McKinsey Case Interview Round 1.1

In any case, the actual interview itself, aside from being postponed to this Wednesday (yesterday), we were further notified that the interview process is now broken down into three sections. In essence, I will be attending stage 1 on Wed, and if successful pass onto stage 2...so on and so forth. 

 

So, yesterday was the big day I'd prepared for. Aside the case question, I'd also spent time to practice how to introduce myself to the interviewer and leave a quick first impression, I even prepared a short '2 minute' intro and a long '10 minute' version, pending on what is asked of me. Other than that, took time to structure my responses to the following questions as well:

 

1. What is your greatest achievement to date?

2. Tell us about your weaknesses?

3. Why consulting?

4. Why McKinsey?

5. Give me a leadership example, and what are some problems you faced?

 

Questions like these need careful answering, and can easily catch an unprepared candidate off guard. Thanks to the complete case interview guide available through NTU's online database, I'd prepared myself to the fullest extent possible.

 

Alright, so now comes in real deal. I showered, shaved and changed into my business suit, combed my hair into a professional make, and took the bus to Taipei 101. Arrived half an hour ahead of my scheduled 8:00pm interview time, but the receptionist from McKinsey was already in the lobby waiting for me. The McKinsey office was literally empty (later I found out from my interviewer that most of the BAs are staffed with clients on their individual projects). I was led to a small meeting room, and told to wait for my interviewer.

 

It turned out, my interviewer's name was Robert, and he's a double E major from NTU, who earned a PhD at CalTech and just joined McKinsey as an Associate a yaear and a half back. After a brief self introduction - I think my fluent English caught him off guard, when he found out I studied in the US before, he asked me if I'm still able to read and write Chinese? Even asked me to write my own name in Chinese just to make sure. So, when I told him I'm fluent and can read & write in both English and Mandarin, I can tell he looked impressed. 

 

Then came the case question - 

 

A startup in Japan named Doraemon Corp has a new invention - a door that can take people to anywhere in the world in 6 hrs. Please estimate the market size of this product, and whether you will market it as a service or product?

 

At first I thought it was just any ordinary market sizing/ business strategy question....on second thought, I was surprised in realizing that 'Doraemon' and the 'Door' .... isn't this ..... 小叮噹 and 任意門 ！？

 

So, jokingly I asked my interviewer whether this is the comic character, I told him it's my favorite comic - to my surprise, he happily said yes and that it was his favorite comic too ..... totally unexpected, I found a mutual link with my interviewer by such chance! 

 

Off to a good start, the atmosphere was light and enjoyable, knowing we took common interest in the topic, I was able to really engage myself in the case. I won't go into the details of my analysis, but two of the potential customer groups I came up with surprised and pleased my interviewer:

 

For this new invention, I said there could be the following customers:

1) Business people 

2) Traveling for Leisure

 

My interviewer initially thought these two groups were about it, so when I told him there are also:

 

3) Government - might be interested in deploying troops quickly at times of war, emergency or a rescue mission?

4) Commercial - FedEx, UPS can make 6 hr. delivery around the world by using this door.

 

What followed was more detailed analysis of pricing, promotion and positioning of this product. When I was finished with the case, my interviewer looked very pleased and told me I did 'Very Well'. He asked me if I had any further questions, (ha, I was ready for this too, I didn't want to be taken off guard by this, so I'd prepared up to 10 questions for my interviewer just in case, and it worked). I asked 4 questions from my prepared list about consulting, how it may affect family life, is it interesting? and all that stuff. We had a nice chat and he seemed very pleased that I involved him during the entire process.

 

Of course, he told the secretary responsible for recruiting that I passed (on the phone), so my next interview could be arranged. I initially chose 5:00pm this Saturday, but my interviewer muted the telephone and told me in private that 'earlier the better', that way your next interviewer will have no benchmark to compare you, since they have to decide you pass or not on the spot, the earlier is more advantageous. Thanks to the hint, I rescheduled my interview to 9:00am this Saturday. He also told me in private that I actually didn't score to standard on the quantitative written test : Test Score Below Par. But for some reason (I think my resume spoke for itself) McKinsey decided to offer me a chance at the interview anyway. As it turned out, he said that decision was a good one. 

 

Felt really good to have aced my first stage interview, and now onto stage 2. If all goes well, I might be able to clinch a summer BA spot..... something I'd never even dreamed about ..... I still got 2 days, and I'm going to continue preparing ~ as my consultant said in his final advice before I left, 'In the end, what really mattered is not how well you did on the case, but whether your interviewer had a good impression of you when you leave the room, whether or not they'd want to spend a night at the airport with you when trapped in a snowstorm....impress, impress and impress.'