McKinsey Jobs

McKinsey JobsMcKinsey JobsLearn what it takes to land a job with the trusted advisor to many of the worlds most influential businesses and institutions.It ranks among the unquestioned laws of big business over the last half century If you want to be taken seriously, you hire McKinsey Company. The job seekers corollary If you want a career in big business, you seriously hope that McKinsey Company will hire you. A perennial top-place finisher in rankings of the most coveted employers, McKinsey is also among the most selective. Last year, the consulting powerhouse received 225,000 job applications. It made offers to a mere one percent- or 2,200- of them.Thats the bad news. The good news is that the days when McKinsey only hired Harvard MBAs are long gone. As recently as 1978, HBS graduates accounted for more than 25% of McKinsey consultants, but in 2013, less than half of the firms new hires even had an MBA. An increasing percentage of McKinsey hires have advanced professional degrees instead- PhDs, law degrees, and others. The firm employs several hundred MDs, some of which dont even work in its healthcare practice.As the firms focus has expanded well beyond its historical franchises of strategy and organizational structure, so, too, has the expertise it seeks in new recruits. Today, almost half of the firms client work has to do with risk, marketing, business technology, or operations, and, if you can bring any of that to the table, you dont necessarily need an MBA (of course, it wouldnt hurt if you didfrom Harvard).So, how do you get a job at McKinsey? Start by listening to what they tell you. The firms website is chock-full of advice on how to present your best self to the firm. While theirs is a grueling bewerberinterview process, even for those who succeed, those who dont can hardly claim that they didnt know what was coming. For such a notoriously secretive enterprise, McKinsey could hardly be more open about the types of people it seeks to hire and the p rocess by which it will evaluate them.If youre smart, youll have done a few thousand- Im kidding, you can stop at a few hundred- practice versions of the firms famous case studies (Im kidding again. You can stop at 10 or 20.). You can find them on their own website or in the endless number of books promising to unlock case-study secrets. However, there is no secret to solving case studies. Theres only this simple fact Youll be judged less on specific answers to case questions than on the method by which you arrived at them. In other words, youll be judged on how you think.McKinsey has separated itself from the competition for the better part of a century in large part by its relentless commitment to recruiting and developing its talent, the always-evolving aspects of which I chronicle in my new book, The Firm The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business. Due to the very nature of their business, problem-solving capabilities will always be foremost on McKinseys list of required traits, but the firm devotes an equal amount of effort to evaluating applicants interpersonal skills and emotional quotient - or EQ.McKinsey has a well-earned reputation as a launching pad for plum corporate, government, and non-profit roles almost anywhere in the world- the firm has more than 100 offices in 60 countries. And, the reason that people hire people who used to work at McKinsey is the same reason that clients hire McKinsey itself- its consultants are the worlds best at combining an intellectual approach to problem solving with practical advice on how to put the chosen solution in place.Youre not going to get anywhere in a McKinsey interview if you dont blow them away with your natural curiosity and creativity. These people are the philosopher kings of business, after all. But youre also not going to get anywhere if you fail to wrap it all up with a recommended course of action. With that in mind, the best advice I can offer anyone seeking a job at McKi nsey is to remember what it is that their clients need from them. Real impact comes not just from having a compelling answer to a question but also grounded and explicit thoughts on how to implement that answer once youve got it. So, get excited about finding an answer to your case-study question. But, dont forget to get equally excited about what youre going to do with it.