommend this book to anyone with or without formal business training. Anyway, I made up a series of 12 1-hour lectures outlining the topics covered in the book in greater detail. Each week we also had a seasoned consultant give a 1 hour case presentation on a case they had worked on that related directly to the study material for that particular week.

At the end of the class the students broke up into groups and presented a business plan about a fictional business they had developed. All in all...it was a great class that received a lot of positive feedback. It took a lot of time to put together...actually a rather monumental feat for an individual with a full time job, but was quite worth the effort in the end.

Students who took the class were able to put it on their resumes, are now able to use and understand business vernacular in their consulting interviews, and have definitely shown a strong commitment to learning what business is all about.

For me, it is a great talking point during interviews...when I am asked about leadership, working with others in teams, how I've been involved in consulting, etc...it's a great answer with some impressive implications.

I think the take away message from this post is to show that you care about consulting and the business world---it's something that I believe the firms are looking for!

Join a consulting club---it helps to run the club

After the results came back from McKinsey, I was pretty bummed. I had pictured in my mind how it would be to move out to the West coast and start my consulting career. I was also pretty sold on all the cache of McKinsey too.

I spent a few days sulking and wondering what I was going to do with my life, but eventually decided not to give up on consulting...at least not yet. I was going to give it ONE more shot and if I was going to try again, I was going to try big.

I tried starting my own business, a company to advise biotech start-ups on funding, strategic alignments, and managerial decision making. I wrote the business plan and made a bunch of phone calls....while the company didn't ever really exist, the ideas were adopted by an incubator in North Carolina, which added another nice line to my resume.

Shortly after this, an email came circulating around from the Harvard Consulting Club president asking if anyone was interested in helping to run the club. I figured this was a golden opportunity to add another line to my CV that showed I was genuinely interested in consulting and that I would hopefully get to meet the people that make the hiring decisions...i.e. recruiters, recruiting consultants, etc.

The next day I met the president of the club at Starbucks, we talked about my resume...he was impressed and offered me the vice-president position which I accepted. Because I have an MBA, I thought I would try and add some value to the club by really bringing the non-scientists business accumen up to speed...but how could I do this?

McKinsey Problem Solving Test

The McKinsey Problem Solving Test is an absolute mystery to me and probably to most of you. It is a 60 question multiple choice test that supposedly determines what kind of a consultant you will be. I'm sure it tests all sorts of reasoning skills, etc, etc and is probably not a bad measure of intelligence, but one test, one day determines how you will perform the rest of your career?--I am not so sure.

Further, this test is only given to advanced degree candidates and not MBAs. Having both a PhD and an MBA, I can say with confidence that PhDs analytical and reasoning skills are far superior to those of a typical MBA...so why are ADPs the only ones taking this test?--the mystery continues.

I ended up having to take the test 1-week after I was notified about it. Since I had gotten the initial rejection email, I hadn't prepared for the test, case interviews, or anything to do with consulting interviews at all. On the actual test day, there was an ice storm. I made my way to the hotel in Cambridge, barely found it in the ice, and sat down to take my test. There were about 50 people in the room...I think 50 took the test in the morning and 50 took the test in the afternoon.

The test itself wasn't extremely difficult. It was a mix of math and strategy. The most difficult part of taking the test was managing the time....although I will never know my score (they don't share that with you).

After the test we had "break-out" sessions where consultants presented a number of cases to group of interviewees. They went around in a circle and asked us questions about the case and we'd give answers. While, I didn't think I said anything unreasonable, you could definitely tell who had been practicing cases and who hadn't...I felt it was obvious that I hadn't.

At the end of these sessions we were thanked for coming and told that we would hear back in the next day or 2 as to if we were moving on to the next round.

A day later, I got an email that said I would not be moving on to the next round :(

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in McKinsey & Company and for taking the time to participate in our Interview Workshop & Initial Assessment (IWIA). Unfortunately, we will not be inviting you to continue with the interview process. This decision was a difficult one, and was made having looked at all the facts available from your performance at the IWIA and your background and experience. It reflects our best assessment of who, among a group of highly qualified individuals, has the best chance for a successful and personally rewarding career with us. We will not be able to provide individual feedback on this decision.

On behalf of McKinsey, thank you again for taking the time to meet with us.

Sincerely,

APD Recruiter
McKinsey & Company

McKinsey eventually says "Maybe"-interview invite

After some disappointing rejections, I went about my research, trying to figure out what I would do for my career if these consulting firms REALLY didn't want me...and judging by their generic rejections, they didn't show much interest.

However, January 2009 rolled around and I got an interesting email from the McKinsey recruiter titled : McKinsey &Company-Interview Invitation. This is what was inside:

Hello,

Thank you for submitting an application for a full time position with McKinsey & Company. We would like to invite you to participate in McKinsey's Interview Workshop & Initial Assessment (IWIA) in Cambridge. This invitation is extended on behalf of our West Coast offices. Please review the below information and RSVP by Monday, January 19 at 12:00 pm Eastern Time.

Dress Code: Business casual (no shorts, jeans, t-shirts, but also no need for a suit)

Event Description: The IWIA consists of two components:

1. McKinsey Problem Solving Test (McKPST):
This 60-minute written multiple-choice test has been designed to assess certain basic skills that we believe are essential elements of success at McKinsey & Company. It does not assume any particular prior academic or business experience. We acknowledge that this is the most impersonal part of our interview process. We use it because it tests the same skills we look for in case interviews and thereby allows us to invite more people to interview than if we went directly to one-on-one interviews. (Please see attachment "McKPST - Practice Form" for more details.)
McKinsey utilizes various assessment techniques in its hiring process. If you think you might need an accommodation to effectively participate in the hiring process, please let us know as soon as possible and describe the accommodation you believe is appropriate.

2. Two Breakout Sessions:
The primary objective of this exercise is to provide you with the opportunity to practice cases. You will work with two different groups of about 4 candidates each, solving a case with each group. Groups will be facilitated by a McKinsey consultant.

Next Steps After IWIA: The decision on whom to pass to the next round of interviews is based almost entirely on the outcome of the test. Though the primary purpose of the breakouts is to prepare for the next round of interviews, facilitators do have a role in the decision-making process and provide input on your performance. Successful candidates will be invited to Round 2 interviews that will be held on February 10 in Boston. The final interview round takes place in the office or with the practice from which your offer to join would come.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Kind regards,

--------------------------
APD Recruiting- Harvard
McKinsey & Company
Office: +1 212 415 1569
eFax: +1 646 307 6583
www.apd.mckinsey.com

McKinsey says no again-this time with BCG and Bain

After I submitted my applications, I was high on life for a few weeks...after all, i was at Harvard therefore, I was smart and was the kind of person they wanted at M/B/B....they told me themselves in the weeks before.

Despite what they told me, the rejection letters kept coming.

Dear Applicant:

Thank you for submitting your application for a career opportunity with McKinsey & Company.

Unfortunately, we do not have a position available that would best match your experience and training with our needs. Should the situation change, we will contact you.

For information regarding our general selection criteria, please review the application information listed on our website at www.apd.mckinsey.com; we will not be able to provide individual feedback on this decision.

We appreciate your interest in our firm and wish you every success in your career.

Sincerely,

APD Recruiter
McKinsey & Company



Dear Applicant:

Thank you for your interest in The Boston Consulting Group.

Our recruiting committee has reviewed your application for a consultant position. Although we were impressed with your academic achievements and experience, we cannot offer you an interview at this time.

Again, we appreciate your interest. We wish you success in finding a challenging and rewarding position.

Sincerely,

BCG Recruiting

Consulting firms LOVE Harvard

I arrived in Boston and started in my new lab in the late summer of 2009. When I got here, I immediately started getting emails inviting me to attend all sorts of McKinsey, BCG, and Bain networking dinners and events.

I thought this was rather strange. Two months ago, I received a flat-out generic rejection from McKinsey...no interest, application probably not even read. Two months later, I am being wined and dined by major consulting firms. What changed?---the answer is nothing with me, but everything about where I was.

I listened to all the companies sales pitches...all of them said almost verbatim, "You're at Harvard, you must be really smart, you are the kind of person we want to hire." I think I can understand where the elitist, holier-than-thou Harvard stereotype comes from. People here spend years being told they are the best and eventually they begin to believe it.

Despite my cynicism, I loved the work that the M/B/Bs were doing, I loved meeting the people, I loved the idea, I loved the money. I also thought that consulting was about the only career on earth where you could actively apply clinical knowledge, basic science knowledge, and an MBA to a career. Essentially I was sold on consulting and applied everywhere I could (even though I had only been at my new job for a few weeks). After all, my goal of coming to Harvard for a postdoc wasn't to be a great postdoc, but to ultimately get a great job...and if I had to use the Harvard name to do that...I think it's just part of the game you play!

About me(4): McKinsey says no- Harvard says yes

In the spring of 2008, I was getting ready to leave MUSC. I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do, but I had some ideas. I wanted to job...a real job where I would make money. I wanted to live in a nice place and I wanted to be close to our families.

In the end, none of those things were really possible. The economy had just started to turn to crap and jobs were not there to be had. I was most excited about a fellowship I had been offered at Proctor and Gamble Pharmaceuticals in Cincinnati, OH. The job was perfect for the broad set of skills I had gathered through my seemingly endless education. It was with the licensing and acquisitions group at P&G. For those of you who don't know the P&G development model it is called "connect and develop." It is really a neat way of outsourcing the R&D necessary for drug discovery. Instead of doing the basic, basic, basic research themselves, they simply source and buy the most promising drug candidates from the biotech community. Recent reports by the BCG's of the world have suggested that outsourcing these activities are probably the direction pharma will head in the future. Anyway, I was going to be doing the deal sourcing for P&G, but as was standard for May 2008, the position was dissolved as the economy continued to move south.

I didn't know anything about consulting at that time, but "googled" for life sciences career and MBA and came up with McKinsey & Company. I spent 15 minutes to fill out an application, submitted it, and forgot all about it. I got a generic rejection letter a few weeks later by email.

Since jobs didn't exist, I figured a post-doc was the next logical step....after all, PI's already had grants and needed to spend the money on personnel so I should probably get a job that was already paid for.

While I won't talk a whole lot about science in this blog, I am a damn good scientist with a damn good track record. I published 6 first author papers during my PhD and presented at a number of national meetings. I ultimately decided on doing my post-doc in a lab here at the Harvard Medical School in Boston where I work in molecular metabolism in arguably the best molecular metabolism laboraotry in the world.