Anyone who lands an offer at McKinsey - one of the world's most selective firms - did SOMETHING right.
Madeleine recently secured a 2025 Business Analyst role, so we had to bring her on the pod to get all the deets.
Listen for Madeleine's best tips on:
- Prepping for the McKinsey PEI (Personal Experience Interview)
- Overcoming a lack of quant skills
- Being someone McKinsey wants to hire
- Maximizing your network
Episode Links
- Strategy Sprint one-week consulting project: learn more and join
- Unlock top consulting jobs on the Management Consulted Job Board
- Get the All Access Pass, a one-stop shop consulting prep curriculum (students at partner schools get complimentary access)
- Free Case Math Drills
Transcription:
1:04
Welcome back to Strategy Simplified.
Today I'm bringing you my conversation with Madeline, who landed an offer at the one and only McKinsey.
Now, anyone who lands an offer at McKinsey has done something right.
It's a pretty difficult process and the firm is really, really selective.
1:21
We're talking about under 5% of people who apply to make it to the offer.
So this is a great conversation for you to take notes on.
Madeline shares about the importance of preparing for the PEI or the personal experience interview, and she's got some really great insights for making the most of your prep there.
1:39
In addition, she shares some insights around maximizing your networking conversations, as well as some online resources that were really pivotal in her recruiting journey.
Make sure you're ready to take some notes because this is a juicy one.
Before we get to the conversation, we'd love to get your rating and review of strategy simplified.
2:00
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Leave that review to help the show up.
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All right, let's get into this conversation.
2:17
Madeline Lawler, welcome to the Strategy Simplified podcast.
Excited to have you on today.
Sitting down, I'm going to chat about your journey to Mackenzie, how you did that, tips and tricks for breaking in and just give some hope, advice, insights and inspiration to you.
People who are on a similar recruiting journey at What is Today's Call find you.
2:38
Actually here in Milan, Italy, returning back for the fourth year of my university program.
But thank you so much again for having me on the call today.
For sure.
Well that's a great place to start.
Would love to just get to know you a little bit.
Can you give us a quick intro kind of you know, what's your life like, you know, pre landing this McKinsey offer, what are you up to now, etcetera.
3:02
Yeah, absolutely.
To give a little bit of context, I think I'm somebody who's not afraid to just dive into new and unknown situations.
I grew up in the Chicago area my whole life, but for university decided to study on a different continent each year.
3:19
So I'm currently a senior in the world bachelor in Business program.
It's a triple degree joint venture between the University of Southern California, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Pocone University in Milan, where I actually earn a business degree from each university.
3:36
And I think, you know, prior to recruiting, my interest in consulting sparked when I joined a social impact consulting club my freshman year, 180° Consulting, which I've now kind of worked on on each of the three continents that I've lived in.
I tested out the finance waters as a finance and turn at a major airline, but it wasn't until this summer when I worked as an associate consultant at a boutique consulting firm in New York that I really, I think solidified my passion for a career where I could, you know, continuously jump into a new situation every two to three months.
4:11
And outside of consulting, I'm very passionate about environmental sustainability, especially agricultural sustainability.
Actually, two years ago, I met a Togolese engineer and she had a sustainable farming prototype.
So I dove head first into Co founding the startup with her.
4:28
And two years later we've won a venture capital competition.
We've secured $32,000 and recently had our first harvest.
In my free time, I'm a big outdoors person.
I love traveling and yeah, that's kind of my background before, before recruiting.
4:46
That's awesome.
Sounds like you're not busy at all.
You don't have anything going on in your life.
Not at all.
That's awesome.
Open calendar every day.
Can you provide a little bit of a timeline from kind of initial interest in the field of consulting all the way to landing that offer?
5:03
You know, most people don't understand that it's, it's not just a short and quick and easy process.
So I'd love to get your insights on that.
Yeah, I'd say for me, IIA, 100% agree.
That hasn't been a very short and easy process.
I think I spent freshman year kind of, you know, testing the waters of different things and talking with a lot of upperclassmen, you know, networking and talking with a lot of entry level employees.
5:30
And that's kind of how I decided that consulting recruiting is something that I'd want to focus on.
I started my sophomore year by kind of applying to a lot of those women's initiatives and sort of, you know, programs and seminars for that.
And then my junior year I went through the full recruiting process.
5:48
And then my senior year, I also again started the full recruiting process late summer, early fall, just because my job was very intense and I couldn't really balance the two of them at the same time.
But in terms of the McKinsey, I guess timeline itself, I remember submitting my application around early August and then kind of had my first round about a month later and then my second round about 3 weeks later maybe and then heard back after that.
6:18
OK, that's helpful.
I think it's just helpful to give some color to that kind of process.
But Madeline, you mentioned you had that summer internship at a boutique firm.
Tell us a little bit about your summary in consulting.
6:34
But of course it was a different firm than you know than McKinsey.
So tell us a little bit about your experience there.
Yeah, absolutely.
The firm that I worked at for Context was very small, about 50 consultants and focus is I guess exclusively on strategy projects for, for major conglomerates.
6:53
And so I was on one of these projects.
It was a new client.
It was, I think, very, very interesting to see the process from head to toe.
I was on calls with clients by myself at times, you know, just because of the nature of the firm.
7:09
I have sort of been onboarded as a full time employee.
I was in the depths of Excel.
I was in the depths of PowerPoint, sometimes way too late at night, but overall, I think it did really kind of solidify that even though I think going into the project that I was working on, going into it, I would have said I have 0 interest in the industry.
7:29
It was actually just fascinating to kind of dive head first into a new, new industry.
And really, you know, next time I go to the supermarket, I know exactly where some of those, some of those products are coming from.
So it was, I think, a really educational experience and it also helped me approach the recruiting process afterwards to sort of transition maybe to a different side of consulting.
7:53
It helped me approach, I think in a more mature way because I understood sort of, I think a little bit more about what managers and what other employees are looking for in a consultant.
Yeah, I love that.
I think that probably gave you an upper hand when you went to the recruiting process again because you just had that experience. You've mentioned several times that kind of variety, the kind of getting exposure to different industries, different things.
8:25
Is that initially what you were consulting and then half after I had experienced that internship, is that still kind of one of the driving forces for right why you're why you're excited about Mackenzie?
Yeah.
8:41
I think in terms of sort of like why I'm excited and why I kind of decided on consulting at this time was I think for three main reasons.
Just the global nature of a lot of these projects.
Second, just the opportunity to continue learning is like an extension of school.
8:58
And then third, potentially the opportunity to pursue a specialization down the line.
I think first, in terms of the the global nature of it, just given my background working across this time, you know, five different continents, that idea of doing a random walk and being on global projects of global teams is something that really stood out to me at McKinsey in particular with the global staffing model.
9:23
And the second, in terms of academic environment, you know, just everyone who I've talked to in consulting has said that it's an extension of school for them.
And so that's kind of what I was looking for as well.
And then third, I am, as I mentioned, you know, passionate about renewables, environmental sustainability.
9:39
And so I do hope to sort of after building my generalist skill set, transition over maybe to some of these cases or maybe, you know, fully into the practice area that would be an occurring goal of mine.
That's great.
Well spoken, well said.
9:56
Well, we've provided a lot of context, kind of for your background and for your journey to Mackenzie.
But let's break it down a little bit.
If you can break down your kind of recruiting experience and your landing that offers a couple of steps or pieces, how would you kind of break?
10:17
That down, really, that's junior year, summer that I spent.
I think I entered the process very stressed out.
I didn't have a lot of time before my first consulting interview came up in terms of recruiting.
I maybe had about two weeks to learn, you know really the insurance and outs of casing prep for the math etcetera.
10:35
And so I don't think I approached that unnecessarily the most steady or the most, I think mature mindset.
I think I was very nervous for those interviews and that kind of showed through in them.
So I think my step one for this year was first and foremost reconnecting with my network.
10:52
So reconnecting with the people who I'd already taken the time over the last two to three years to build connections with, genuine connections with.
And, you know, kind of reaching out and having candid conversations about, you know, whether or not I should try re recruiting again and kind of how that process would look.
11:09
The second step was refreshing the casing.
Obviously, some things that I did to make that easier for myself was just kind of having a about 10 page document casing CHEAT SHEET with all of the advice that I've ever gotten or the case feedback that I've gotten and just kind of reviewing that before every case.
11:28
And then also having like a full, you know, math math CHEAT SHEET that I can kind of reference when I practice cases.
And then the third thing there was working on the personal experience interview.
That was something that when I talked to consultants at the firm, they really highlighted that it was, you know, very important, almost like half the case grade there.
11:48
And so I made sure to really prioritize that and spend a lot more time on that than I necessarily maybe would for other firms that maybe don't have as much of an AA behavioral component.
Yeah, that's great.
Well, I want to just dive a little bit deeper into that part about the PEI that or the personal experience interview, right?
12:08
It can seem pretty intimidating from the outside to someone about to go into it.
So do you have like one piece of advice that you'd share for someone like prepping for APEI?
Just what's the best practice for making sure you're prepared?
12:25
Yeah, I actually, I enjoyed PEI because I felt like it was a chance to get to know the interviewer a little bit better and for the interviewer to get to know my story a little bit better before actually, you know, jumping into a big scary case.
So I enjoyed it, but I think the biggest thing would be to make sure that you're actually answering the question.
12:44
I actually got that feedback from my first round interviewer and she said, you know, you were 88% of the way there and answering the question, but I had to guide you a little bit.
And so make sure that even though you might want to talk about something like about how hard something was or something other than that, you need to instead, you need to instead of sort of focusing on that, really focus on the question at hand and make sure that all of your energy is directed to answering that question.
13:13
And if you can, clarify the question upfront with your interviewer to make sure that you're actually answering the correct thing.
That's awesome.
And what was your prep strategy for the PEI?
Right?
Like, I know there's, there's different, different ways to approach this, but right, Did you just kind of walk in and, and kind of show up ready to go?
13:32
Or did you write, rehearse and kind of practice your, your stories, your answers?
I practice my stories a lot.
I think I also for the second round had the benefit of kind of getting my interview rescheduled a couple times.
So I always thought I was going to do it and then didn't do it.
So probably it gave me a lot more practice in that round.
13:50
But I did actually, I'm someone who always finds it helpful to sort of write out and script out my answers.
And one of the big, you know, pieces of advice that I got from people at the firm was do not look like you're reading from a screen.
Do not read from a screen.
Talk authentically.
14:06
But they told me, you know, write down your story so that you can, you know, visualize that in your head when you're actually giving it to the interviewer.
So that was probably I think the most helpful thing for me in terms of PEI was I would sort of write out almost like bullets or an outline for myself that I could then visualize in my head as I went through the discussion.
14:25
That very much aligns with how we teach our clients and how we teach, you know, university sessions, right?
It's not not a great idea to go in blind, write, write down your stories, practice them out loud with a partner if, if at all possible, just to make sure that you were showing up your best and you know, to a really big interview.
14:53
So I love that.
That's I think super helpful insights, Madeline.
I think that's the kind of behavioral interview that can be neglected by a lot of candidates because they're so focused on the case, right?
So right, especially McKinsey, huge focus on behavior.
15:12
Yeah, that's the event for my other interviews where that behavioral component wasn't as paramount as it is in the McKinsey one.
It was still essential to have prepped behaviourals beforehand because even that short 5 to 7 minutes that you get to talk with your interviewer at the beginning before the case is crucial I think to them kind of being on your side during the case and really wanting to help you out.
15:38
Yeah, I love that.
Amazing.
You mentioned a couple of kinds of tools or resources or Cheat Sheets.
Is there anything else that you found helpful as far as resources coaching, right, kind of anything like that that really was pivotal in your journey?
15:59
Yeah, absolutely.
I'd say a couple of things.
First, because my weakest area of the case I quickly identified was math.
I probably used way too much those management consulting mental math timed drills, the random grab bag.
16:16
That was like every day I would kind of wake up in the morning and do that for 10 minutes.
So that was very helpful when I was first learning how to cast my, my sophomore, my junior year, I went through the whole management consulting recruiting boot camp.
So that was very helpful, I think to get an overall overview.
16:33
But I wouldn't really recommend doing that unless you actually have time to prepare for your interviews, because it does take a long time to get through those interviews.
And then something that I actually think I found the most helpful and I think unique to management consulted from other platforms that I was maybe using to prep was those case math drill videos.
16:54
So they're really short, maybe 5 to 6 minutes where the prompt was read out loud and then you had three minutes to sort of do the math and it was timed.
And that really, I think helped me gain a lot more confidence in the math section going in.
17:09
And I actually remember one of my cases for Mackenzie being like a similar math structure to one that I had just done the previous day.
And I was like incredible.
So, those were definitely very helpful in terms of resources that I have.
And I do know that a lot of schools do offer these resources as well.
17:28
So I think it's important to kind of check in with your school and see if they potentially offer these resources to you included in your tuition.
Exactly.
Just for context for listeners, management consultant partners with over 115 universities around the globe to kind of bring access to our digital all all access curriculum for consulting prep to the students.
17:52
So, you know, if you don't know, if you're at one of these, you know, partner institutions, just reach out to our team links in the show notes for information on more of that.
But I think it's great resources can make the difference between an offer and not.
18:12
And so I'm glad we were able to play some small part in that.
But of course, you had to put a lot of work in to actually apply that and then be diligent in your prep and your practice and all of that.
19:18
Below, So talking to the case interview a little bit, if you had to kind of give us a rough estimate for how much time you put into that, that prep over the course of the multiple recruiting cycles.
Do you have a number in your head that you can provide just to give an idea of the scale of?
19:36
This, I'm thinking about it now and it's like it's a lot.
So I don't want to be scared.
I think.
I think there's a couple of caveats to this though.
The first being that because of my global background and the fact that I was moving universities each year, some of my curriculum, especially the finance heavy curriculum wasn't coming until my third year.
19:55
So I did have to, I think, put in some prep in terms of some of those basic formulas and some of those, you know, math exercises and such.
I'd say in the first recruiting cycle, I was probably spending well actually.
20:10
I know the number of practice cases that I did in total was 35, which I think might be on like a low end for some people, but for me I just found it more helpful too.
Go through a practice case, look at the feedback, put the feedback in my feedback document, and then before each case, new case, read over the entire feedback document.
20:30
And then in between cases I would spend a couple days just isolating math drills.
Management consults had also had those graph drills.
Those were really helpful.
The exhibit drills, just isolating those or just isolating like market sizing.
That to me felt a lot more manageable than doing something like a practice case every day.
20:47
And I do have some friends who that works really well for them to do like 50-60 cases.
But for me, I kind of really tried to structure out how it was working.
And so I'd say before my first, my junior year recruiting session, I probably had done around 25 cases.
21:05
And then this time around I only did around 10 because I already kind of had that foundation at that point.
So this is really more so about kind of building and like refining those skills and approaching it with a more mature viewpoint.
I love that.
OK, so 35 cases, of course, it's not a magic number.
21:24
It's different for everybody and we always advocate for quality over quantity.
I love what you did, right?
You took feedback, you put it in your sheet, you applied it, you did drills, you did a lot of work.
It's not just blindly kind of running through cases and hoping you'll get better because you can build bad habits, right?
21:43
You can emphasize the wrong things, etcetera.
That's a lot, a lot of things that can go sideways if you're not taking a strategic approach like you did.
So I think that just deserves to be called out.
Well, well done.
Thanks.
You are amazing.
22:02
Do you have a kind of pro tip on either the case interview prep side of things, on the networking side of things, or on the resume slash application side of things, or 1 tip for each that you could leave with our listeners?
22:19
Yeah, I think starting off with, I'll start off with the networking tip first.
My tip for networking would be to approach your conversations that you're having with people, whether you're cold reaching out on LinkedIn, whether they're friendly connections, whether they're, you know, students at your university.
22:38
Approach every conversation like the person is a genuine human being that you're trying to get to know better because that's really what these conversations are about.
It's not about you trying to, I think, spell out your accomplishments or anything else, but more so just kind of getting a sense of what their day-to-day at the firm is and really how their life is outside of work and everything else in between.
23:01
And I think when I first started off networking, I didn't really understand that the purpose of networking was to meet people and get to know, you know, exactly what they're doing.
And so really kind of approach those conversations and the way of getting to know people instead of trying to sell yourself or something else like that.
23:20
In terms of the resume or cover letter, I will say I think it was very helpful.
And I know people have different opinions on this, but it was very helpful for me to get a key brand name experience.
I mentioned that I work for a major airline.
I think that that was helpful just in terms of visibility and kind of adding credibility to my resume.
23:40
And so I would recommend, you know, maybe your freshman, your sophomore, your junior year, trying to, you know, if you're interested in the consulting recruitment process, see what it's like at a big corporate, you know, firm or conglomerate, because it also gives you so much insight into how the client side of things functions as well.
23:59
And then I think about the third interview, somebody actually told me this couple hours before my interview, they're like, you are human.
Your interviewer is a human.
And so yes, you do have to prove to them that you can get through the case.
You have to prove that you can do the math and everything else like that.
24:16
But that's not what's going to get you the offer.
What's going to get you an offer is being, you know, a genuine human who can also do all of this on the side.
And so make sure that you're putting, you know, as much effort into your PE is as much effort into your behavior roles and just into, you know, your general genuine connections and interest in the interviewer as you would on the case prep side of things, 'cause I don't think these firms are, you know, looking for a total robots.
24:41
They're, they're looking, they're looking for people who are genuine, that they can make genuine connections with.
Yeah, you said it.
I mean, people are tired, probably appearing to say what you just said, right, like consulting as a human driven business and so people like working with other humans, they don't like moving with robots.
25:00
So just be genuine and authentic like what you were just saying.
So sorry, not sorry for continuing to drive that point home.
But I think it's really important to keep in mind throughout the whole process whether you know whatever industry you're recruiting for, right?
25:17
It's always an important thing to keep in mind.
Well, you have a SEC before you're going to be starting at McKinsey full time.
But what, what, what are one or two things that you're really looking forward to?
25:33
You've mentioned a couple of them throughout the Global exposure, the variety, etcetera.
But what are you excited about for kind of day one week, one month one of life at McKinsey?
Yeah, I think probably two things.
25:48
And the first would be just genuinely meeting everyone at the firm.
Like from the conversations that I've had, everyone just sounds like they come from such interesting backstories.
And I think I'm excited to kind of be in a bigger, a bigger firm and kind of have that community again.
26:07
And I think the second thing would also kind of be the training opportunities as well.
I've heard a lot about the structure and Mackenzie training that goes into that.
And I think being able to join a firm where people are doing the same training around the entire world is something very cool to me as someone who's sort of experienced life on, on three different continents and work on three different continents at this point and kind of seeing the continuities between that.
26:32
So those are probably the two most important things that I'm looking forward to is meeting everyone and then kind of actually going through the structure training process.
Yeah, I love that.
Well, we're excited for you and grateful for you coming on and sharing your story with folks.
26:50
I know you're going to encourage a lot of folks listening to this, so thank you for coming on.
At least.
We've got a couple of final questions before we let you go.
Couple of fun, fun questions.
As is tradition, your strategy is simplified at the top of the recording.
27:09
You mentioned you love the outdoors.
So can you tell me the right place that you're looking forward to getting to in the next 12 to 15 months?
Yeah.
Well, as I mentioned, I'm currently in Europe right now for my last year.
27:26
So a place that I've been hoping to get to is actually like hiking in Norway.
I don't know when, but I haven't planned anything yet.
It's a little hard considering that I'm only here in the winter months, but I've always kind of had that on my bucket list of major hiking backpacking trails to tackle.
27:49
So that's what I'm looking forward to next.
I love it, I love it.
Now's the time to do it.
But hiking always sounds beautiful, that's for sure.
All right.
Do you have a top highlight moment or memory from your kind of volunteer work?
28:07
You've had your hand in a lot of volunteer projects.
Do you have one that sticks out to you?
It's.
A good question.
I think it would have to be and it was actually a virtual call, which I think is the craziest park.
I don't think any of us want to go back to that full virtual call, you know, scenario that we were in four years ago.
28:28
But I was working with my team.
I've actually never met them in person.
The team that I have built the aquaponics sustainable farming startup with.
And when we actually won the venture capital competition, it was just crazy because we kind of got it announced on the call and it was so fun to see all of our reactions just coming.
28:47
We were on three different continents at the time as well.
And so seeing all of our reactions and then the reactions of the people who would like come into the frame after and congratulate us.
I think that was kind of like a nice reward for all the hard work that we had put into the Banjo and into the startup and seeing how it came to fruition.
29:08
So.
Yeah.
Oh, that's super cool.
That must have been an amazing feeling.
All right.
Final question, what's one place you'd love to visit while you're at McKinsey is in terms of travel, he mentioned Norway.
29:23
Is there another kind of country or city that's top of your list?
Am I allowed to say continent?
That's allowed.
There's no rules here.
Yes, I would say in terms of continent, I would love to visit South America.
29:39
I haven't been yet.
And I also, you know, grew up in like elementary school through high school, like studying a lot of Spanish that I haven't actually gotten to use that much based on the countries that I've lived in.
So I would love to see a little bit of how business works there as well.
29:58
So that'd be a continent if I'm allowed to say that I'm interested in visiting in the future.
Absolutely no, no, no rules here on strategy.
Simplified, Beautiful.
OK, well, any final words of wisdom or encouragement or advice that you have for our listeners today before we let you go?
30:21
Yeah, absolutely.
I think first and foremost, don't let how daunting the case interview processes stop you from recruiting for this job as this is the rule that you want to take.
Don't let your university background, don't let your major, you know, don't let any of that sort of determine or, or strike you down.
30:44
And then also secondly to that, if you are, you know, very nervous about or you feel like you're lacking in your quant skills, know that that's a very normal thing.
I think that's for a lot of people the most stressful part of the interview.
And you absolutely, like, I'm someone who before doing this recruiting process, pulls out a calculator for like 2 * 25 just for, you know, my, my own, my own, my own head.
31:09
And now I'm happy to, you know, say after, after two years of doing this, that I can absolutely do that in my head.
But I think I was someone who was very insecure in terms of especially my mental math skills, just because in business and finance and all of my previous work, I was always doing it on Excel.
31:25
I was always doing it with calculators and things such as that.
So don't let that daunt you from this process as well.
You know you've, you can put in the time and effort that you need to teach yourself how to do long division and multiplication and you know everything in between and learn these formulas.
31:41
So don't let that be a deterrent for your success in the recruiting process.
Beautiful.
I love it.
Or Madeline, best of luck on your journey to McKinsey and beyond.
Thanks for coming on to Strategy Simplified and I'm sure we'll, we'll catch you later.
32:02
Thank you.
Thank you for having me again.
Thank you so much for listening to Strategy Simplified.
Head over to the show notes to get the resources that we talked about in today's conversation.
Wasn't that a great combo with Madeline?
I thought so and hope you are kind of insightful, encouraging and useful as well.
32:19
If there's anything we can do for you in your recruiting journey, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Our team loves to answer questions and make recommendations on steps that you can take to break into consulting.
Our e-mail is [email protected].
Please reach out.
We'd love to hear from you.
32:35
All right, I'll catch you on another episode soon.