Consulting Interview Preparation Guide

Compiled by:
Ankit Misra, Shruti Dube
Shaheen Shah, Varun Jain

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 Contents
1. Tailoring your resume................................................................................ 1
2. Interview Preparation................................................................................. 5
I. Personal Interview........................................................................ 5
i. Brainstorming...................................................................... 5
ii. Presentation......................................................................... 6
iii. Basic Dos and Don‟ts......................................................... 6
II. Case Interview.............................................................................. 8
i. Case Study Time Line........................................................ 8
ii. Sample Case Structuring................................................... 9
iii. Example Case Study.......................................................... 13
3. Interview experience of last 2 years.......................................................... 16
I. 2008............................................................................................... 16
II. 2007............................................................................................... 43
4. Bibliography................................................................................................. 82

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 1. Tailoring your Resume

Your resume serves as an important tool for the recruiters in the selection/elimination process. According to
McKinsey &Co. “Your resume should be the best possible reflection of your abilities and achievements to
highlight your leadership, problem solving skills, and examples of personal impact”. It is more than a tool to
shortlist candidates. A good resume not only yields an interview call but also lays down the foundation for the
interview process by creating good first impression. McKinsey looks for the following on resumes:

 Problem Solving Skills and Academic Strength: Mention your projects/internships/other awards
reflecting your contribution and its impact

 Leadership and Teamwork: Indicate on your resume the instances where you displayed or acquired
leadership and teamwork skills during your term in IIT/school

 Accomplishments: McKinsey seek people who boast long lists of accomplishments that demonstrate
reliability, commitment, motivation, and high standards of excellence. If you can differentiate yourself on
your resume-highlighting technical skills, foreign language, publications and awards- it will be to your
advantage.

 Personal Impact: McKinsey looks out for people who have had an impact in everything they do be it any
course project, internship or positions of responsibility. So bring out your role and its impact on the
activity very clearly.

How you write and structure your resume says a lot about how you communicate with others so put in lots of
effort on your resume.

1. Make your resume as terse as possible. For example, shown below is same point written in different ways in
the first and final draft.
First Draft:
 Awarded TATA Steel Scholarship by TATA Steel Pvt. Ltd. The scholarship was awarded to 6 students from
IIT Kanpur for a period of 2.5 years on the basis of academic performance
Final Draft:
 Received Tata Steel Scholarship (awarded to 60 students from India) for excellent academic performance, 2007

2. Use bulleted phrases (preferably starting with verbs) starting with an action verb
rather than complete sentences. For an “almost exhaustive” list of action verbs used in CV refer to the
following link http://web.mit.edu/career/www/guide/actionverbs.html
For example, instead of writing “I led the team in Inter IIT (2006) which won silver medal” write “Led the
contingent who won Silver Medal in Inter IIT 2006”. The impact of the activity is brought out by using action
verbs.

3. Wherever possible, quantify your results to make your achievements more concrete.
First Draft:
 Designed a flip flop with lower power and less jitter as compared to conventional design
Final Draft:
 Designed a flip flop with x% lower power and y% reduced jitter

4. When you write about a particular post held (Co-ordinator/Secretary), try to highlight what was your
contribution to the post along with the routine responsibilities. In case of space constraints, only highlight
the “impact” part i.e. what changed when you took over the responsibility.

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 First Draft:
 Organized Takneek-2005 , the Intra IITK Technical festival in my capacity as Secretary(2005-06), xyz Club,
IIT Kanpur

Final Draft:
 Secretary, xyz Club, IIT Kanpur, 2005-06: Increased (threefold) girls’ participation in technical festivals and
club activities; the club awarded with the “Best Club” Award for the year 2005-06

5. Tailor your resume to meet the skills set mentioned. And finally get your resume reviewed by as many
people as you can. The standard McKinsey format is given below. It is not mandatory to use this but it
serves as a good guideline for your resume.

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 STANDARD RESUME FORMAT
Please make your resumes according to this; however, feel free to add anything missing here.

N AM E: __________________________

Address: ___________________________________________
Phone: ________________, E-mail: ______________________
Date of Birth: ___________

Education

Year Degree/ Certificate Institute/ School, City CGPA/ % Rank

B.Tech., <Branch>
Class XII: <Board>
Class X: <Board>

 Scholastic achievements, if any; year

 Exchange programs, if any; key achievements; period

 Key academic projects undertaken, if any; key achievements; period

Summer training(s)

Organization: _____________________________ Department: ____________________,

City: _____________, Period: ________________

 What you did:

 What you achieved:

Organization: _____________________________ Department: ____________________,

City: _____________, Period: ________________

 What you did:

 What you achieved:

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Work experience, if any

Organization: _____________________________ Department: ____________________,

City: _____________, Period: ________________

 What you did:

 What you achieved:

Extra-Curricular Activities

 Positions of responsibility
Position, Organisation Period Key achievements

 Key extra-curricular activities/ interests (cultural activities/ sports/ others)

Please include your accomplishments / awards in these areas

Anything else you would like to mention

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 1. Interview Preparation

A typical interview for a consulting firm has two parts: Case Interview and Personal Interview (PI). Generally
students prepare for the case part well but do not pay much attention to the PI part. No matter how well you
do in the case study, if you are not able to convince the interviewer about why you want to join the firm you
are simply out of the race.

2.1 Personal Interview

Personal interview is also sometimes called the “Fit Interview” because the company officials are trying to see
if are fit to work in the firm or not. This is also a good chance to set you apart. Give the interviewer something
to remember you.

The preparation for the PI part can be very crudely divided into two parts: Logic (Thinking/Brainstorming)
and Presentation. While the logic part refers to the introspection required before any interview, the
presentation part refers to the way you present yourself both in terms of your answers and body language
(refer to the Basic Dos and Don‟ts).

2.1.1 Brainstorming

1. Know yourself: This is “the most” important part of your preparation. It is essential to identify the skill sets
you have, the kind of job/work environment you enjoy, your long term and short term goals, your strengths
and weakness, what did you learn from your involvement in various activities, your biggest achievement and
failure etc. This not only helps you in identifying your preferences but also helps in answering the HR
questions with conviction. Also while you identify your strengths/weakness, qualities etc, think about the best
example to highlight these. Such examples can be easily stated in the interview.

2. Know the firm: The best way to know more about McKinsey is to get in touch with the alumni working at
the firm. Try to collect as much information as possible about the work they do, the lifestyle they have, the
work environment at the firm, their experiences. You can try talking about your goals and how can McKinsey
help you get there. All these shall help you in making an informed decision about your career and will give you
an insight into the consulting life. Consulting Demystified (compiled by Shruti Dube and Ankit Misra, IIT
Kanpur class of 2008) is a brief write up about the life of a consultant and gives a fairly good amount of idea
about what all consulting has to offer.

Once you know the firm and yourself try to map the qualities you have to the traits McKinsey is looking for.
Try to highlight these in your resume and be prepared to talk about them in your interview. Since you know
yourself now, you will exactly know the reasons why to join McKinsey and how it does fit in your career path.

Mentioned below is a small list of the basic types of interview questions [1]

1. Introduction

2. Personality Questions
a. Failure
b. Self Awareness
c. Ethics

3. Resume Related Questions

a. Decision Rationale
b. Teamwork
c. Leadership
d. Positions of Responsibility

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2.1.2 Presentation

Some key points which need to be kept in mind while preparing for the interview.

1. Prepare standard questions: Be prepared to answer “Tell me something about yourself” in almost all your
interviews. Use this question to drive the interview in a direction you want it to go. Talk about the
activities/qualities you want interviewer to explore in depth. Make sure you do not sound “too prepared”. Do
not mug up the answers.

2. Site Examples: It‟s advisable to support your qualities with examples. This is where your brainstorming will
come to your help to identify the best example for a given quality. A well thought resume also aids in this. For
example: The interviewer asks you that why he should trust you and believe whatever you said in your
interview. You are now required to convince him that you are trustworthy and honest. What do you do now?
Quickly scan your resume and isolate an activity where trust matters. Student Guide. Bingo!!! This shows how
well you know yourself 

3. Max Impact-Min Words: Always think for a moment before you start answering the question. In any situation
related question, bring out your role and its impact. Try to convey your thoughts in the most precise way. You
certainly don‟t want to bore the interviewer with your story

To prepare, practice answering the more frequently asked behavioral questions until you can answer them smoo
thly. If time permits try to write an essay about yourself and get it reviewed by your peers. Such an exercise not
only leads to be better prepared for the interview but also make you better aware of yourself, which helps in
answering the questions confidently. Always make sure your answers are structured and logical.

2.1.3 Basic Dos and Don’ts of Interview

 Arrive a little early. If you arrive about fifteen minutes before the scheduled interview time, you will have ti
me to collect your thoughts, wipe the perspiration from your hands, and scan the lobby for current company
information. You will also show your interviewer that you value his or her time.

 Do your homework. Know the interviewer‟s name and how to pronounce it (including proper title: Mr.,
Mrs., Dr., etc.). Know the company‟s major products or services, the organization of the company (divisions,
parent company, etc.), current business news about the company and the company‟s major customers and
competitors. You can learn most or all of this information from the company‟s website, annual report or
company literature.

 Bring a spare copy of your resume in a briefcase or folder. This demonstrates that you are prepared. It also
gives the interviewer something to take notes on.

 Expect to spend some time developing rapport. Personal chemistry is a main ingredient in the hiring
process. Try to relax and become comfortable with the interviewer.

 Prepare for basic open ended questions. The interview is a process by which the interviewer gets to know
and judge whether you match the requirements both academically and as a person. Generally, the
interviewer will throw up some open ended questions like “Tell me about you”. This is meant to relax the
applicant. This can be used as an opportunity to divert the interview into your areas of strength. Open-ended
questions like those on hobbies, achievements, etc reveal a great deal about you as a person. Treat these
questions very seriously.

 Listen. Listen to the question before answering it. Understand what the interviewer is looking for. If you need
time to think about the answer, request for the same. Most interviewers would comply with such a request.

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 But after you have taken time to think, better come up with a good answer.

 Watch your non verbal communication. Maintain an open body posture. Seat yourself at a reasonable
distance from the other person. Smile. Always maintain eye contact with the interviewer. It shows your
confidence. Never droop in the chair. Sit upright and keep track of your hand movements while answering
questions.

 Don’t be embarrassed by nervousness. Interviewers are humans and they often become nervous, too. In fact,
nervousness is a good sign. It shows that you are taking the interview seriously. Avoid nervous mannerisms
such as tapping your fingers, feet, playing with pens etc. Body language is powerful! Good eye contact, a
warm, natural smile and a firm handshake can help y overcome nervousness, develop a personal rapport and
present a confident image.

 Don’s play comedian or try to entertain the interviewer. It is important to personable, but do not overdo it.

 Don’t exaggerate or lie. You might be tempted to embellish your achievements in the interview, but it will
come back to haunt you on the job!

 Follow the interviewer’s lead. Don‟t try to take over the interview. Stick to the main subject at hand, but do
not dwell too long on one point. It is better to deal with many questions that just one or two in-depth
questions, unless that‟s where the interviewer leads you.

 Be prepared for personal questions, even some inappropriate ones. Anticipate how you will handle
personal questions without blowing your cool. Some interviewers may not be aware what the can and cannot
legally ask you. Be sure you understand the question. It is okay to ask for clarification.

 Emphasize the positive. Be frank and honest, but never apologize for lack of experience or weakness. You
can be self-confident without being overconfident or flippant. If you are new to the job market, your lack of
experience has one very positive feature: you do not have to “unlearn” bad habits or different practices
learned from previous employers. Many employers like the idea that you can be taught their individual
company procedures without needing to get rid of other training first.

 Don’t be afraid to think before you speak. Use silence and intentional pause to our advantage. Time is
occasionally needed to think and reflect. The interviewer will respect you for taking questions seriously
enough to give it a moment or two of consideration before answering.

 Emphasize what you can d for organization. This means emphasizing our transferable skills. However, be
careful not to reveal trade secrets from a previous employer. Employers are concerned most with what you
can do for them. Focus on your ability to tackle new situations, your communication skills, interpersonal
abilities, analytical thinking talents, and other skills developed while in college or in previous positions.

 Don’t give “Prepared Answers”. Most employers know a these stock answers when they hear them. This is a
good reason to use interview question / answer guide as just that guides. If your answers are not personalize
d to your situation, they will sound forced and unnatural. You might be surprised to learn how often intervie
wers hear the phrase, “I really like working with people”. The phrase is used so often that it has lost its meani
ng!

 Watch Your Grammar and your manners. Employers are interested in candidates who can express themselve
s properly. Even if you have to slow down to correct yourself – do it. Use slang expressions very sparingly. If
your knowledge of rules of etiquette is rusty, take a “refresher course” from a knowledgeable friend.

 Be Prepared to Ask Questions. Almost all interviewers will ask if you have any questions. You should have

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 some ready and should have at least one that is related to the conversation you have just completed. This
demonstrates that you are both prepared and interested. Your questions should be related to details about the
company and should be based on the information you learned from the homework you have done. You
should not ask questions like “How long to I have to wait before I can take a vacation?” Save those what‟s-in-
it-for-me questions for later. If you do not ask any questions at this point, chances are that you may come
across as a person who is not keen to join the company.

 Be Careful With the Closing. Do not linger. End quickly and courteously. Thank your interviewer for the
interview. Smile.

 Be Yourself! You do not want to get hired on the basis of something you are not. You want to be hired for who
you are! Do not try to be someone you are not during an interview. Be natural. An interview is a process by
which the candidate and the interviewer get to know each other and the candidate‟s role in the organization is
established. Any mask that you may don for the interview will wear down in no time.

 Mock Interviews: It is always a good idea to attend mock interviews and use the feedback to improve your
interview skills.

2.2 Case Interview

According to McKinsey “case interviews are broad, two-way discussions, rather than one-way tests and there is
no perfect answer”. One is required to analyze the case based on the information provided making apt
assumptions as and when required. How you arrive at your answer is much more important than if you answer
correctly. Hence in such situations it is very important to engage with the interviewer by constantly
communicating your thought process. Case interview questions fall into two broad categories: business cases
and estimation cases.

Business case is nothing but a problem-solving exercise. Though most interviewers give real world business
cases, industry knowledge is not a pre-requisite to ace a business case. Key facts and issues pertaining to the case
will be narrated by the interviewer. Feel free to ask any aspect of the case that you don‟t comprehend well or are
not familiar with. The interviewer is more interested in checking out your thought process and assessing your
analytical ability, creativity, and poise. To prepare for business cases we suggest that one should read
Macroeconomics basics and practice a few sample case studies from casebooks [1], [2],[3],[4]. This shall help you
gain a good understanding of standard frameworks for solving business cases. You should then start practicing
case studies with a partner and become comfortable in structuring the problem at hand into manageable sub
problems. If you are able to assign a 2-3 level deep tree structure for case study questions and are also able to
come up with your own framework (which may be inspired from standard frameworks, but is actually a
customized framework tailored according to the problem at hand) your preparation for tackling business cases
is going on track.

Estimation cases usually involve estimation of market size for a product/service or estimation of any other
variable (e.g. Number of marriages happening in India each year). The key objective of the interviewer is to
observe your reasoning process. Arriving at the correct answer is not something the interviewer is looking for,
but yes concluding your analysis towards a final answer is desirable. Assumptions made during the analysis
should be chosen sensibly and should be properly stated.

2.2.1 Case Study Time-Line

Clarify Terms in Case Narration: (Understand properly the Product/Customers in question)

Begin your analysis by clarifying ambiguous term in the case narration. Something like: “I would like to clarify
few terms before I suggest a structure to take forward the discussion” or “Since I do not know much about this

8
sector, I would like to know how …”

Repeat the Case Back:

To ensure that you have understood the problem well, narrate back the case clearly identifying key players and
pinpointing the objective. You can say something like: “All right, let me play back the situation to you, just to
make sure I‟m clear.”

Asking for Time to Frame the Solution:

Don‟t hesitate in asking for some time to chalk out your analysis. Interviewers never mind giving time to the
candidates, so you can take your own sweet time. Polite request like: “I would like to develop a plan for
approaching this problem. May I take a minute to do so?” would usually get a positive response. (Beware that in
Stress Interviews however, you could be very harshly denied any time you ask for, or could be given a time
frame in which it is almost impossible to think about the problem from all perspectives. What to do in such
cases? It is easier said than done: Do not give up. Start from most relevant issue and continue thereon
depending on interviewer‟s response.)

Lay the Road Map

Keep the interviewer aware of your overall approach by communicating it before you start to analyze at
microscopic level. E.g. “The way I have planned to approach the case is that: first, I‟m going to discuss critical
issues related to … then, I‟m going to try to figure out … then I would also want to assess… finally, I‟m making
a recommendation”.

Analyze the Case and Conclude:

Discuss each of the issues you raised while laying up the road map and finally conclude the case. Keep your
interviewer engaged during the analysis. One way is to keep asking your interviewer if you are on the right
track so far. You should finally make your recommendation about the problem asked in the case. Merely
restating the points addressed during the case analysis is not sufficient.

2.2.2 Sample Case Structuring

Case analysis seems very easy once you read through the solutions in the guides. However when you solve it in
real time then it‟s a totally different ball game. It is recommended that you try to come up with your own
structures to tackle the interviews rather than blindly following the 4P‟s or 4C‟s etc. For example suppose that
the case is regarding a commodity manufacturer trying to cope with falling profits. There are lots of factors that
could have gone wrong which lead to falling profits. Instead of randomly guessing the factors it is desired that
one should present the thought process in a structured manner. The following table tries to give a structure to
the analysis:

Driver Cost Incurred Revenue Generated (p*q)

Inbound Logistics

Raw Material Procurement  Alternative Materials/ Substitutes  Cycle Time affects q

 Alternative Suppliers
 Backward Integration/ de-Integration
 Hedging against volatility in Raw Material
Markets to focus on Core Competencies
Transportation of Raw  Permutations of Means/Routes Of  Speed of Production affects q
Materials Transportation
 Offloading/Loading Costs

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Storage of Raw Materials  Just In Time Procurement  Degradation of Raw Material
 Rent of Storehouse (space/duration/rate) affects quality of product which
 Controlled Environment maintenance Cost affects q
Operations

Labor/  Re-Engineering Inefficient Processes: Machines usually make

Replacing Man by Machine (usually products faster and better.
Equipment reduces cost)
 Off Shoring to Cheap Labor
Basic Utilities  Alternative Sources  Erratic Supply decreases speed
 Ensuring Continuous Supply of Basic of production
[Electricity, Water] Utilities

Production Line  Efficient Pipelining/ Operational  Speed of Production affects q

Excellence
Regulatory Safeguards  Environment Friendly Waste Disposal  Brand Image affects q
 Safety Measures for workers

Total Quality Management  Quality Assurance Cost  Quality affects q

Packaging  Bulk Packaging  Customer

 Attractive Packaging Needs/Sentimentsq
Outbound Logistics

Storage of Finished  Just In Time Production  Shelf Life [Esp. of Perishable

Products  Rent of Storehouse (less Commodities]
quantity/duration/rate)  Availability of Products to
 Controlled Environment Maintenance Cost Customers

Delivery of Products  Permutations of Means/Routes Of  Speed of deliveryq

Transportation
 Offloading/Loading Costs
 Who pays for Distribution? Firm or
Customers?
 Delivery/Batch Sizes
Services

 Customer Support  Customer Needs/Satisfaction

 Transaction Costs (Home Delivery, Billing) q
 Warranties  Response Time  q

Sales (Volume)
 Placement and Number of Outlets  Focus on Core Competencies
 Economies of Scale? to Increase Per Capita
 Economies of Scope? Consumption
 Are there significant Barriers/ Deterrents?  Product Differentiation/ Niche
 What are expected costs of entry?  Rivals
 Switching Costs of Customers  New Entrants
 Substitutes/Compliments
Macro Issues

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Following are some examples of easy frameworks that were made by few of your seniors

Entry into a New Market

Current
Customers
Market
Competitors Products

Leader Strengths
Weakness
Growth
Potential Customers Old
Market New (Neglected segment – out of reach)
Products Old
New (Concentrate on neglected segment /
differentiated product)

Cost Fixed Cost Infrastructure

Operations*

Advertisement
Variable Cost Inbound Logistics*

Outbound Logistics*

Services*

Revenue Pricing (based on competitors)

Expected Sales

Break even time / Return / Interest / Depreciation / Taxes / other investment options

Recommendations Enter or not based on Break even time and future return

Neglected customer segment – out of reach

Concentrate on neglected product segment /

differentiated product
Advertisement
Location
Low Switching Cost (offer discounts)

Loyalty programmes
* refer to previous case structure.

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Increase Profits

Basic idea of Products

Revenue Market down Customer Segments

(Demand less) Price too high
(Sales and Obsolete (technology/ economy)
Price) Supplementary Product demand less
Economic and Political Reasons

Competitor Rivals Price

Quality (differentiated product)
(Market
growing) Advertisement
Brand (advertise & social)
Location
Distribution Sys (Retailer Incentive)
Switching Cost
Cost
New Entrant High Switching Cost (loyalty)
Advertise Experience
Incorporate New Aspects
Substitutes Advantages & Modify Product
Future Market
Analysis Enter Market
Supply is less Supply Chain Vendor Issues
Channel Issues
(identify bottle-neck)
Process (identify Manufacturing Time (3)
bottle-neck) HR Efficiency
Distribution System Storage Capacity
(Seasonal) Above 3
Macro (Legislation) Channel
Strike
Distributor
Cost Fixed Cost Incentives
Infrastructure
- location Automation
Operations* - incentives
Advertisement
Variable Cost Inbound Logistics*

Outbound Logistics*

Services*

* refer to the first case structure 12

Remember: Interest / Depreciation / Taxes
2.2.3 Example Case Study

The Problem

BSNL is nation‟s largest telephone service provider. They are considering entering the home security services.
Should they?

Wrong Approach 1: Directly jumping to the analysis part, after the question is stated, without understanding the
problem statement and asking about the exact product/service later in the discussion.

Right Approach:

Me: (thinking) I understand what a telephones service provider is. But what kind of security service are we
talking about here??? Is it something like a burglar‟s alarm??
(Aloud): Sir, can you give me some information on the kind of security service system we are talking about here?

Interviewer: Sure. The security systems here refer to an arrangement similar to a traditional burglar alarm with
an additional attachment. Together with triggering the alarm, it also connects to the nearest police station and the
burglary is reported.

Me: How is this connection between police station and homes is done?

Interviewer: It can be either wireless or using the underground network cables webbing the whole city. The mode
of operation depends on the service provider.

Me: (thinking) Okay so that‟s the product. Let‟s rephrase the question again to see if I am thinking correctly.
(Aloud): So as I understand, the problem is that BSNL wants to enter a home security system wherein the
burglary is reported directly to the police station either via network cables or wireless systems and a call centre,
essentially something like calling using landline or mobile network.

Interviewer: Yes, that‟s correct.

Wrong Approach 2: Falling silent, to think about the next step, without asking for permission to do so.

Right Approach:

Me: Sir, May I take a minute or so to formulate the plan of approaching this case.

Interviewer: Sure, go ahead. (This may not be always allowed. In a typical stress interview, the interviewer would
ask you to start solving the case right away. So be prepared for all types of situations.)

Me: (thinking): Now he wants me to find out if BSNL should enter into this business or not. The first thing I need
to know is whether the market is conducive enough for a new entrant. I need to know if there is any chance of
growth in the burglar alarm market. Thus I need to look at the market situation including growth opportunities. If the
market is good, I need to look whether there are too many companies selling the same thing and if there is at least
little space for BSNL as well. Thus I need to consider the market size, competition, and customer segments in the
market. This shall give me a decent idea of where BSNL stands right now. After that I would need to know after
how much time the company will be able to breakeven. Good!!! Let‟s start 

Wrong Approach 3: Starting the analysis right away, without laying a road map/structure of the approach, in
front of the interviewer.

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Right Approach:

(Aloud): Sir. I think to make a judgment whether BSNL should foray into this market or not we need to look at the
market conditions in terms of competitors, customer segments, cost structures and growth opportunities. Then we
can look into the profits that the company can make and then find the breakeven time and see if it‟s acceptable to
the client or not.

Interviewer: That‟s a good approach. But let‟s not get into breakeven analysis. Let‟s keep it a qualitative
discussion.

Me: OK Sir. So I would like to start with some information on current market scenario. Do we have some idea
about the market size of the product?

Interviewer: Why don‟t you estimate the total market size?

Me: Ok. May I take a moment to gather my thoughts before I start estimating the number?

Interviewer: Ok.

Me: (thinking) I want to estimate the market size of the security system. That is calculating the number of devices
required. Let‟s go by demand side. Best way – population counting. Need number of households which can
afford such systems. Split in urban- rural, then income wise, then find number of household. Assign percentage of
population in each income group who will use the system. From there on I can take it along. Time over!!!!

Wrong Approach 4: Doing all the calculation silently, in your mind, not saying a word to the interviewer and
finally, giving just a number as the answer!!!

Right Approach:

(Aloud): Sir. We can estimate the market size from the demand side by estimating the number of households
which can afford such a system and who do not have any other system installed. Do you think this is correct?

Interviewer: Yeah. That sounds good. Go ahead.

Me: Let‟s start by dividing the population into urban (30%) and rural (70%). Let‟s assume that there is no need for
such a device in rural India. Do you think it‟s a good assumption? (Interviewer nods) Let‟s divide the urban
population in 4 income groups- Lower (40%), Lower Middle (30%), Upper Middle (20%) and Upper (10%).
(Mention what percentage you are taking each time). Now we get the number of household by assuming that the
average household size in India is 5 and dividing the population by this number (5). This gives me the number of
household in each segment. (While you are saying all these, you draw a nice tree structure which depicts all these
divisions, percentage and final numbers).
Now, let‟s assume that lower and lower middle class can‟t afford such a system (assuming it‟s a little bit costly
and also this section will not spend money on such a luxury!!). Do you think this is a safe assumption?
(Interviewer says yes this is ok). Let‟s say almost 80% of the upper middle class and almost 100% of the upper
class would use this system.
What percentage should I take for households who already have it?

Interviewer: Take it 50%.

Me: This gives me x in upper middle class and y in upper class.

Interviewer: This is a reasonable number. I think we can move ahead.

14
Me (Thinking): Move ahead!!! What was I supposed to find out in the first place?? (I quickly refer to the notes
made and see a boxed statement (on the top of the rough sheet I am using) which says “Should they enter into the
market??”) Oh!! yes. Everything flashes back!!! Now I need information on competitors etc. (I have already seen
the list of parameters I need info on)
(Aloud): Sir, Who are the market leaders and what is their share?

Interviewer: The market is composed of small alarm company operators. No firm has over 5% market share
overall, although there are some strong regional players.

Me: (Thinking and jotting down at the same time) This means no major competition. BSNL can be at a good
position keeping in mind its already large presence in a similar market. Let‟s see if BSNL has major cost
advantages over other players because BSNL already has the infrastructure in terms of network cables and
wireless systems. What else can be needed? What is the pricing strategy followed?
(Aloud): Do we have any information on the cost structure of this product?

Interviewer: What do you think the cost structure might be like?

Me: (Ouch!! It came back on me) We can look at fixed and variable cost separately. (Started making a tree with
fixed cost and variable cost as first two branches). Fixed cost would include infrastructure costs, salaries etc. The
infrastructure in this case would include wiring/wireless systems and some sensors (to be set at doors/windows
etc). The network cables/wireless systems are already in place (used for BSNL‟s telephone services). The sensor
cost can be included as one time price paid by the customer. So this leaves very little fixed cost. Variable cost will
include maintenance and operational cost. This will be also very small (already a part of the BSNL system). BSNL
may not have much cost advantage because other players also use similar phone networks. BSNL may have some
economies of scale in operating the call centres.

Interviewer: Fair enough. Do you think BSNL may have some advantage in terms of marketing?

Me: BSNL already is an established telephone service provider and must have a monthly contact with the
customers. They can easily advertise their security system on bills, information pamphlets for phones etc. They
can also give discounts on the security system to existing telephone users.

Interviewer: That‟s good. So why don‟t you wrap this up and tell me if BSNL should enter the market or not?

Wrong Approach 5: Not stating, in the final conclusion, all the relevant points discussed during the complete
analysis. This generally happens if you don‟t make proper notes/approach the whole problem in a random way

Right Approach:

Me: (Thinking) Competition done, market size done, cost done. As of now it looks like a good opportunity with
(x+y) market untapped and not so much investment required and excellent marketing advantage.
(Aloud): Yes. BSNL should enter the market as it possesses small but important competitive advantage. It has an
established brand image. It reaches to a large population every month through service bills which can be used for
launching the new services.
It has (x+y) untapped customer to cater to. If it captures even z% market then it earns revenue of Rs A crores
without much investment.
It should thus enter the market and consolidate its market share to become the national leader.

15
 3. Interview Experiences of the last 2 years

2008

Name: Abhinav Jain Department: CSE

Joining: Program: Dual

Email: abnavjain@gmail.com Phone: +91-94155 11021

Message for juniors: Half the interview is done before you walk in. Be confident throughout the interview and
show the interviewer that you are really passionate about whatever you have done.

Name Abhinav Jain

Name and Designation of Shailesh Kekre, Associate Principal

Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 1st interview

Personal Interview Questions  Talked about Techkriti

 What I did?
 Amount of sponsorship – highest how? Compared to other
festivals?
 Go Karting – why in Techkriti? What sense does it make?
How does it relate to the festival? I defended that it made
perfect sense as it showcased technology and also added a
fun-element to the festival.
 Career plans
 Own venture – what area? I replied if I knew what the venture
was going to be then I would not be interviewing. But
broadly it would have something to do with technology.
Case Interview Narration Estimate the demand for Full HD TV in the next couple of years.

I started by estimating that average life of a TV is say 10 years. So 10% people

buy a new TV every year. So for a couple of years we are looking at 20% of
households.

For Full HD TV we could remove the rural population as they would neither
know about the latest technology nor would have access to it. So we were left
with the urban population. Now I did an income split and then tried to reach
a number. My estimates for each of the buckets were a little on the higher side
which he pointed out.

What Worked Well Was able to talk about Techkriti very confidently as well as for my career
plans.

16
What Went Wrong  The estimate in the case was on the higher side. Would have been better if
I myself would have pointed out that I had taken a higher estimate and
rectified myself.
Take Away for Future Batches  The interview was on Video Conf but was very cool. So don‟t let that
affect you in any way.
 Always remain confident of whatever you have done and defend it with
all your energy.

Name Abhinav Jain

Name and Designation of Pierre Evanzo, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 2nd interview

Personal Interview Questions  Tell me about yourself – when I told him about that I had a multi-faceted
personality he asked me about my speaking skills and where had I proved
them.
 Something that makes you different & unique – he told me that he had
asked a lot of candidates the same question but no one was able to
impress him and so I better come up with a good answer.
 Then the talk drifted to what was I passionate about. And how would I see
myself at the end of my career.
 Any Questions
Talked to him about his experiences in McKinsey especially given the fact
that he had worked at many different offices in many different countries.

Case Interview Narration ITC is launching a new baby food. You have to estimate the number of babies
born in a year.

I was a little stuck. He helped me out by pointing out to me the different

approaches possible and then analyzed a couple of them with me. We
discussed it by birth rate & death rate approach.

What Worked Well Was able to convince the interviewer about my desire to achieve and excel.

What Went Wrong  The case did not go very well.

Take Away for Future Batches  Keep your calm in all situations, even if the interviewer is trying to push
you. Keep talking to the interviewer as a normal conversation.

17
Name Abhinav Jain

Name and Designation of Anant Atal, Senior Associate

Interviewer

Round Round 2 – 1st interview

Personal Interview Questions  Tell me about yourself.

 Talked about Techkriti.
Case Interview Narration You are a direct to home cable provider (like Tata Sky). You are planning on
an expansion drive. What is the number of customers you need to have in the
next 5 years to break even?

I started with cost analysis breaking cost into fixed and variable cost. Then
defined all the costs incurred at each step of the chain and classified each of
them. He had a structure drawn on the side board and when I had described
my structure he showed me his drawing and both of them were same. Using
the structure and asking him for numbers I finally came up with an answer.

He then asked me business questions as to how would we go about realizing

the target numbers. We talked about the promotions and the pricing strategy.

What Worked Well The case went well and the structure came out pretty well.

Name Abhinav Jain

Name and Designation of Gautam Kumra, Director

Interviewer

Round Round 2 – 2nd interview

Personal Interview Questions  So many activities on your resume – what would you be the most proud
about?
 Asked him about his experience in McKinsey and if he was considering
trying out something different or was he looking to continue in
McKinsey only.
Case Interview Narration You are Bharti – Sunil Mittal and are looking to venture out into new
business areas. How would you go about it? You are looking at Retail – JV
with Wal-Mart, Insurance – JV with AXA and real estate.

I talked about core competence of a company and if it had some knowledge

that would benefit in the new sector. Also talked about synergies with the
other company that we were considering a JV with.

He then asked me what would be the difference between setting up a venture

on our own and forming a JV with a partner?

What Went Wrong  The PI did not go very well. I was not able to showcase my drive and
passion as I had been able to do in the earlier interviews.
Take Away for Future Batches  Do not get overawed by who is the interviewer and do not let your guard
down at any time. It is as important to get your 4th interview spot on as is
to the 1st one.

18
 Name: Akanksha Garg Department: Mechanical Engineering

Joining: Program: B.Tech

Email: akansha@iitk.ac.in Phone: 09935306029

Name Akanksha Garg

Name and Designation of Pierre Evanzo, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1st, 1st Interview

Personal Interview Questions  Started by telling about himself

 Why McKinsey?
 Why consultancy?
 A discussion on my career plans ahead. If not McKinsey then what?
 Discussion on McKinsey‟s role in society.

Case Interview Narration Calculate number of new born in India...

I started by giving two approaches

1) going by growth rate and death rate

2) calculating number of marriages,

He asked me to follow approach one. He asked me to calculate number of

people of dying per year. I considered the life expectancy and took number
of people having age above 65 to be 5% and equal distribution in that. This
gave me the minima. He then asked me to calculate maxima. On urging I
got to know that he was asking me to assume equal distribution of
population in different age groups.

What Worked Well I guess I engaged the interviewer pretty well, stated all the possible
assumptions while solving the case...

What Went Wrong  Did a calculation mistake while calculating maxima

 I was not very convincing while stating why consultancy

Take Away for Future Batches  One should have very convincing reason for why McKinsey

19
Name Akanksha Garg

Name and Designation of

Interviewer

Round Round 1st, 2nd Interview

Personal Interview Questions  Interviewer had been involved in automobile sector, My B.Tech. project
is also in the same sector...so had a discussion on that
 Directly came to the case
Case Interview Narration Business Case Study (real life case)

A utility company is in the business of providing electricity and water.

Market leader in its country. However since the country is not growing,
company is also not growing. So it wants to expand, either by acquiring
another similar company (second largest competitor) in the country or by
acquiring a small company that is in the business of supplying technology
for solar heaters etc.

I started by first asking in general about the business, and then started
analyzing the problem by dividing into four buckets.

Market scenario, products, consumer segments, analysis of entering into

each business (profits and synergies etc).

Based on all the info I reached to the conclusion, however interviewer

wanted me to do some profit calculations (again did a calculation mistake
here!)

What Worked Well Involved the interviewer well in solving the case, nearly covered all the
segments

What Went Wrong  Did a calculation mistake again (was also done in the last interview)

20
Name: Akanksha Gupta Department: Civil Engineering

Joining: Transocean Program: B.Tech.

Email: Phone: 09967137424

Name Akanksha Gupta

Name and Designation of Abhijeet

Interviewer

Round 1st Round 1st Interview

Personal Interview Questions  Summer intern

 BTP
 Started with swimming, then moved on to teamwork
 Further discussion on swimming and cultural secretary work
 Why not MBA right now
Case Interview Narration An Industry is into manufacturing graph papers. It supplies them to the
government. Heavy Investment has been done recently to get state of the
art machineries. But sales are reducing due to lower consumption of the
graph papers now. What should be done?

 Started with getting to know the business - asked about products that
the machines can make, raw material, paper type, flexibility in
production. General information about manufacturing cost relative to
market, raw material supply. I was told that without the change in the
machinery other kind of paper products can also be made and hence
the production was quite flexible.
 Having found that it was low cost manufacturer and got low cost raw
material supply, profits could not be increased by focusing on
lowering the costs. Since heavy investment was done recently client
would like to keep the business and hence the aim was reduced to
coming up with new avenues of sales.
 Options considered then:
1. Increase in the current market - the amount/different kind of paper
to govt.
2. New markets
- High margin, low volume(offices- wherein sold as stationary
packets)
- High volume, low margins(School books, newspapers)

 Factors that would influence the decision:

1. Existing competition
2. Growth/decline in the markets considered
Abhijeet suggested later than we could also look out for exports

What Worked Well Good structuring of case , energy level was good

What Went Wrong  Interviewer was not convinced by the answer on team work
 Interviewer felt that I wasn‟t allowing him to speak. Cutting him short.
Take Away for Future Batches  HR should be prepared well. Listen to interviewer carefully.

21
Name Akanksha Gupta

Name and Designation of Nirjhar Goel

Interviewer

Round 1st Round 2nd Interview

Personal Interview Questions  Why consulting

 Little about swimming
 Any questions

Case Interview Narration The client is in telecom sector and is considering if he should enter 3G
Technology. If he decides to do so how much should he bid for the 3G
spectrum.

 I asked a bit about 3G spectrum and then came to

- The current status of the client in the market with respect to
competitors. ( market share and are the competitors getting
into the technology)
- The customers base to make sure that we do not have
differentiated customers as the services would come at a higher
price I was told that we have all range of customers.
At this point it was decided that he should enter and the bidding
price was to be found.

 Cost /revenue analysis

- Cost :
Bidding Cost+ Running Cost+ Extra maintenance: he gave all
figures asked for.

(I forgot running cost . he pointed it out)

- Revenue: gave the figure.

 Break even analysis, it came around 5-6 years which was acceptable.

He asked what else need to be considered, in case the prices go higher

should he bid.

I said he should go for it as he might lose his current consumer base to

competitors if they are entering into this technology. It would increase
the years required for breakeven but given the competition in the
industry it would be needed to sustain.
What Went Wrong  No high point in interview.

Take Away for Future Batches  Prepare both business cases and estimation cases well. I was better
prepared with estimation cases and when just got the second case
also on business I started with a thought that that‟s not my strength.
 Capitalize on the strongest point of your resume and try talking
about it in some length to keep the energy level high from both the
sides in the interview.

22
Name: Ankit Jain Department: EE

Joining: Not certain right now Program: Dual

Email: ankit.xavierite@gmail.com Phone: +91- 9535203349

Message for juniors: Be yourself! – Even if it does not work for you – it does not really matter – there are
multiple ways to reach what you really want to be – identify this rather during the course of your preparation; it
would help you go a long way.

Name Ankit Jain

Name and Designation of Shailesh Kekre – Partner - IIT K alumni

Interviewer

Round Round 1- 1st interview - The interview was over VC

Personal Interview Questions  Tell me about yourself – more of you as a person rather than your
achievements.
 Major achievements at IIT K – I mentioned swimming and work at the
placement office – He asked in detail my exact role in both of the activities.
 Failures on campus
Case Interview Narration Generally movies are distributed through normal distribution channel being
cinema halls. You are a satellite TV owner eg. Tata Sky. You see a market in
distributing movies through satellite TV broadcasting it directly. How much
should you pay Karan Johar for buying rights of his movies to be broadcasted?

What Worked Well Personal interview was good – assertive and confident about achievements.

What Went Wrong Case interview did not go that well. Laid the structure well in the starting but
as I was going through node by node was stopped in between.

A bit of nerves in the starting – I had problems in picking up cues from the
interviewer because as it was on a VC.

Take Away for Future Batches  Hop on to the major drivers in the case fast. He wanted me directly estimate
the market which I did in the end but was stopped there itself – could not
conclude the case.

Name Ankit Jain

Name and Designation of Pierre Evanzo, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 2nd interview

Personal Interview Questions  He told about himself for around 5 min to break the ice
 Tell me about yourself.
 Why McKinsey.
 What distinguishes you from the rest of the candidates
 Major achievements – what motivated you

23
Case Interview Narration A Korean consumer electronics manufacturer has its sales units in and around
the NCR region. You have been hired by them to improve their sales. You have
an excel sheet of details of the sales in your own retail stores along with details
of sales in your competitor‟s retail stores. How will you decide which stores
should you be visiting preference order wise?
He wanted me to come up with two major drivers – market share and total
market. Once I identified them (it took me 4-5 minutes to explore the case in
between, he made me draw 4 quarters and made me identify strategies in all
the 4 sectors.
I think I involved the interviewer well – he gave me hints to correct my
approach which I adopted in the starting.
In the hindsight I realized they want people to solve the problems really fast –
say if I took 15 minutes to do the same; they expected to do the same in 10
minutes.
What Worked Well I was clear about my strengths which I highlighted in the personal part and
weaknesses which I accepted during the course of the interview.

What Went Wrong Too much passion when I was talking about the work at the placement office –
was later given a feedback that I did not fit in the consulting role of a BA
working with clients.
Take Away for Future  Be yourself – Do not mug up answers – it is pretty evident at the other side
Batches of the table.
 Those who are generally aggressive in their approach hold your nerves. 

Name Ankit Jain

Round Round 1- 3rd interview

Personal Interview Questions No personal interview – directly case

Case Interview Narration Business case again – probably I was the only one given three interviews in the
first round and given business cases in all of them 

The case was around a satellite TV company who has launched a satellite worth
20 crore into the space. How many customers should they generate every year
to break even in 10 years?

He wanted me take a look at the entire distribution cost from the base station to
home and identify the costs incurred everywhere. There were 7-8 heads that we
identified. Then I put cost = revenue and came up with average number of
customers per year required. Then I tried to explore how good my guess is – he
said its close.
What Worked Well Engaged the interviewer well. Structured the case well.
What Went Wrong Could have solved it faster.

Take Away for Future  Adopt a fast approach – prioritize your drivers well. When we practiced the
Batches cases we used to do them taking our own merry time – half an hour for one
case – time your cases well.
 Prepare cases for around a month or so in groups of 3-4; that‟s more than
enough – do not overdo it.

24
Name: Manu Kapoor Department: EE

Joining: Morgan Stanley Quant Division Program: BT-MT Dual

Email: manu.stunner@gmail.com Phone: 09930868062

Message for juniors: Practice cases. Give time to yourself to think about yourself. HR preparation is as
essential as case. Practice cases in groups. On the day of interview, stay calm and be prepared to think on
your feet.

Name Manu Kapoor

Name and Designation of Pierre Evanzo, Partner

Interviewer

Round 1st round, 1st interview

Personal Interview Questions  Something about yourself?

 What is unique about you?
 Asked about my stay in boarding school
 Resume based questions; about my involvement in extra currics
 Why Mck?
 What if not Mck?
 Long term/ short term plans
Case Interview Narration You are a salesman for Samsung, working for LCD TV division. You have
data of last year sales of your various dealers of NCR, UP, Punjab, Haryana
region, selling LCD TV of your and other companies. You have your laptop
and a car. How would you plan your visits to these dealers?

After initial clarifications and cancelling out various other factors, we came
to a point where he asked me that what are the two major factors that you
would like to consider in choosing which dealer to visit. They came out to
be the dealer‟s annual revenue and the amount of our company‟s products
sold by him as a percentage of his total sales.

Then a 2x2 matrix was constructed with these two factors and he asked me
to prioritize these 4 cells.

What Worked Well HR part went good, was able to engage the interviewer. He looked happy.
In case interview, I answered all that he asked.

What Went Wrong While practicing case studies, we encountered 15-20 mins long case studies,
where we looked for several factors. During the interview, I was doing the
same and at a point in interview, he almost commented that he doesn‟t want
me to go explore anything; I just needed to answer the questions. So be
prepared for such things. I probably took a bit more time than what I
should have. The case interview lasted not more than 8-10 mins, and that‟s
because after initial 5-6 mins, I realized (coz of his hints) that I don‟t need
the conventional approach and this was a more straight forward 5 mins
case.

Take Away for Future Batches Improvisations may be needed. Don‟t just bank upon the ways you learnt
during practice.

25
Name Manu Kapoor

Name and Designation of Shailesh Kekere, Partner

Interviewer

Round 1st round, 2nd interview

Personal Interview Questions None had a chat with me for 3-4 minutes on ongoing cricket match between
India and Australia and then said he won‟t ask any HR questions.

Case Interview Narration Asked me to estimate the market for Video Conferencing (VC) Units in
India.

I made the initial structure based on who all need it, who all can afford it.
Had a little debate with him over a point, after which he asked me stop.

What Worked Well Nothing actually, I did poorly in this round.

What Went Wrong Should have avoided the debate and went on with the case. Even my case
structuring was bad. So I did wrong all that I could have 

Take Away for Future This interview was on video conferencing, in which non verbal cues are not
Batches that readily available. Also there was a very little lag in communication,
which can be disturbing. So be prepared for such things. Non verbal cues
give you an idea whether you are on track or not, in this case I had no idea
of how it was going.

26
Name: Pranshu Rohatgi Department: Chemical

Joining: Deloitte Consulting Program: BTech

Email: pranglee@gmail.com Phone: 9450155608

Message for juniors: Practice case studies. It really helps at the time of interview.
Name Pranshu Rohatgi

Name and Designation of Mr. Sameer

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - Approximate duration 50 min

Personal Interview Questions He concentrated on two things in the interview :

 My intern with Transocean

 My role and responsibilities as Festival Coordinator, Techkriti
In the intern part, basically he was looking for :

 Work that I did

 How was it beneficial to the company
 The implementation plan that we had proposed

In my involvement with Techkriti, I explained the event to him and we

basically had a small chat as to how has the festival changed during these
years. We discussed the rising budgets, reach of the festival and so on.

Case Interview Narration A real estate firm is expecting a good cash inflow for the coming 2-3 years. I
had to analyze the opportunity and convert it into huge profits for the firm.

I took my time and outlined two opportunities :

 Growth in real estate sector

 Diversification
To this he asked me to look into the diversification area. I further divided it
into two: Related diversification and non-related diversification.

After this we looked at various options under these heads. The discussion
finally went up to entry into a new market and porters five forces !!

What Worked Well My confidence

What Went Wrong Don‟t know!

Take Away for Future Prepare well... I had done one MBA course, Economics of Business Policies
Batches and I know that it helped me a lot.

27
Name Mr. Mayank Shivam

Name and Designation of Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - Approximate duration 45 min

Personal Interview Questions The interviewer was looking for team spirit and leadership. He asked me
about what I had learned the most at Transocean to which I replied –
working with peers. Then he went on to relate some situations on team
management and asked my reactions to them.

Case Interview Narration Firm1 is a European firm which supplies oil and gas. It is the biggest
player in the home country but not so dominant elsewhere. Firm2 is a
similar company in neighbouring country. Firm 1 has two avenues of
growth :

 Imbibe a new technology

 Some connection with Firm2
As a consultant I had to look into the two options and make
recommendations.

What Worked Well My confidence

What Went Wrong My personal interview did not go very well.

I made some trivial calculation mistake while I was exploring the cost
synergies.

Take Away for Future Prepare well. Don‟t shift your focus during the interview .don‟t let trivial
Batches things spoil your efforts.

28
Name: Ruchi Choudhary Department: Electrical Engineering

Joining: ITC Program: B.Tech. M.Tech. Dual Degree

Email: ch.ruchi@gmail.com Phone: 09162412571

Name Ruchi Choudhary

Name and Designation of Nirjhar Goyal

Interviewer

Round I- 1st interview

Personal Interview Questions  Tell me something about yourself

Case Interview Narration A leading telecom company is exploring the 3G license option. Should it
participate? If yes, how much should it bid for?

I clarified about 3G networks on which he gave me several advantages like

high data speeds, mobile banking and other such new services which could
be enabled on cell phones by 3G networks. I inquired about the company‟s
present standing in the market, the market scene, competitors, potential
customers, regulations (if any) and did a cost revenue analysis. The
interviewer was helpful and provided data as and when required. All the
other factors mentioned above were insignificant, and I was supposed to do
a cost revenue analysis and come up with a final number. The revenue from
current networks was 200 units per year and from 3G was estimated to be
350 units per year. One time cost of setting up the existing network was 800
units, running cost of current network 100 units and of the 3G was expected
to be 50 units (all figures on yearly basis). He also mentioned that the
company wants to break even in 10 years. The case involved simple
arithmetic and I gave him the final number for which the client should bid.

What Worked Well I discussed about his experience and was able to strike a comfortable
conversation (he was also from EE, IIT Delhi). Qualitative analysis of the
case (whether the company should enter into 3G networks?) was also sound,
I think, although I‟m not sure it was required to go into details, as it was
mainly a quantitative case.

What Went Wrong Digressed a little from the actual problem. Took long to come to the core
analysis.

29
Name Ruchi Choudhary

Name and Designation of Mayank Shivam

Interviewer

Round I- 2nd interview

Personal Interview  Tell me something about yourself

Questions  Long term goals, how do you plan to achieve them?
 Why McKinsey?
Case Interview Narration A large corporate organization wants to open a B-School in India on an on-profit
basis and need to procure land for the same. They want to know where and of
what size land should they procure?

I inquired first about the proposed B-school. He said it would be like ISB. I based
my analysis on various parameters like placements, number of students and
facilities required, cost, connectivity etc. During the course of analysis
mentioned that there were two options- a large campus with all facilities (like
Health Centre, guest house) in the outskirts of the city, or a small campus inside
the city with the just the basic requirements. The metric finally was distance
from airport in a tier-I city or from a railway station in tier-II city. Here he
suggested that time could also be taken as a metric as it would take into account
traffic etc. Towards the end, he posed the question whether opening it in a city
like Ahmadabad where such a college already exists would be beneficial or in a
city like Pune with no such competitive campus would help?

What Worked Well The HR part went ok and from the interviewer‟s expression seemed convincing.

What Went Wrong Hmm..nothing that I can think of

Take Away for Future Although you might have heard it umpteen number of times, but give a lot of
Batches thought to yourself, long term and short term goals, interest and hobbies. It
really helps, and not just in the interview.

Name Ruchi Choudhary

Name and Designation of Pierre

Interviewer

Round I- 3rd interview

Personal Interview  Tell me something about yourself

Questions  Why consulting?
 What if not McKinsey?
 Put yourself in my shoes for some time and imagine that there are so many
good students out there, why should I select you?
 What do you think is the most important quality of a leader?

30
Case Interview Narration Entry and exit gates need to be designed for metro in Delhi. How would you go
about it? He gave me some information like the number of stations, peak hours,
distribution of passengers etc. There is a single line and 15 stations on the line.
The route handles 1 mn. Passengers daily with equal distribution among
stations. I enquired about the distribution through the day and he mentioned
that 8-10 and 4-6 were the peak hours handling 20% of the commuters. The case
was completely quantitative and involved simple arithmetic. I calculated the
number of lanes based on the time the passengers take to pass (5 secs.).
However, in exit, all the commuters had to go out at once and hence the number
of lanes required was more. He asked me for a suggestion to improve that and
after some discussion; we concluded that when a train arrives, some of the entry
lanes could be used as exit as well.

Take Away for Future Practice common HR questions. There were no unexpected questions on that
Batches front.

Name Ruchi Choudhary

Name and Designation of Shailesh Kekre, Partner

Interviewer

Round II- 1st interview

Personal Interview No HR in this round. It started with a case, and then there was nothing else to
Questions discuss.

Case Interview Narration My friend Karan Johar has made a movie and offered me to buy its distribution
rights (for showing the movie on satellite television like TATA sky) for one
year. I can either buy it at the reduced price or choose to decline the offer. What
should I do? If I intend to buy, what price should I pay?

I inquired about the movie, and tried to do a cost revenue analysis; there was
little data provided and I faltered many a times.

What Worked Well Nothing 

What Went Wrong Anything and everything that could possibly go wrong did. The case had
sealed my fate.

Take Away for Future Think on your feet even if you are not able to make much headway with the
Batches case. Towards the end, I made errors with simple calculations as well.

31
Name: Samanvaya Srivastava Department: CHE

Joining: Cornell University (Ph.D.) Program: Dual degree

Email: sam.sri@gmail.com Phone: 9935425065

Name Samanvaya Srivastava

Round Round 1 interview 1

Personal Interview Questions  Tell me about yourself 

Case Interview Narration It was a very vague case derived from my resume (as stated by the
interviewer). A German polymer manufacturer, specializing in raw
polymers, finished end products and the other raw materials used in the
polymer industry wants to enter Indian market. What should he do?

What Worked Well I guess nothing. I couldn‟t even solve a simple puzzle that he gave me
when the case study had gone horribly wrong.

What Went Wrong  I got a bit baffled by the way the interviewer was responding even after
giving a very vague case.
 I lost interest midway when nothing was going right.
Take Away for Future Batches  Do not just focus on the traditional case studies that are there in the B
Schools casebooks. Go in with an open mind expecting anything and
everything.
 Keep your calm and ask as many questions as you can.
 Do not think it‟s all over ever, the moment you think that is the
moment when it is all over.

Name Samanvaya Srivastava

Round Round 1 interview 2

Personal Interview Questions  Tell me about yourself 

 Why consulting?
Case Interview Narration This time it was a structured case.

A Cancer hospital with a capacity of 1000 patients is planned and

construction has started in the city of Gurgaon. Firstly I had to estimate
the demand for such a facility in Gurgaon, and had to reach at the
numbers by at least three different ways. Then when I arrived at a
number of 500, I was asked to devise ways of increasing the demand.
After that when a saturation level of 700 patients was reached, I was to
devise ways to increase the revenue by using the unoccupied space or
otherwise.

What Worked Well The case study went well. But I think the first interview had gone so
wrong that I needed to absolutely ace this interview, but it went just
good.

What Went Wrong  Not much I guess.

32
Name: Shaheen Shah Department: EE

Joining: McKinsey Program: (B.Tech-M.Tech) Dual

Email:shaheen16@gmail.com Phone: 9636475202

Message for juniors: It‟s a good idea to think about yourself. Look back and try to identify what you really
like and what you would like to do rest of your life. Introspection not only helps you in making a right
decision about the career but also helps a lot when it comes to HR questions. The conviction in your answers
comes only when you yourself are completely convinced. It‟s very important to practice all kinds of cases.
Practice in a group and take regular feedbacks from your group members. Also do some mock interviews so
that you know where you are lacking (in terms of body language, voice modulation etc).

Name Shaheen Shah

Name and Designation of Pierre Evanzo, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1, 1st Interview

Personal Interview Questions  The interview started with the partner telling about himself.
 Tell me something about yourself
 Discussed about my swimming experience before and during IITK
 Why consulting?
 What if not McKinsey?
 What is the meaning that you assign to your life? (He said that it was
too young for me to clearly define the meaning but he wanted to
hear what I feel right now)
 One unique thing about me. Everyone is exceptionally good in their
areas, what differentiates you from rest of the group?
 Asked about various scholarships and how much amount do I get
from those scholarships.
 In the end, asked me if I had any doubts/questions
 I asked him about his experience in India and why did he come to
India.
 The discussion then shifted to the Baha‟i religion and then to how do
I relate to God.
 I also asked about how does McKinsey ensures that their ideas are
implemented and about the implementation of the projects in
general
Case Interview Narration The case was about an FMCG firm which wanted to enter the Baby food
Market and thus wanted an estimate of the total market in India.

After clarifying the details about the age group of the targeted customer,
the problem boiled down to estimating the no. of new born children the
next year.
I started the problem with presenting an outline for calculating this
number by taking the population growth of India and subtracting from
it the no. of people dying next year.
So now the problem was to find the no. of people dying in India the next
year.

33
 Assumed life expectancy of 70 year and uniform distribution of
population in all the age groups. So the no. of people of 70 yrs of age are
(1/70)*Total population. This comes out to be around 14.2 million which
is the no. of people dying next year.

With the population growth rate of 1.5% I calculated the net change in
population to be 15 million.

15 million= New born-deaths

 New burns = deaths+15million= 29.2 million

The interviewer then pointed out that this estimated no. will be on the
higher side and asked me the reason for this. I answered that with the
fact that the assumption that the distribution of population will be
uniform across all age groups is not a good one and that‟s why the
overestimation.

The interviewer then asked me to recalculate the no. by assuming that

50% of India‟s population is below the age of 30 and rest 50% above 30.
The new number comes out to be around 12.5 million deaths. The
interviewer stopped me at this point.

What Worked Well I could convince him about my career goals and my choice for
consulting. The case study went well with no calculation errors. Overall
was able to engage the interviewer throughout the interview.

What Went Wrong As an answer to one unique thing about myself, I said hardworking and
he asked me to rethink and come up with some other quality. Although
even after taking a moment to think I couldn‟t come up with some
convincing quality .He said that I haven‟t thought about myself much.
Take Away for Future Batches Be prepared for completely abstract questions like meaning of your life,
how you relate to God etc. Try to be calm during your interviews. Take a
lot of time to prepare your resume. It helps in knowing yourself.

Name Shaheen Shah

Name and Designation of Nirjhar Goel, Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 1, 2nd Interview

Personal Interview Questions  Asked about my internship. He had been there so we discussed a bit
about the lab and the place in general.
 Tell me something about yourself.
 Why consulting
 Any preference of the sector in which you would like to take your
study as a consultant

Case Interview Narration Our client is a leading telecom service provider. They want to know

34
 whether they should get into the 3G spectrum and if yes then how much
should they bid.

Since I didn‟t have detailed knowledge about the 3G mobile telephone

service I asked him few questions about the technology and how is it
used. He told me that it has already been used in US and European
countries. After collecting all the basic information I laid out the plan to
approach the problem. To start with Cost/revenue analysis, then
determine the profit and then whether the client will be able to break
even in the stipulated time.

For the cost revenue analysis all the data was given to me when where
asked. Not much probing was required here. I made a mistake here by
not considering the operational cost of the new segment. Later in the
analysis this was pointed out by the interviewer and I corrected it.

At the end the interviewer asked me to analyze the situation qualitatively

and we discussed the pros and cons of entering into the business. Asked
about the status of 3G in western countries and if we can use learning
from there. Discussed about who all will need to use 3G services, do we
have enough customers of this service, how will it affect our business if
don‟t include it, what are our competitors doing etc.

What Worked Well  Asking questions and clarifying doubts helped in understanding the
problem well.

What Went Wrong  Forgot the operational cost part. Was a bit nervous at the beginning.

Take Away for Future Batches  Be prepared for any kind of case. It will be a good idea to keep you
updated about the latest news. (3G spectrum bid had been in news for
a long time )

Name Shaheen Shah

Name and Designation of Shailesh Kekere, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 , 3rd Interview

Personal Interview  Asked me if I knew him. I mentioned that I had read about him in the
Questions booklet of IITK alumni currently working in McKinsey.
 He then asked me if I remember anything about him. To this I
mentioned that I remember noticing one line about him which was
“winning spree in Inter IIT in cricket” and being a sportsperson that
registered in my mind.
 Asked if I played some sport. Told him about swimming and my
complete experience with the swimming team, about the leadership
qualities I learnt.
 Asked if I had ever been influenced by my peers and give an example
where I was wrong and I changed my opinion by listening to my
friends.
 Asked about my family. Parents /Brother

35
  Whose Job I found more interesting and why( Both my parents are
professor and my brother worked in Infosys before going to US for his
MBA)
 Do you want to do an MBA?
 Heard of anybody who went for an MBA after McK...
Case Interview Narration Case 1: Estimate the size of men‟s jewellery market in Mumbai.

I clarified about the kind of jewellery (Gold/Silver/Artificial). I was asked

to look into the Gold/Silver jewelleries.

Laid down the plan. Start with male population of Mumbai. Divide
according to age followed by income levels. The interviewer stopped me at
this point and asked me to do another estimation case

Case 2: Tata Sky wants to air a kids‟ programme where kids would be
taught how to speak English. We want to estimate the viewership for the
same. I essentially had to estimate the number of 4 year olds whose parents
can afford to pay for TATA Sky.

Started off with a similar approach as in 1st case, divide into Urban/ Rural,
then acc to age groups and Income.

Again the interviewer stopped me at this point. This was the last case of
my day.

What Worked Well I was able to answer the PI questions with ease and conviction. Also
the cases went well.

What Went Wrong  I got a bit nervous when he asked what was interesting about an
Infosys Job. :P
 But I quickly gained composure and cited examples from my brother‟s
onsite experience with BT (British Telecom) and his MBA experiences
which excited me.

Name Shaheen Shah

Name and Designation of Gautam Kumra, Director

Interviewer

Round Round 2, 1st Interview

Personal Interview Questions  Tell me something about yourself

 Strengths and weakness
 Why consulting
 What if not McKinsey?
 What is the effect of the current financial crisis on the Indian Markets?
 How did Subprime crisis originate?
 Gud Luck 
Case Interview Narration No case

What Worked Well  Could answer questions relating to the current crisis and the
interviewer seemed happy about the same.
What Went Wrong  Nothing

36
Name: Varun Jain Department: EE

Joining: Stanford (MBA) Program: B.Tech

Name Varun Jain

Name and Designation of Shailesh Kekre, Associate Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 (1st interview)

Personal Interview  Why job at all (in context of CPI)?

Questions  Why not join a National film Institute (movie buff and involved with
making of short films)?

Case Interview Narration We discussed the potential revenues of a helicopter service between Kanpur
and Lucknow. I identified the different user types – businessmen, recruiters
and miscellaneous. Further, I was asked to focus on the recruiters coming to
IIT and estimate the revenues for this segment by listing different recruiters
who may use the service and the amount they will be willing to pay for it.
For the latter, I used the total amount (transport, accommodation, food etc.)
spent by McKinsey on a candidate as a proxy.

What Worked Well  Shailesh changed the problem continuously and I managed to think
quickly on my feet
 After initial discomfiture, due to video conferencing, I was able to
sustain an engaging conversation

What Went Wrong  The interview was a video conference which led to initial discomfort

Take Away for Future  Be ready to be challenged on your answers and think long and hard
Batches about your motives, decision making rationale, choices etc.
 While preparation may help with the interview questions, be ready for
the unexpected (in my case, the Film Institute!!)

Name Varun Jain

Name and Designation of Pierre Evanzo, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 (2nd interview)

Personal Interview  Tell me about yourself?

Questions  Why consulting? (this led to a discussion about my short and long term
goals)
 Tell me a unique quality which makes you suitable for this job profile?

37
Case Interview Narration I was asked to estimate the number of entry and exit gates required at a
metro station, assuming a metro with five stops in Delhi. I argued that the
number of gates can be calculated by looking at the number of travellers in
the peak hours. Pierre thought that the idea was sensible and asked for the
facts which I will need to analyze the problem.

I assumed the number of travellers using metro in a day, assumed uniform

density among the stations, distribution of travellers within a day and
frequency of metro trains in the peak hour to arrive at the number of gates
required. I also explored the difference in the number of entry versus exit
gates. When asked to substantiate my claim, I pointed out that the rate of
incoming travellers could be assumed to be uniform whereas arrival of a
train led to sudden demand of exit gates.

After doing a bit of number crunching, Pierre asked me if the answer was
reasonable and when I said no, then we discussed why this was the case.
We also discussed the situation if one allowed for queues at the gates. In
the end, we talked about various systems in place in the subway systems
of various cities like Paris, New York City, Tokyo etc.

What Worked Well  I was asked if the applicants were discussing cases among themselves. I
replied in the affirmative which pleased the interviewer as I did not
seek to gain unfair advantage.
 I was able to build rapport fairly quickly which helped throughout the
interview
 Pierre liked my approach to the case and helped whenever I got bogged
down with the numbers
What Went Wrong  While solving the case, I fumbled with the numbers

Take Away for Future  Ask questions! It not only reflects your eagerness to know more about
Batches the company, but also helps you to make a much more informed
decision.

Name Varun Jain

Name and Designation of Mayank Shivam, Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 2 (1st interview)

Personal Interview  Why McKinsey?

Questions  How does consulting fit in your long term goals?

Case Interview Narration I was asked to choose among three acquisition options for a company
which provided electricity and gas in an eastern European country and
was a market leader. The three options were the second biggest player in
the industry in the same country, biggest player in the industry in another
country and small company using renewable sources of energy.

When asked, Mayank clarified that the criterion to choose among the three
was the profits that the company can hope to earn five years henceforth

38
 and there was no dearth of funds for the acquisition. The calculation of
profits included the estimation of market size, expected variation in the
costs and revenues. To estimate the market share, if the company decides
to enter renewable sources market, I used the relative market share of the
company with respect to a competitor in a common geography and market
segment. After the number crunching, we discussed the various factors
which may have an effect on the success of the acquisition.

What Worked Well  Even when stuck at various points in the case, I kept the conversation
going and did not let the conversation die down.
 Midway the interview, I was pulled out to interview with the director,
Gautam Kumra. I did not get flustered and remained calm.
 After solving the case, I went one step further and used a second
criterion to evaluate the three options.
What Went Wrong  When asked, I could not come up with a proxy immediately to judge
the market share that the company may garner if it enters the
renewable energy market
Take Away for Future  Show energy and enthusiasm; especially at the end of what can be a
Batches long drawn process.

Name Varun Jain

Name and Designation of Gautam Kumra, Director

Interviewer

Round Round 2 (2nd interview)

Personal Interview  Tell me about yourself?

Questions  A lot of questions around the decision making rationale about the
choices in my career
Case Interview Narration Gautam asked me to name an industry with which I was most familiar.
After I replied telecom, we did a role play where he was Sunil Bharti
Mittal, who wishes to replicate his success story in another sector in India
on the same scale, and I was his consultant. He constantly tried to take me
out of my comfort zone.

We started off by exploring retail sector, where we discussed the joint

venture with Wal-Mart. Various issues like the advantages and
disadvantages of JV and what should Bharti Airtel do in the future. The
various options like buying out Wal-Mart‟s share, exiting out of JV,
bringing in other local players were discussed. It was a purely qualitative
discussion and no numbers were involved.

What Worked Well  I used the non verbal cues to modify the answers; cutting short an
answer, emphasizing only on the important things etc.
 Facing a stress interview, I structured the case and answered the
various questions calmly and did not get ruffled.

What Went Wrong  During the case, in an attempt to be comprehensive, I diverged a lot
instead of sticking to a few key issues.

39
Take Away for Future  Be ready to be taken out of your comfort zone. For example I was not
Batches allowed time to think at the start of the case.
 Pay attention to the non verbal cues given by the interviewer

40
Name: Varun Khaitan Department: EE

Joining: Schlumberger Program: B.Tech

Name Varun Khaitan

Name and Designation of Pierre, Partner

Interviewer

Round 1

Personal Interview  About yourself?

Questions  Why McKinsey?

Case Interview Narration You are a salesman with a pharmaceutical company. You have a database of
the doctors in the city and their prescriptions. You have to visit the doctors
and market your drug. You obviously can‟t visit all the doctors due to the
huge number. How will you prioritize the doctors and approach them to
obtain maximum improvement in market share.

I started by asking more about the drug and the company and was asked to
keep it simple to one special ailment drug. I then suggested that we should
look at a few basic parameters for each doctor: his
specialization/qualifications, his popularity and our share in his
prescriptions.

Then I explained how each was important and that we should prioritize
them on the basis of these parameters and start approaching them, also
keeping their location and the distance from my home in mind.

Then he pointed out to me specific instances of two docs and asked whom I
would give higher priority: for example two docs with same share but
different number of customers.

What Worked Well Was able to do well in the PI round and gave good recommendations

What Went Wrong  Had the structure in my head but did not mention it to the interviewer

Take Away for Future  Take time to think about the case
Batches  Make a comprehensive structure on paper and take the interviewer‟s
feedback before proceeding

Name Varun Khaitan

Name and Designation of Shailesh Kekre, Partner

Interviewer

Round 1

41
Personal Interview  About family background?
Questions  Example of leadership and teamwork?
 Why McKinsey?
Case Interview Narration What is the number of cell phone users in India?

I started working on it with the urban – rural and then subsequent

population division. Then he changed the problem to estimation of the
demand of a new N series Nokia phone in a metro city.

I continued with a similar population of a city structure and was

concentrating on the segments of people who are likely to purchase these
phones for various reasons.

After a couple of steps he told me that he believed I would easily do it this

way and asked me to come up with another method.

I suggested studying the nature of the phone and its features. The
bracketing people who would want the phone for these features and
estimating their numbers. He wasn‟t very satisfied with this.

Then I suggested that I could estimate the number of phones sold in a year
and then take Nokia‟s market share as an estimate to find the number of
Nokia phones.

Next we would take the percentage of high end phones that it produces to
find the demand for a new Nokia phone.

He liked this approach and asked me to conclude here.

Then I asked him a couple of lame questions about McKinsey.

What Worked Well  Well structured and delivered PI answers. Ability to think on my feet.

What Went Wrong  Lost my way when the case was being changed continuously. I thought
I could use the same approach with modifications for the modified case
but he was expecting a totally new approach.

Take Away for Future  Listen to the case carefully and take time to think before you begin
Batches  Take clues from everything that the interviewer is saying, many a times
in a very subtle manner

42
 2007

Name: Ankit Misra Department: Electrical Engineering

Joining: McKinsey Program: Dual Degree

Email: ankit.misra@gmail.com Phone: Get latest info from Orkut!

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: Academic Excellence

Message for juniors: Please do not try to copy anyone! People selected in our batch have hardly anything
common. As long you have done well in your engagements at IITK (be it academic, cultural, organizational,
sports) and have prepared well, nothing can stop you.

Name Ankit Misra

Name and Designation of Ireena Vittal – Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview  Introduce yourself in French ( “Learning French” mentioned in resume)

Questions  What is your dream in life?
 Who is your Role Model? (Answered: Ambani-Family)
 Given you are offered a position as a personal advisor to Anil Ambani as well
as a McKinsey Partner what would you choose?
 I like crazy people! What is the craziest thing you have ever done?
 Would you like to have Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage?
 Do you have a girl friend?
Case Interview Narration GATES foundation is looking forward to make a contribution to the society by
helping weaker sections of society. As a consultant how would you go about
determining how many children in India could be benefited by the initiative?
Supply of funds not a constraint.

Started off by dividing “children in need of aid” into Economically/ Politically/

Socially Challenged.

Mentioned that looking into inefficient distribution of aid should also

considered.

Then started to estimate number of children not able to get basic amenities by
using statistic based on household income.

Discussion then shifted to Poverty Line in India because the statistic I used
above was somewhat counter intuitive.

At this point she resumed the Personal Interview, not giving me any chance to
“synthesize” the case.

43
What Worked Well  Not the best of starts to make. There was lots of scope for improvement after
this interview.

 The only positive I could draw from this interview was my overall delivery
and presentation.

What Went Wrong  Anticipated, but not prepared, questions on French.

 Lost focus on the case and didn‟t realize when the interviewer shifted back to
Personal Interview. Was not able to deliver a final answer or even conclude
the case.
Take Away for Future  Know your resume very well. Be ready to speak on anything mentioned on
Batches resume.
 Prepare your answers to make best use of your “airtime”. I was trying to
develop a story and then generate an impact but was often cut down by
another question. Felt that opening with the impact followed by the story
would have been better.

Name Ankit Misra

Name and Designation of Mandar Vaidya – Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 2nd Interview

Personal Interview  Told me about himself!

Questions  Tell me about yourself!

Case Interview Narration Estimate number of tourist visiting my hometown: Lucknow. (Earlier I had
mentioned Lucknow to be attracting tourist while talking about my hometown)

Identified two classes of tourists: National/ International. Was further directed to

estimate International tourists only.

Identified 3 major factors determining tourist turnout: Affordability (How much

does it cost to have a 10-day trip to India?), Awareness (What is
promotional/advertising intensity adopted by UP/Indian government?) and
Availability (Ease of planning and other logistics!).

I also pointed out that Lucknow is not of the Tier-1 tourist destination in India,
most tourists would be “leakages” from Agra/ Varanasi.

Awareness and Availability are more of subjective parameters and hence for the
purpose of this case I was prompted to only analyze Affordability.

For Affordability I started off by mentioning components of costs (ticketing/

lodging/ entry fee at tourist destination).

Next I was to compare it with Income levels but was told that the analysis was
sufficient and exact numbers were not required to be arrived at.

44
What Worked Well  ISB case guides “structures” were very intuitive and one of them
(Affordability/Awareness/Availability) was a good fit for the case asked.

What Went Wrong  Couldn‟t take the case forward from the approach I adopted initially i.e. It was
hard to quantify Awareness and Availability, though they seemed to be
important parameters.
 Though I spent lots of time reading material on case solving, I could not
practice them in real time. Perhaps that‟s the reason I wasn‟t able to pace
myself during case interview.
Take Away for Future  Do not try to force a pre-processed structure. It may appear intuitive to you
Batches but it is very evident on the other side of the table. However if a structure is
fitting the situation then there is nothing like it.

Name Ankit Misra

Name and Designation of Nikhil Lalwani – Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 2 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview Questions Not Much of PI except usual introductory chat. (May be it was because of
my not-so-good performance in first two cases that in this interview most of
the time was spent on the case.)

Case Interview Narration A cardiac hospital has following procedure to deal with emergency cases.
First step involves a Diagnosis which is followed by a Scan. The time taken
by each step was told in all it took 150min. Regulation require it to be
90min. In general what all strategies would you assess

1. Eliminate wasteful work (Cut-Short)

2. Do work more efficiently (Re-engineering)

3. Do work simultaneously (Multi-tasking)

Yes it is as trivial as this! Simple structures have a great impact.

Analyzed each of them in a greater detail, with specific examples of above

generic approach.

What Worked Well  He threw lots of technical terms at me, I told him upright that I didn‟t
understand the intricacies of the process and neither was it required for

45
 the purpose of the case.

What Went Wrong  I was able to come up with most critical issues required in the case
analysis, but it was after a bit of “pushing and course correction” by the
interviewer. But I guess it was not a major issue.

Take Away for Future Batches  Do practice cases with your peers. That‟s the only way to improve your
presentation skills, which are as important as the structures that you are
trying to convey.

Name Ankit Misra

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan – Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 2 – 2nd Interview

Personal Interview Questions  How have your other interviews been till now?
 What all cases have you been asked?
 Discussion on me being a 10 pointer.
 Tell me about your experience/ extra-curricular activities at IITK.
 Why not MS/PhD?

Case Interview Narration No Case

What Worked Well Was able to convey properly why I didn‟t wanted to do MS/PhD

What Went Wrong When asked, I couldn‟t recall what case was I have had in 2nd Interview of
Round 1.

Take Away for Future  Always remember the names of previous interviewers and the cases
Batches asked. Further, try to come up how the case analysis could have been
better solved and tell the interviewer when asked.

46
Name Ankit Misra

Name and Designation of Jatin Pant – Engagement Manager

Interviewer
Shailesh Kekre – Partner

Round Round 3 – 1st Interview (over video conference)

Personal Interview  What is one thing you like about consulting the most?
Questions  What do you think you will learn the most in consulting?
 Why not MS/PhD?
 One instance where you lead (leadership) and one instance where you
followed (teamwork) [This question was a result of my earlier answer where I
claimed that I can lead, contribute, motivate and follow as the situation
demands]
 What if not McKinsey?

Case Interview Narration No Case

What Worked Well Having given so many interviews to McKinsey there wasn‟t slightest of
nervousness. The interview was more like a formal chat before the final offer was
made.

What Went Wrong Can‟t think of any such thing 

Take Away for Future  Always be prepared for any interview, however informal it may seem.
Batches

47
Name: Cherian Varkey Mathew Department: CSE

Joining: Microsoft, Vancouver Program: B.Tech

Email: cherianv@gmail.com Phone: 9839358865 (till June 08)

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: Academic excellence over the last four years and the amount
and quality of business exposure, especially at Microsoft Corporation.

Message for Juniors: Company internships would add weight to your resume, especially if the company is
well known.

Name Cherian Varkey Mathew

Name and Designation of Palash Mitra -- Partner

Interviewer
One of 24 partners. 12 years at McK. IIT Kharagpur 1993, IIMA 1995.

Round Round 1 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview Questions  What questions do you have?

 Answer: How do EM‟s decide between Position in Corporation vs.
Partner - relative advantages? What kind of person would prefer a
partner role and what kind of person would prefer a position in a
corporation? Asked about high points in career, fraction of
engagements McKinsey was able to make a definite impact in.

Case Interview Narration Case: Current demand for (artificial) knee implants in India.

 Asked questions to see if age, economic status was an issue. Key issue:
Person had to have knee problems (age based segmentation) and had
to be able to afford a surgery (income based segmentation).
 Split by age: 0-15, 15-35, 35-60, 60+: 30%, 30%, 30%, 10%. Estimated %
in each category with knee problems.
 Split by economic status: Low, Low and Upper Middle and Upper
Class: 30-40-20-10.
 Upper - almost certainly go for replacement - 90% of the 10%
 Upper middle - can afford it but significant cost so 50% of the 20%.
 Ignore lower middle, lower.
 Distribution of the 9 million people: Rural Urban I suggested 70-30, he
said take 50-50, forgot why.
 Asked what factors will determine acceptability of product?
 Answer: Marketing, safety, proof that operation was worth it.
 Gender: women tend to have arthritis more than men.
 Asked me to give a recap of what I did in the case till then.
What Worked Well When preparing for the interviews, I and my case partner had made this
population framework that segmented the population of India based on
age, economic status, and rural-urban divide. Quite a few estimation
cases we saw needed us to segment the population and so it was just a
matter of going through the numbers.

48
What Went Wrong  I think it went well except that I missed the point about women
having a higher tendency of having arthritis.

Take Away for Future Batches  Try to ensure that you have a good reason when asked why you want
to join McKinsey.

Name Cherian Varkey Mathew

Name and Designation of Rajat Bharagava – Partner

Interviewer

Round 1st Round, 2nd Interview

Personal Interview Questions  About you. (interrupted me when I mentioned the „Best Senator
Award‟)
 About Students Senate.
 Who decides the best senator award?
 Why do you think you got the award?(talked of an initiative)
 Situation where you led a group of students on an initiative or
project? What did you learn?(talked about Placement Automation)
 What would the Automation Coordinators would say about me?
 What are your career plans? What if not McKinsey?
 Opinion/view on the nuclear deal that is in the papers?
 Growth of cars vs. growth of motorbikes - which would grow faster in
% terms?
 Answer: Economic factor the main reason to go for bikes. Shift from
lower middle to upper middle, increasing growth rate for cars more
than for bikes.
 Questions you have?

Case Interview Narration Didn‟t have a conventional case study as such. “Growth of cars vs.
growth of motorbikes” may have been the case which was thrown in
between the PI part but the partner withdrew the case once I had
identified a few factors that would have led to a conclusion.

What Worked Well The preparation I had done for PIs in terms of framing answers to
expected questions about my experiences at IITK helped. This was the
last interview of this round and roughly half the students made it to the
next round.

49
What Went Wrong I hinted that I was keen on a career path that would lead me to a senior
management level position at a software company like Microsoft. In
hindsight, I realize that if this were my aim, it would have made a lot
more sense to join Microsoft directly (which is what I finally did) than
join McKinsey.

Take Away for Future Batches  Try to read the newspapers in depth and have opinions on various
issues that appear in the editorials.

Name Cherian Varkey Mathew

Name and Designation of Jatin Pant - Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 2 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview Questions  Asked about background (schooling).

 After JEE, why IITK?
 Are you applying (I said that I‟d given GRE, indicated that whether or
not I would app would depend on how my McK interview went)?
 Asked about cases in previous rounds.
 Any questions? Asked about how an EM chooses whether to become
a partner vs. becoming a CEO/senior manager at a corporation.
Asked if McKinsey had a standard way of solving business problems
in engagements and if so how one retained one‟s creativity.

Case Interview Narration Estimate the number of people who watched the India-Australia 20-20
semi-final in South Africa (on TV/stadium).

 Divided into Indians, Australians, Rest of the World. Divided rest of

the world into cricketing and non cricketing nations. Divided
cricketing nations into the nations whose teams were there in the
other semi-final and other cricketing nations. Divided Indians into
rural, urban and NRIs.
 Ended up focusing on Residential Indians - rural vs. urban. Assume
DD is broadcasting.
 Two drivers: have access to a TV showing the match and also have
free time.
 Urban: people wouldn‟t watch if they aren‟t free.
 Rural: people wouldn‟t watch if there was no electricity. Assume 50%
electrification.
 Age factor: Very old and very young (< 5) wouldn‟t watch.
 Women wouldn‟t be as enthusiastic. 90% men and 50% women.
 Was asked to stop, look back and formalize everything done and
summarize what was done.
 I related TV advertising rates to online revenue for ads model I
developed in my internship on which a worldwide patent was filed.

50
What Worked Well I had interacted with Jatin during the PPT and so firstly he remembered
me and secondly I didn‟t feel nervous (though I did feel hungry).

What Went Wrong  Again, I talked about wanting to eventually hold a senior
management post at a software company like Microsoft. This was my
only interview in the second round (to which 11 IITK students made
it) and I think they found more suitable candidates than the number
of positions they had and so, probably eliminated the candidates
who they felt might not join.
Take Away for Future Batches  Check with a few alumni if your reasons for joining McKinsey are
well founded. Also, in case it doesn‟t work out, just remember that
often there are multiple career paths to the same destination.

51
 Name: Gopesh Mittal Department: EE

Joining: McKinsey Program: B.Tech.

Email: gopeshmittal2004@yahoo.co.in Phone: 09450351822

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: Lehman Intern+ Acads

Message for juniors: Prepare well!!

Name Gopesh Mittal

Name and Designation of Palash Mitra, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview General Questions about myself, Goldman Sachs scholarship, my hobbies and
internship
Questions

Case Interview Narration I was asked to choose a sector. I chose automobile industry. Two candidates before
me had made the same choice so he gave me the following case on cement
industry: Estimate the market size of cement industry in India.

This is how I did it:

1. I made sure that I fully understood the question. This involved rephrasing
the question and clarifying doubts
2. Took a brief pause to gather my thoughts and come up with a structure.
3. Once I had the structure in my mind, I started branching out at each level.
To begin with cement industry in India would cater to Indian consumers
(home market) and foreign consumers (i.e. export). To this classification, I
assumed that exports are negligible (At the same time one should take care
to involve the interviewer in the process. Always make sure that the
interviewer approves of your assumption.) After this in the branch about
home market, I made a further sub division of rural and urban markets. I
assumed that urban market is the major one. Within the urban market, I
classified India into tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Tier 1 would consist of cities like
Mumbai and Tier 2 would consist of cities like Kanpur. At this point the
interviewer asked me to concentrate only on Mumbai. Now demand in
Mumbai would come from mainly three segments a) Residential Buildings
b) Commercial centers c) Factories. The interviewer asked me to find out
the cement consumption in Mumbai for residential purposes. I again asked
for some time to come up with a structure for this
4. I tried to estimate the no of buildings coming up in Mumbai every year.
I assumed that in a locality two buildings are coming up every year and I
also tried to assume the no of such localities in Mumbai. At this point I was
feeling stuck and the assumptions didn‟t seem fair to me. So with
interviewer‟s consent, I took on the second approach of population. New

52
 construction would take place for people moving into Mumbai and for
people from slums shifting to houses due to upward mobility. I had the
rough figure for population of Mumbai. The interviewer supplied me with
stats for pop growth in Mumbai due to inward flux and we together came
up with a figure for % of upwardly mobile pop in Mumbai.
5. Now I started putting in numbers for each of the above factors. Just after
two calculations, the interviewer asked me to stop. And then he asked me
if I had any questions about Mckinsey

What Worked Well I was confident, could come up with a structure for the case and the entire
interview was very smooth. It was a long interview and in the end he started
describing one of the projects he himself had worked on. It was interesting to see
the passion in the way he spoke about it. I think I could build up a connection with
the interviewer and we could talk at ease. This was very helpful.

What Went Wrong Nothing 

Take Away for Future 1. Know your resume very well

Batches 2. Be prepared for the General HR questions about yourself, career etc
3. Be humble and accept your shortcomings. The interviewers are very smart
and discerning.
4. Dress formally, suit and tie. Avoid red tie

Name Gopesh Mittal

Name and Designation of Interviewer Rajat Dhawan - Partner

Round Round 1 – 2nd Interview

Personal Interview This interview had some element of stress. I was told that my
extracurricular weren‟t strong, that I am a loner and that I am easily
Questions influenced by others. I accepted what I thought was right about me and
strongly defended myself against the rest. We also talked about my
projects and IITK in general.

Case Interview Narration I was asked to estimate the annual income of Bansal Classes, Kota (It‟s a
JEE coaching centre where I studied). I was to come up with a figure in
five minutes.

Since the time was short, I found out revenue, and then costs which I had
split into fixed and variable. I kept on ignoring the negligible terms in
my calculation and also told him about every step in my calculation. At
one point I simplified it too much and overestimated the no of teachers at
Bansal Classes. He corrected me at this step. Inspite of the lack of time, I

53
 ensured that he was always with me throughout the process. I came with
a figure of around 16 crores and he was satisfied. As was apparent, he
really didn‟t bother about five-min-time-limit that much, all that he
wanted was to have it done fast.

What Worked Well I could build a personal rapport with him, could stand my ground
against certain unfair interpretations of my resume. I was clear about my
career preferences.

What Went Wrong 

Take Away for Future Batches I was drinking lychee juice when I was suddenly called for the interview.
My mouth was so sticky when he asked me usual HR question tell me
about yourself. I asked his permission and first of all drank water before
answering the question. He asked me if I am nervous. “No Sir, I am
thirsty“. …. So my advise is drink lot of water before your interview…
and avoid lychee juice…try out other beverages 

Name Gopesh Mittal

Name and Designation of Interviewer Nikhil Lalwani – Engagement Manager

Round Round 2 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview Myself, my weaknesses, my strengths, my long term career plans and
why McKinsey, why didn‟t I accept Lehman Brothers‟ PPO.
Questions

Case Interview Narration A FMCG supply chain equipment manufacture wishes to penetrate
Indian Markets. Suggest a strategy for it. Some other information was
also given. I was asked to solve the case on a white board. And while the
case was being narrated, I was not allowed to jot down any point. So I
had to make sure that I can recall as much info as I can. In the process,
He suggested to divide India on the basis of cities. The key word, he was
looking was the “Purchasing power of cities” ie Pune has more
purchasing power than Kanpur. As soon as this point came up, he asked
me to stop.

What Worked Well I knew I had done the previous two interviews well, so I was confident.
Unfortunately during the interview, I started feeling nervous.

What Went Wrong I couldn‟t answer the weakness question convincingly. He rephrased this
question to me four times. During the case, he expected me to catch on

54
 the hint and not to explore other issues. On the other hand I thought that
hint was not exhaustive and he would like me to identify other issues as
well. And when he asked if I was nervous, I told him that I wasn‟t when
I was really nervous. Your face tells it. I was also feeling sleepy before
the interview.

Take Away for Future Batches Have a good sleep on the night before the interviews. Do not fall in the
lure of five star hotel food … It isn‟t that good . We were awake till
2am because of the food and woke up at 6 am. We all were so sleepy
after lunch even as interviews were going on.

Name Gopesh Mittal

Name and Designation of Interviewer Shailesh Kekre - Partner;

Jatin Pant – Engagement Manager

Round Round 3 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview Myself, my hobbies, what if not McKinsey, why McKinsey , why not
Lehman, what were my high/low points in IIT K, long term career plans
Questions

Case Interview Narration No case

What Worked Well I was clear about my preferences

What Went Wrong Nothing

Take Away for Future Batches Stay cool. You have come so far and are very unlikely to loose at this
stage unless you yourself want to.

55
Name: Harshit Arora Department: EE

Joining: Lehman Brothers Program: B.Tech.

Email: arora.iitk@gmail.com Phone: +91-9936163181

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: All round performance over last four years.

Message for Juniors: Be honest to both yourself and the interviewer. Presenting a fake picture never helps.
Attend ppts of companies you are interested in.
Name Harshit Arora

Round Round 1 - 1st interview

Personal Interview Questions  I was asked to introduce myself. This was followed by a discussion
about Techkriti, because I had mentioned that I was the marketing
head in Techkriti.
 Futher, I was asked about my weakness.
 He also asked me my interests and likings.

Case Interview Narration It was a guesstimate. I was asked to estimate the market of cars in India.
I began by asking the interviewer for clarification as to whether by cars
he meant luxury cars or economy cars. I was told to consider only the
economy class cars. At this point I asked him, if he wanted me to
estimate the market from the supply side or from the demand side. I was
told to look into the demand side. I proceeded further by breaking down
the society into income groups.

What Worked Well I felt that I did well in the guesstimate. The interview was of a very
informal nature and I was able to involve the interviewer in the
discussion.

What Went Wrong  I was slightly nervous to begin with but the interviewer was very
friendly and I was very comfortable within a couple of minutes.

Take Away for Future Batches  Be prepared (and not over-prepared) for the personal interviews. Do
some practice cases, they really help.

56
Name Harshit Arora

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan - Partner.

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 2nd interview

Personal Interview Questions  I was asked to introduce myself and then we discussed about
Techkriti.
 My future plans.

Case Interview Narration I was asked to assume the following:

“I have a meeting with the Finance minister of India in 2 hrs from now
and I have to ask him for funds to improve the infrastructure of Kanpur
city.”

Thereupon I was asked to quote the exact amount I would ask him for
and justify it. He also told me that I had 5 minutes for solving the case.

Other than the time constraint, he told me not ask him any questions.

I could make out that this was a stress interview. Still, I didn‟t do well
here. In fact I performed very poorly because I didn‟t stay calm.

What Worked Well I thought that the personal part went well but I screwed big time in the
case study.

What Went Wrong Although I realized that it was a stress interview, I didn‟t stay calm and
that sort of ended my chances of getting into the second round.

Take Away for Future Batches  Stay cool and do not fall in the trap named “stress interview”. Try to
be cheerful and energetic throughout the interview.

57
Name: Karan Malhotra Department: Physics

Joining: McKinsey Program: M.Sc. (Integrated)

Email: mailkaran@gmail.com Phone : +91 9935185097

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: Academic Excellence

Message for juniors: Relax and take your time while solving the cases. Do not panic, case studies
can be challenging and at times the solution seems elusive. It is a good idea to talk to the
interviewer telling him your ideas while you do the number crunching bit.

Name Karan Malhotra

Name and Designation of Nikhil Lalwani - Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 1st interview

Personal Interview Questions  Tell me something about yourself.

 Why do you want this job? (especially in the light of a branch change
from Electrical Engineering to Physics)

Case Interview Narration 1. I was asked to suggest ways of speeding up the diagnosis and treatment
of patients suspected to have suffered a cardiac arrest.

2. I was given a lot of data and asked simple number crunching questions.

What Worked Well The interviewer seemed happy with my suggestions for making the
process efficient.

Did the number crunching questions pretty quickly. <caffeine helps!>

What Went Wrong I was hinted that I have an arrogant air about me. Humility helps!

Take Away for Future Batches Sleep well before the interview day – it can be long.

Do not lie or hide information. In my case I had just returned from taking
the subject GRE exam and told my interviewers this pretty frankly.
Convince the interviewer about your seriousness rather than
hide/mislead.

58
Name Karan Malhotra

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan - Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 2 - 1st interview

Personal Interview Questions Why did you change your branch from electrical engineering to Physics?

Why not Physics?

Why Consulting?

Case Interview Narration None.

What Worked Well I could convince the interviewer about my decision to take up consulting.

What Went Wrong I think I was too shocked when Rajat indicated that the interview was
over. Compared to my previous interviews this was extremely short.

Take Away for Future Batches Don‟t expect your interviewer to follow a routine. Be prepared for
unexpected questions (or maybe too few questions!).

Name Karan Malhotra

Round Round 2, 2nd interview

Personal Interview Questions This interview was probably the shortest for any candidate on that day.
Lasted for about a minute. He basically wanted to know if I was sure to take
up this job.

Case Interview Narration None.

What Worked Well I could convince the interviewer about my decision to take up consulting.

What Went Wrong The interviewer didn‟t give me enough time to make mistakes 

59
Take Away for Future Batches Sleep well before the interview day – it can be long.

Do not lie or hide information. In my case I had just returned from taking
the subject GRE exam and told my interviewers this pretty frankly.
Convince the interviewer about your seriousness rather than hide/mislead.

Name Karan Malhotra

Name and Designation of Jatin Pant - Engagement Manager;

Interviewer
Shailesh Kekre – Partner

Round Round 3 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview I was asked about my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. I was also asked
Questions how the campus community would describe me. Lastly, why consulting?

Case Interview Narration No case.

What Worked Well I gave good genuine reasons for being a consultant.

What Went Wrong I fumbled a couple of times while explaining how the campus would describe
me.

Take Away for Future Try not get bogged down by the video conference and speak directly and clearly.
Batches

60
Name: Krishna Kumar Khandelwal Department: Chemical

Joining: DB Program: B.Tech.

Email: krishna@iitk.ac.in Phone : +91- 9335440458

Name Krishna Kumar Khandelwal

Name and Designation of Mandar Vaidya – Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 1st interview

Personal Interview  I asked him too many question from starting as he was a doctor by profession
Questions but shifted to consulting.
 Why consulting??
 What is not consulting??
 About yourself?
 About your social life at IIT Kanpur?

Case Interview Narration Revenue and cost analysis of Hall-1 canteen

What Worked Well I was able to take all the factors in account while solving the case.

What Went Wrong I did‟nt prepared well for questions like what if not McKinsey. My answers did‟nt
reflected my interest in consulting

Take Away for Future Do prepare well for HR questions.

Batches

Name Krishna Kumar Khandelwal

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan – Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 2nd interview

Personal Interview  Why you were shortlisted by McKinsey?

Questions  Tell me some good things about you, your CPI is not good, xtra curricular is
very common, you have‟nt done anything great.
 Where did you took your coaching for JEE?
 How is Kota??

Case Interview Narration I was asked to calculate profit of Bansal Classes.

What Worked Well I was able to handle stress well and in a calm way

What Went Wrong The profit turned out to be huge. Clearly my strategy was wrong.

61
 Name: Mayank Mandava Department: ME

Joining: Deutsche Bank Program: B.Tech/ M. Tech Dual Degree

Email: mayankmandava@gmail.com Phone: 09935402616

Message for Juniors: Be calm and cool even in pressure situations. Solve a case as if it were a real life
problem presented to you. Use the simple solution that comes to mind and do not unnecessarily complicate
things.

Name and Designation of Mandar Vaidya – Engagement Manager

the interviewer

Round Round 1 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview  He gave me an introduction about himself

Questions  Tell me about yourself

Case Interview Narration Estimate the number of patients admitted in a year to hospitals in Kanpur.

I solved the case through an approach which the interviewer didn‟t quite agree
with. He solved the case through his own method. We both, however, arrived at
the same answer so my approach triangulated well.

He asked me if I could solve the case using some other approaches to which I
outlined 2-3 other approaches

What Worked Well Case study went off well. The answer I had arrived at was corroborated through
a different approach used by the interviewer, so that was a great positive for me.

What Went Wrong Nothing really went wrong

Take Away for Future Be cool and take your time in answering questions. Put no performance pressure
Batches on yourself.

Name Mayank Mandava

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan – Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 2nd Interview

Personal Interview  No PI questions

Questions

Case Interview Narration There are several malls in Gurgaon, some of which are not doing well. Suggest
ways to make them better.

I was provided with no further information and hence had no obvious leads ro
pursue. I developed on 3-4 ideas in parallel on potential problems which the

62
 malls might be facing and solutions for the same.

What Worked Well The interviewer didn‟t tell me if my approach was correct or otherwise so I have
no idea whether the interview went well for me or no.

What Went Wrong Same as above

Take Away for Future In simulated stress interviews, do not panic. Consider yourself lucky if you end
Batches up in a stress interview because more often than not, the skill that the interviewer
is looking for is mainly your ability to stand upto pressure and less for other
skills.

Name Mayank Mandava

Name and Designation of Jatin Pant – Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 2 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview  Tell me about yourself

Questions  What are your plans after McKinsey

Case Interview Narration Estimate the number of people in India who watched the 20-20 World Cup Final.

I felt this was a typical case-study which could be solved easily through the oft-
repeated population division method. However, I wanted to solve the case
differently and opted to solve it by concentrating on viewership locations. I could
not form the structure for solving the case well and muddled everything up.

What Worked Well Nothing really, my case study did not go well

What Went Wrong I tried my hands at an unconventional solution, unnecessarily.

Take Away for Future Follow the approach that comes to mind to solve the case at hand. You can think
Batches of smarter ways for the same later, but do try to come up with a proper
structuring without bothering if it is the most common method to solve a
problem

63
 Name: Mayur Dixit Department: ME

Joining: DB Program: B.Tech

Email: chaoticmayur@gmail.com Phone: 09935440456

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: Academic and Extra-curricular excellence

Message for Juniors: Resume should be impressive, spikes should be highlighted, be CALM and composed
at the time of interview, speak impressively.

Name Mayur Dixit

Name and Designation of Jatin Pant - Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview  Tell me about yourself

Questions  Why consultancy, why Mck
 Asked a lot about extra-curriculars, each bullet in detail
 Why not further studies

Case Interview Narration Estimate the increase in market size of washing machines in the next year.

I was asked to think and come up with some answer and take as much time as I
want. I just focused domestic market but was then asked to look for industries
also  …I lost some track here and was not able to clearly see what is the market
to washing machines as far as industries are concerned apart from textiles…then
I was asked to list out the factors of buying a new washing machine, I said the
obvious ones and then was asked to come up with a number depicting the
number of machines which will be sold next year..I was not at my best but
somehow got some answer using the approximate life time of a washing
machine and the depreciation rate which the interviewer said is ok and the
interview ended up in 30 minutes.

What Worked Well PI part of the interview was decent. Also, the final answer in the case part
seemed ok.

What Went Wrong  Could have improved the performance in the case study

Take Away for Future  Practice cases in groups, just reading them doesn‟t help
Batches

64
Name Mayur Dixit

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan - Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 2nd Interview

Personal Interview  About me and my family

Questions  Activities before IITK

Case Interview Narration I was asked to calculate the number of cricket bats sold per year in India and then
the market of this commodity. I did the case fast enough and told him the
steps(rural, urban, income group, age group) final answer which he said that
looked somewhat on the lower side.

What Worked Well Interviewer spoke very less :P, I did my task efficiently

What Went Wrong  Probably I rushed through the case, should have spoken more

Take Away for Future  Think or atleast structure ideas before starting calculations if case is easy as
Batches there is very less to do, or approach through more than one ways to validate.

65
Name: Nishith Khantal Department: CSE

Joining: Program: B.Tech

Email: nkhantal@gmail.com Phone: +91 94518 80411(Till July‟08)

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: Academic and Extra-curricular excellence

Message for Juniors: Practice cases with a friend.

Name Nishith Khantal

Round Round 1 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview The interview began with a case. In the end there were two PI questions:
Questions
Tell me about yourself

 Your Weakness
 Experience during the internship

Case Interview Narration My case was related to setting up a history park. I was supposed to think of a
business model of setting up a history park in Egypt. I was told that pyramids,
river Nile and some more features which were to be there, and I could add
anything I wanted. Also the park was not for profit purposes,

I started the case by dividing into two parts: Cost and Revenue. I further divided
the cost into fixed cost and the variable cost. At this point the interviewer
provided me with the actual numbers for fixed cost and variable cost (he didn‟t
want me to go deep into the cost ). Now for the revenue, I needed to estimate the
number of tourists to Egypt. He provided me some more numbers. Considering
x% always go to the park, I calculated the entry fees to be taken from other
tourists.

The case involved a decent amount of Mathematics.

What Worked Well When the case was initially given to me, it looked very open. I was able to
structure it so that I can go forward.

What Went Wrong I did not go deep when estimating the revenue (I could have considered more
ways of revenues like entry fees, shops inside the park etc.)

I could have done better in PI questions, especially the weakness one.

Take Away for Future Prepare for PI questions. Giving on the spot answers usually is not
Batches recommended.

66
Name Nishith Khantal

Name and Designation of Ireena Vittal – Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 2nd Interview

Personal Interview This interview was mostly a PI. A case was asked only towards the end of the
Questions interview. I was asked most of the common questions like:
Why Consulting?
Why not Research?
Future Plans?
Internship Experience?
The interview went into a casual talk.
Case Interview Narration The case given to me, if Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wanted to invest
money into my city (I had earlier told about my city which was not very big). I
was first told to estimate the number of people who could do better but were not
able due to lack of proper resources. I identified a particular age group which
would get employment etc and estimated some figure. Then for the investment I
identified the key areas: education and industries. The interviewer asked me to
keep going deep into the education area, how exactly I plan to invest money.

What Worked Well PI part was interactive.

What Went Wrong I could have given more structured answers to some of the PI questions. It took
some time for me to explain the interviewer, my solution, about the first part of
the case.

Take Away for Future Practice varied types of cases! By practice I mean practice with a friend and not
Batches only read the case solution given in casebooks 

Name Nishith Khantal

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan – Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 2 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview This interview was mostly a PI. It was bit of a stress interview. There were some
Questions general PI questions. Some of the questions were to stress like there is nothing on
your resume, why should we hire you?

Case Interview Narration No Case.

I was just asked what about the cases given to me in the previous interviews and
what solution did I give for the case in my second interview.

What Worked Well Did fairly well, keeping in mind that it was a stress interview 

Take Away for Future Be prepared for Stress Interviews!! The interviewer had a reputation of taking
Batches stress interviews last year and in our batch too, so watch out 

67
 Name: Sheeraz Ahmad Department: EE

Joining: ITC Program: B.Tech

Email: shezzy153@gmail.com Phone: 09935062324

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: Academic and Extra-curricular excellence

Message for Juniors: Prepare varied types of cases. Do not try to mechanically apply a framework to the
given case. Prepare your resume well.

Name Sheeraz Ahmad

Round Round 1 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview  Tell me about yourself

Questions  Asked about participation in singing competition(mentioned in the resume)
 Asked about winning in Mridaksh. How many participant were there?

Case Interview Narration Estimate number of marriages happening per year in India.

I immediately started with the conventional frameworks dividing the number

into marriages in Rural society and marriages in Urban society (Fault). Further I
explored demographic division of the number (Double Fault!).

At this point I was interrupted and told that the analysis is not feasible since it
would have lots of double counting. He gave a hint to approach the case by
“pipe/flux approach” i.e. Assuming (or arriving at) the percentage (say 95%) of
population marrying ever in their lifetime, it can be deduced that in a year how
many of them marry. This way the case can be cracked in a very systematic
approach, it is even possible to actual frame it into a mathematical probability
based problem.

What Worked Well PI part of the interview was good. My answers were consistent with the content
of the resume.

What Went Wrong  Definitely could have done the case better in the first attempt itself!

Take Away for Future  Practice varied types of cases.

Batches  Never force a framework just because you read it in some casebook.

Name Sheeraz Ahmad

Name and Designation of Ireena Vittal - Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 2nd Interview

68
Personal Interview  About me
Questions  Do you have any concerns about McKinsey? I was taken aback by this
question. After slight initial hesitation I answered that I am close to my
family and wonder how one takes out time from assignments to spend time
with family.
 That‟s no problem!... Tell me a real concern. After a brief thought I answered
that in case things do not work out well at McKinsey I would like to go back
to academics. What are my prospects in such a case, I asked. To this she cited
some examples who have done such a switch successfully.
Case Interview Narration My interest in music was pretty evident from my resume.

Do you watch channel V? How would increase the viewer-ship of channel V?

I explored various reasons trying to relate most of them with myself.

1. Timing alteration of popular programs. (Giving viewers when they want to

see)

2. Channel goodies/Realty Shows (Giving viewers what they want to see)

What Worked Well All seemed good to me in this interview.

What Went Wrong  I should have addressed “Concerns about McKinsey” better

Take Away for Future  Know your resume well. Anything on it has the potential of being the
Batches interview case. And needless to say PI interviews are definitely correlated
with your resume.

Name Sheeraz Ahmad

Name and Designation of Nikhil Lalvani – Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 2 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview  No PI
Questions

Case Interview Narration A cardiac hospital has following procedure to deal with emergency cases. First
step involves a Diagnosis which is followed by a Scan. The time taken by each
step was told in all it took 150min. Regulation require it to be 90min.

1. Tried to reduce various process-times ( e.g. Paperwork, Diagnosis, Scan times)

2. Tried to reduce various inter-process times (transfer of patient to different cell

etc)

Enumerated various other reasons which could be possibly adding to extra time
of the complete procedure. One of them was appreciated by the interviewer: It
could be the case that the patients like to be diagnosed by a particular doctor
(due the fame of the doctor or bias of the patient party). Such a situation could
also lead to wastage of process time.

69
 3. I also recommended to do parallel processing if possible

The interviewer asked me to structure my answer better in the next interview

which was never taken 

What Worked Well “Out of the box” solution in the case was appreciated by the interviewer

What Went Wrong  Although I hit upon major points, I should have structured it better

Take Away for Future  What you say is no more important than How and When you say it!
Batches

70
Name: Shivangi Lal Department: ChE

Joining: Deutsche Bank Program: B.Tech.

Email: shivangilal@gmail.com Phone: 9415290017 (till June)

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting: Excellent performance record; in particular, your overall
record of achievement and excellence. In particular, we are very impressed by your summer experience at
HUL.

Message for Juniors: Make a good resume. It will win half your battle!
Name Shivangi Lal

Name and Designation of Nikhil Lalwani – Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 1 - 1st Interview

Personal Interview  Why McKinsey

Questions  3 achievements.
 Best point in your resume based on which we should hire you.

Case Interview Narration Suppose I am a Taxi Driver in Gurgaon. Should I drive in the city (i.e local
passengers) or should I carry passengers to and from the airport.

The aim of the case was to show in which case my profits would be higher. The
interviewer gave me all the data which was required and also directed me if the
direction in which I was going was not need for the case.

What Worked Well The approach was case was fine although I went too much in detail at times.

What Went Wrong I fumbled with my HR questions. Apparently they wanted answers learnt by
heart.

Take Away for Future  If you are good with numbers it will ease you through the case.
Batches  Make sure all the HR questions are properly prepared.
 You must know your resume by heart (including the technical projects)

Name Shivangi Lal

Round Round 1 - 2nd Interview

Personal Interview None. The interview just said that he would want to see my case study solving
Questions skills

Case Interview Narration The interviewer had expertise in cases related to health care and hospital. So the
cases I was given was to estimate the market size for portable Glucometers (an
instrument used to measure the level of diabetes).

71
 The basic aim was to know which section of population would be affected by this
disease and what the need of portable glucometers is. Why not go to hospital for
check up?

I divided the population into different categories ( standard procedure one

follows whenever any estimate cases is given)

After a big tree was made, I had to eliminate different heads and give reason why
I am doing so.

(It was perhaps the best case I have ever solved)

What Worked Well The case approach and wrapping up looked good to the interviewer ( That‟s
what was the comment I got  )

What Went Wrong  Even I need to know that

Take Away for Future  Go through the McKinsey website and go through some cases that these
Batches people have solved. You‟ll get an idea as to what type of case might be asked.

72
Name: Shruti Dube Department: CSE

Joining: McKinsey & Company Program: Dual Degree

Email: mail.shrutidube@gmail.com Phone: +91-9450026475

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Short-listing: Academic and Extra-curricular excellence

Message for juniors: Ascertain the career that you wish to take up after a lot of research and then prepare well
for getting selected.

To prepare for consulting interviews, brush up Macroeconomics basics; team up with a friend for case study
practice and prepare answers for standard personal interview questions. The key to doing well in consulting
interviews is “Structuring”. Present all your thoughts and answers articulately, in accordance with a logical
structure. The clarity of your ideas, simplicity and accuracy of your assumptions, unflinching composure and
a warm, friendly demeanour are some of the things which the interviewer is looking for. Though it sounds
clichéd, McKinsey interviews are actually “fun”, so look at it as an interactive problem solving session rather
than an assessment and remember to enjoy your interview experience!
Name Shruti Dube

Name and Designation of Ireena Vittal – Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview - Why dual degree? (To which I answered that I wish to explore Computer
Science in greater depth, talking to professors I gauged it was an advantageous
Questions proposition), Why did you want to explore more?

- Why don‟t you join Google?

- Which will you chose, Google or McKinsey?

- What is your greatest wish?

- If you fall in love with this amazingly caring, loving, wonderful person whose
only demand is that you should not pursue a professional career, will you
acquiesce to his demand and marry him?

- What is the biggest weakness that you have? Why is it important for you that
people think what you did was right? (this question was a response to my
answer)

- What is the biggest mistake that you have made?

- Do you have any questions?

Case Interview Narration I was asked to name the channel which I watch most frequently. After which, a
discussion on how we generally watch series whose episodes are available on the

73
 LAN. I was then asked for thee channel which I watched as a school going
student. The interviewer finally asked me to take MTV as an example and asked
me the following question:
MTV wishes to increase its viewership, how should it go about doing this?
o I rephrased the problem to the interviewer and confirmed the
objective
o Then, I drew up a structure for the solution, where the input was
people and output was viewership of the channel‟s programs
o I divided the population into various age groups, assigning
percentages to each section (I asked the interviewer at each stage for
confirmation of the numbers. To which once I was asked to arrive at
the number I was suggesting logically. I took the example of a family
and using that analogy arrived at the percentage of children in India.
For most other verifications, I got the answer “I don‟t know, you tell
me is it fair to assume this”. This always happens whenever the
interviewer wishes to test your performance given ambiguity and
stress)
o Next I identified the segment with maximum and the next higher
viewership as potential segments which should be targeted. Again, I
took examples from real life to suggest why teenagers and people in
their early twenties shall form the bulk of MTv viewership.
o Moreover in these segments too only the urban middle and higher
class people are current viewers.
o The interviewer asked me to focus on the teenagers belonging to the
middle class and higher class families.
o I put forth the proposition that teenagers in the higher class are
invariably glued to MTv, if not out of their own interest, then because
of peer pressure. I gave an analogy of my school to substantiate the
argument and also news articles which dubbed upper class teenagers
as the “MTv culture kids”. The middle class children also come to
know about MTv through their friends and try the channel to see if its
any good. It is at this time that there should be programs to sustain
their interest.
o The interviewer asked me to put forth some suggestions on what
steps can be done to engage the interest of teenagers
o I requested for a little time and came up with the following
recommendations:
a. Visit schools with VJs and celebrities to popularize new shows
b. Organize talent search competitions, to select a teenage-VJ for
instance, in order to engage the students‟ interests via sms and
emails.
C. Use Cartoon network‟s strategy of telecasting small videos
(birthday wishing messages) from common students to their
friends. Coming on TV is always exciting and the teenagers
would be interested in that.
- The interviewer asked if these initiatives would these have made me
watch MTv as a school going student? To which I stated that the
reason why I watched less of MTv was because most of the programs
were about English music and I was not a keen follower of that. But
that problem was already gone and MTv has a blend of both Hindi
and English music. Thus with these recommendations added on, I
would decidedly watch MTv.

What Worked Well - After the first few questions about dual degree and joining Google over
McKinsey, my interviewer said that it was apparent to her that I had prepared

74
 well from several mock interview guides and my answers sounded rote. This
could have been a setback, but I was unfazed by it and kept my composure and
confidently replied that even though they sounded bookish, I believed in them
completely

- In order to test whether my answers were all prepared I got unconventional

questions like what‟s your greatest wish and the choice between love and a career.
The answers to both seemed to satisfy the interviewer a lot.

- Again, during the case study, when the interviewer did not validate my
assumptions, I did not get ruffled by that. I always maintained a pleasant and
confident countenance. Despite her refusal to validate my assumptions, I kept up
my efforts to engage her in the case study asking her to confirm my assumptions,
giving reasons for my propositions.

- I had about 10 questions in mind which I could ask from the interviewer. This
was useful, because I kept asking those questions while the interviewer was filling
out my evaluation form. Thus there was no awkward silence and I used up 4 of
my questions to fill in that time.

- I had read a news article on CNN just a day before the interview about a study
conducted by McKinsey in which they had concluded that organizations with
greater number of women in their senior management were more successful. I
discussed with the interviewer in detail.

What Went Wrong - Though I had prepared answers to a number of Personal Interview questions, I
absolutely did not imagine a question like “Why dual degree?” I stuttered and
hesitated a little while answering this question, repeating “I wanted to explore” a
number of times. I kept talking in an attempt to convince the interviewer who did
not at all seem to like my answer. It was thus not the best of starts.

- The interviewer at the end told me that I spoke a little loudly at times She said
that showed passion, which is good, but good students never need to try so hard
to prove themselves to anyone.

Take Away for Future - Every single word on your resume can be a potential question. Be prepared to
Batches answer anything based on your resume.
- Before you can make anyone else believe something, you must be absolutely
sure of basic things like why do you want to do consulting, why McKinsey. State
these with utmost conviction.
- Be prepared to answer personal questions as well. Be fair and frank in answering
them.
- Even if the interviewer appears uninterested or formidable, even hostile, remain
calm and confident.
- Always involve the interviewer while solving cases. Help your interviewer
understand your thinking process. They are looking for clarity of thinking and
structure. Assist them in identifying the same.

Name Shruti Dube

75
Name and Designation of Mandar Vaidya - Engagement Manager
Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 2nd Interview

Personal Interview - The interviewer started by introducing himself in detail. He said he will begin
this way to make me comfortable.
Questions
- He asked me to tell him about myself.

- What were my career plans and what would I aim for if I did not get recruited in
McKinsey?

- Ask me some questions.

Case Interview Narration The interviewer mentioned upfront that he was going to give me a case with lots
of numerical calculations, so it will be boring. He then asked me to estimate the
annual water bill of IITK.

- I rephrased the question and then requested for some time to develop a
structure.

- I divided the consumption of water in IITK into the following heads: Hostels,
Swimming pool, labs and gardens.

- The interviewer asked me to concentrate only on the first two heads.

- For hostels I took GH as the example and divided water consumption there
under water for bathing, water for daily ablutions and water required in the mess.

- I was asked to calculate the water needed for bathing and scale it to calculate the
total water consumption for the girls‟ hostel. Drawing a parallel from water
required by 15 girls in a wing for a day, I arrived at a number for the hostel. This
when multiplied with the number of hostels, gave the hostels‟ in IITK‟s water
consumption for a day.

- I assumed the swimming pool to be a cuboid and confirmed its dimensions from
the interviewer. I then looked at how often the entire water in the swimming pool
is discharged and also the constant inflow and discharge of water that happens.
With some help from the interviewer I was able to assign numbers and evaluate
the water required in a day.

- I asked for the cost of water per litre and then arrived at the final answer of
annual water consumption of IITK.

What Worked Well - The interview actually felt like an informal chat session and thus it was very
comfortable.

- I was able to structure well, do quick calculations and arrive at a final answer.

76
 - I had heard his introduction in detail and that helped me base my questions on
the moves he had made in his career.

What Went Wrong After the first interview which focused more on the personal interview section, I
expected a proper full-fledged case study. Fully cognizant of my new found
predilection for fumbling with numbers, acquired thanks to 4 years of adding phi
and psi instead of numerals, I was afraid I shall bungle up my mental
calculations. However, I eventually did no goof ups there for which I am
infinitely thankful to myself! So this interview went off well with nothing really
going wrong I felt.

Take Away for Future - Listen carefully to everything that is said during an interview and it shall be
Batches good if you can use the information being provided to you in your answers

- Practice some mental calculations so that you can do them with ease even under
pressure

- Estimation cases given are based on things you see happening in your daily
routine. Look around and practice lots of estimation cases on things that you see.

- Since you may not know the exact answer to various things, drawing analogies
from real life situations are your best support to substantiate your assumptions.

Name Shruti Dube

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan - Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 2 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview - Tell me something about yourself

Questions - What is distinctive about you from all the others

Case Interview Narration You have to meet the Finance Minister tomorrow asking him for the exact funds
which you require to improve the infrastructure of Kanpur. How will you
estimate it?

- I rephrased and confirmed the question and drew up a structure of the sectors
where funds are required. The heads were Households, Roads, Industries,
Garbage collection.

- In households, I further divided the requirement of funds into electricity and

water. I suggested that if currently there were power cuts of 8 hours a day, they
should be brought down to 3 hours a day at maximum. Similarly, if there was

77
 water supply for 2 hours in a day, it should be increased to 2 hours both in
mornings and evenings.

- At this point the interviewer said he knew the direction in which I was
proceeding and I should stop now.

What Worked Well - The interviewer looked happy with my answer to his question about what was
distinctive about me.

- The interview lasted no more than 15 minutes, which was one of the shortest 2nd
round interviews anyone had. It was apparent to me that the interviewer was
looking to confirm a few things he had in mind about me and he did that very
quickly in the interview. After finishing the interview, I was unsure whether the
opinion he had in mind was a positive or a negative one, but given that things
eventually turned out fine, I am writing this in the “What worked well” section 

What Went Wrong There was very little time for anything to go wrong. The only thing I could have
improved upon was, not to have given the shocked look which I am sure I had on
my face when the interviewer told me to stop the case study without even
developing the entire structure for the problem!

Take Away for Future - “Be yourself”, an oft-heard phrase, but a very pertinent one. You do not wish to
Batches be hired for being someone you are not. It is important for both you and the firm
to ascertain if there is a fit between the two.

Name Shruti Dube

Name and Designation of Shailesh Kekre, Partner;

Interviewer
Jatin Pant , Engagement Manager

Round Round 3 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview - What part of consulting are you looking forward to the most?

Questions - What are your future plans? How does McKinsey fit into the picture?

- Do you have any questions for us?

Case Interview Narration No case

78
What Worked Well It was a comfortable setting and since I believed that consulting is what I want to
do and I am getting into this field because I really liked what consultants do, I
could confidently explain my conviction to others.

What Went Wrong Again, too short a time for things to go wrong.

Take Away for Future Since this is what you shall spend most of your next few years in, make sure you
Batches like the profile, the firm and the people you are choosing to work with. Please do
not choose a job just for the remuneration it offers, or for the brand, it shall never
give you any happiness. If you shall like your job, you shall never mind working,
however many the hours may be.

79
Name: Smita Agrawal Department: Mechanical

Joining: Schlumberger Program: Dual

Email: smita@iitk.ac.in

Name Smita Agarwal

Round 1st Round – 1st Interview

Personal Interview
Questions
 Tell me about yourself, your experiences at IITK
 Discussion in this led to the case interview question
 If not McKinsey then?
 Where do you see yourself 5 years down the line
Case Interview Narration Estimate how much does IITK spend annually on sports.

What Worked Well I was speaking freely without any inhibitions

What Went Wrong I should have been more guarded and perhaps better prepared with the standard
PI questions.

Take Away for Future Prepare for case studies well. Be ready with PI questions, taking care not to sound
Batches too prepared.

Name Smita Agarwal

Round 1st Round – 2nd Interview

Personal Interview  Tell me about yourself very quickly, 2 mins

Questions  Why McKinsey?
 Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Case Interview Narration Estimate the cable market after 5 years. I was disallowed from using conventional
case study solving approaches of using the population division etc. I had to come
up with the number in a very limited time.

What Worked Well I hardly got a chance to speak, so nothing really can be pointed out

What Went Wrong My interview was almost at the lunch time and the interviewer seemed to be in a
hurry.

Take Away for Future Prepare for case studies well. Be ready with PI questions, taking care not to sound
Batches too prepared.

80
Name: Sumeet Kale Department: Mechanical Engineering

Joining: McKinsey and Company Program: B.Tech

Email: kalesumeet@gmail.com Phone: +91 9839358828

Reason Specified by McKinsey for Shortlisting:

Excellent performance record; in particular, with academic excellence along with the leadership qualities

Message for Juniors: Be casual and confident. Do your practice cases sincerely. And on a serious note,
remember that an interview is to find whether you and the company are a perfect match. So be honest and
truthful.

Name Sumeet Kale

Name and Designation of Rajat Bhargava, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview  General questions on Academic Performance ,Extra curricular activities and
Questions Antaragni‟07

Case Interview Narration The case was of an internationally successful truck manufacturer who wants to
enter Indian market .There are 3 types of truck categories –heavy , medium and
light. Questions: Whether he must enter or not the market, reasons for entering
and how to enter i.e. what phases( all categories, or one by one, if second, then
what order)

What Worked Well -

What Went Wrong  Missed out on an important reason of increased govt. expenditure in
roadways.
 Not very structured, first case interview so was kind of nervous

Take Away for Future  Practice cases…don‟t leave them out like me. Seriously, your confidence level
Batches will drop otherwise.

Name Sumeet Kale

Name and Designation of Rajat Dhawan, Partner

Interviewer

Round Round 1 -2nd Interview

Personal Interview  Again academics and Antaragni and cultural council, its functions etc
Questions  What are people outside discussing regarding the interviewer( hehe ,tricky
isn‟t it)

81
Case Interview Narration No major case, just my rank in the institute. At first I thought it wasn‟t a case, but
the interviewer clarified (oops!!!) Basically the interview was a stress interview. I
was asked a question which I answered and then the interviewer just kept
staring at the ceiling, and I was sitting in front of him, blank on what to
do.(..was an awesome experience none the less)

What Worked Well Handled the situation well

What Went Wrong  -

Take Away for Future  Enjoy your interview and be truthful

Batches

Name Sumeet Kale

Name and Designation of Mandar Vaidya – Engagement Manager

Interviewer

Round Round 2 – 1st Interview

Personal Interview  General questions on Extracurricular activities and Antaragni‟07

Questions

Case Interview Narration The case was regarding Antaragni. I was asked to estimate the number of people
visiting the control room during the entire festival and to get the numbers by 2
methods

What Worked Well Worked on the case systematically, basically the control group was the festival
and was my strong hand, so worked well for me. The numbers from both
methods were very close( although I was later told that it did not matter much)

What Went Wrong  Was a little too casual I guess

Take Away for Future  -

Batches

4. Bibliography

[1] Kellogg‟s Casebook

[2] Wharton Casebook
[3] Das Casebook
[4] Tuck Guide to Case Interviews
[5] Other case books available on the SPO ftp repository

82