Experienced Hire Resume Criteria

Question on Experienced Hire Resume Criteria:

Considering where I am at my profession and personal (age (33 yrs) + kid), I can only do a part-time MBA. I looked into an opening in Calgary Canada (I am based in SF, USA) at McKinsey and was tempted to apply.

However, I am not sure how experienced hire works in Mckinsey. Any ideas how I can land an interview without MBA as experienced hire?

Appreciate your response.

My Reply:

If you don’t have a full time MBA from a top 10 school or equivalent on your consulting resume, then given your age, you would ideally have had a very fast progressing career.

Basically the “formula” for experienced hire recruiting is accomplishment vs. years in workforce ratio. The higher the ratio, the better.

I didn’t meet a single person at McKinsey with a part-time MBA.  So you might want to consider not putting the part time MBA (especially if it is not from a top school) on your resume, because it might potentially get you routed over to the MBA recruiting department, and your part-time MBA might not stack up well against the Wharton, Kellogg, Harvard MBAs.

This potential suggestion is specifically for the top 5 or so firms. Second tier firms might see the part time MBA as an advantage, but I don’t know those firms too well.

If your career experiences are extremely strong, you would get an interview on the basis of the strength of those experiences alone.

Also it would help enormously if you networked your way into the firms you are targeting.  You might find my guide on How to Network to Get a Consulting Interview useful.