Question:

– Got interview call from Mckinsey for their new service line called Mckinsey Delivery Centre. This appears to be an India specific role as per the appended JD and not typical consultant profile, though it is a client facing role and is part of Mckinsey & Company.

Help needed: If you can provide more information about the role in terms of following:

1) Work profile – How the work is different and similar from typical consultant profile
2) Career Path – What is the typical career path

– Interview process – 20-30 min telephonic interview to happen in next 3-5 days. F2F interviews on 30th/31st Aug.

Query:
1) Can I expect the same interview process as for consultant role and should prepare similarly from your material or should I do some different kind of preparation?
2) Is it normal for Mckinsey to have more than 1 month notice period for scheduling a F2F interview?

JD: –

McKinsey & Company, Inc.
LOCATION: Mumbai/Gurgaon (India)

Overview

McKinsey’s India office has launched a new service line known as the McKinsey Delivery Centre (MDC) to create a distinctive and strategic delivery capability, which combines McKinsey’s strengths in business strategy with the ability to deliver long term, and sustainable impact to our clients.The role, within this service line will focus on India office clients. This will largely be a client facing role and will involve partnering with full-time McKinsey client service teams in delivering impact on our client’s transformation programs through targeted interventions. We expect that over time, this will become a global capability made available to clients outside India.

Key Responsibilities

  • Assist McKinsey consulting teams on supporting client engagements related to Implementation delivery
  • Develop proprietary delivery frameworks, methodologies and tools within the Relevant domain by leveraging McKinsey experts and experiences
  • Package McKinsey approach in the form of client ready end products which could be power point presentations and/or financial models
  • Scope and define delivery requirements with consulting team members and manage day-to-day workflow for own projects
  • Interact with client executives, as and when required in collaboration with McKinsey project lead
  • Over time, develop expertise in a specific area and leverage knowledge and Expertise on other consulting and knowledge projects

My Reply:

I’m not familiar with the role, and unfortunately don’t have any data to indicate whether or not it would be an analytical role like the core consultants or something different. I would suggest calling up the person who called you to schedule and to ask what the interview format will consist of.

From the description, the role seems to be implementation oriented — so less about proving hypothesis and considering big picture, board-level issues, and more project management. (e.g., the core McKinsey decided client should enter XYZ market, and you come in to help them actually do it. Figure out what each department should do, what things need to be figured out, creating a schedule, providing tools like training presentations or forecast models, etc.)

This is very much a people person type role, as well as a more detail-oriented one. It’s unclear to me whether they would specifically expect a person in this role to be an analytical problem solver. If so, the case prep materials I have online would very much be relevant. If not, then they aren’t that relevant other than for general background knowledge to understand what your future colleagues would be doing.

For specialist roles like this one, the career path is quite different from the core consultants. Usually it is a career path that is vertical within the specialty area and typically specialists do not cross over to the generalist pool.