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!