When it comes to both your personal life and professional life, your peer group profoundly impacts… well, everything. Your peers influence whom you socialize with, who becomes members of your professional network, what socially derived expectations you do or don’t have for yourself, and the filter by which you consider all life decisions. If you [...]
networking
When I was at Stanford, the most successful students were the smartest ones. Fast forward 10 to 20 years, and the most successful people I know aren’t the smartest people I know. However, they often are the most connected. They have many friends in positions of influence and power. This works both within a company [...]
There’s a joke within McKinsey on how to solve a case. Here’s the case: A client is considering entering XYZ market segment because their core market is shrinking. What do you do? Candidate / 1st Year Consultant: “My hypothesis is they should enter the market. For that to be true, four key factors must be [...]
I am often asked by readers if networking will really help them obtain a consulting interview or if it could affect them negatively. My response is networking, if done properly, is never taken as a negative. I suggest you network with anyone within a management consulting firm regardless of whether they are involved in recruiting or consulting [...]
A question I get quite often is how do you network your way into a consulting firm interview when you don’t know anyone who works in a consulting firm? When I first started networking, I did not know anyone who worked in consulting either. In fact, it is not necessary to know someone who works in a [...]
In school, it was generally assumed that the smartest people — the ones with the best grades — were the ones who would be most successful in life. Something interesting happens about 10+ years after graduating from school. You realize that this presumed relationship between success and intellect is NOT true. Here are a few [...]
Reader Success Story: I am an avid reader of your emails. Reading your email,forms a mandatory part of my reading list, which also includes Business Week, Economist, FT, Wall Street Journal, and the Quran. I wanted to send you a quick note on how I have been able to secure a McKinsey interview, despite not knowing [...]
I just want to send you a thank you e-mail, as I heavily relied on your preparation sources throughout my interviewing journey. I interviewed last autumn for a post-MBA/PhD position at the top firms in Germany. I applied to nine firms, and I had networked heavily with the four major players here in Germany, which are McKinsey, [...]
When I left McKinsey to start my own company, a number of my McKinsey friends also left to do the same. My two back-to-back startup attempts failed. A number of my McKinsey friends’ startups succeeded, in some cases wildly so (one of them was StubHub). For the first time in my career (and actually life), [...]
When learning any activity, there is a transformation that takes place as your skills improve. It is like learning to drive a car. Initially, you have to think about every little thing. Check your mirrors. Check your blindspot. Focus on where you want to go. Look out for bad drivers on the road. But somewhere in that learning process, [...]