Surabhi Gupta McKinsey & Co

Introduction

Hello 🙂 I’m Surabhi, a fourth-year student majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Design. I hail from Delhi (read: Noida). I enjoy art, sports & meeting new people. I’m always up for trips, last semester I hit a personal best of roughly 6 trips 🙂

Setting the Stage 

Background

Apart from the fact that I lack interest in engineering and have limited technical skills, I am also someone who prefers people facing work making non-core seem like a good fit. Due to being a part of the newly formed placement team, I was always constantly in the midst of the internship season frenzy. My own internship journey did, however, begin with a series of pre-Day 1 heartbreaks: I had been rejected from PoRs whose selection process I had worked month for. Despite making it quite far in the PIO selection processes for BCG, Bain, and P&G, I was ultimately rejected by all three. Initially disheartened, I found a way to include the PIO programs on my resume, putting a positive spin on the rejections.

Deciding Between Domains & Firms

I ended up signing IAFs for all the Day 1 non-tech firms (excluding P&G, as their policy did not allow reapplications within a year after receiving a final-round rejection in spotlight). I was fortunate to be shortlisted by firms across all three domains (consult, finance & FMCG), but ultimately, I chose to focus my preparation on consulting. The field appealed to me due its exposure to various industries, accelerated career growth, and the fact that it keeps your career options open (which is the same reason I chose engineering :P). Initially I was also attracted to the travel opportunities it offered but discussions with several consultants made me realize that it might not be the most appealing aspect of the job.

Between the consulting firms, seniors and the buddy programs really helped me understand the differences in culture which was useful in deciding preferences.

Tip (Based on my limited experience):

Try to map your strengths, personality, profile and goals (can be both professional and personal) to a domain where people with the similar traits & profile end up in places that align with your goals. I recommend assessing this broadly once before the internship season begins and revisiting it after the shortlists start coming in. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers right now; make your decision based on what you know at the moment. Afterall, an internship is there to help you understand where you fit in better 🙂

Between firms, previous all India PPO conversion rates can help you decide as well – but keep in mind what were the circumstances of that PPO rate and what are the current circumstances before making a comparison. Seeing how the firm is doing in general and what the scope for growth is can also be helpful apart from culture.

Hiring Processes Experience

PIO Programs

The BCG Ideathon happened for the first time during my internship season. The first round was individual and featured a test that included questions based on a case study and also required us to record a video, which I gave in a random LHC corner 30 minutes before the deadline. I found the test to be fairly straightforward and not something you could prepare for in advance. Following this, the qualified candidates had to submit a presentation in groups of 3 on a startup idea. The top three campus teams would get to present their decks. Our team made it to the campus finals with our supermarket organization idea, but unfortunately did not advance further (possibly due to lack of presentation practice).

P&G Spotlight was also bit of an enigma since it was the first year for it as well. The initial round for the product supply role included an aptitude & personality test (similar to the internship season one) and resume submission. I found the aptitude test to be more time management based than tricky. I was in the middle of a crib session (typical Mech) when I found out I had been shortlisted for a sponsored Hyderabad visit to their plant. They had shortlisted around 50 students from various IITs and BITS Pilani. During the visit, we were educated about supply chain management, given a factory tour, and participated in interesting games. We also had a one-on-one leadership interaction during the trip which was quite conversational and focused on situational questions (mainly based on our resumes and introductions). My favorite part though was the ITC Maurya stay which was pretty cool 🙂 The whole visit was quite exciting, but alas, a couple of weeks later I was informed that I had not been selected yet again.

Bain True North, unlike the other two, was not a complete mystery as it was happening for the second time. In the first round they gave me an aptitude and personality test (similar to the intern season one). I found the aptitude test to be on the trickier side. We also had to submit an essay, our resume, and details about our past experiences and achievements. For my essay, I found that making it personal and story-like gave it a good feel. I also tried to add examples from my personal life for the qualities they had mentioned. I, however, submitting my essay at 11:35 PM, did not know that they have a lengthy list of questions about past experiences and achievements post essay submission. I somehow managed to submit the form by 11:55 PM in the nick of time. To my delight, I was shortlisted for the interview rounds and provided resources to prepare. My first interview was a mix of guesstimate questions and questions about my resume. Two of us from IITB advanced to the final round. My final interview was a surprise. Expecting only HR questions, I was caught off guard by a market entry question. Not being awarded the scholarship/PIO was certainly a blow considering I had already been rejected by the other two as well.

Tips: The resources given for interview prep were sufficient for guesstimates. They might throw random curveballs at you during the interview, but if you stay calm, stick to the basics, and take a moment to think before answering, you should be fine.

Buddy Programs

The guesstimate practice I had done for Bain True North back in June provided me with a good foundation and starting point for grasping other types of cases. Before the shortlists came out, I had already done quite a few cases on my own and with my friends/seniors. This proved to be quite helpful since as soon as the shortlists came out, the firms started assigning buddies to each candidate. Generally one senior and one junior buddy would be assigned to help with case preparation. I found it challenging to manage my buddies while also performing intern season IC duties, but I still tried to do at least 2-3 cases with each junior buddy and at least 1 with each senior buddy. I remember fitting in cases in the middle of day 1 tech in random empty rooms, talking to buddies between HR calls, etc. Talking to my buddies helped me understand each firm’s operations and culture better. 

Tip: Don’t worry if your first buddy case isn’t perfect, note down the feedback given to you and improve on it – that’s really what’s important 

Tests/GD

Bain, ITC, and Morgan Stanley all had aptitude tests before the resume shortlists. To get into the rhythm of aptitude test questions, I had taken a few of the placement cell mock tests (which were pretty fun to set up as IC btw). Morgan Stanley’s test also had a finance section that was a little tough. McKinsey had an interactive game-type test, but that happened only after the shortlist.  A couple of the non-core firms also had personality tests but that’s not something you can really prepare for XD.

ITC had a group discussion (GD) after their test shortlist. However, by then I had already received interview shortlists from consulting firms and decided to focus my preparation there due to limited bandwidth. I still attended the GD, which turned out to be an interesting situational exercise. 

Tip: Although I didn’t, I would recommend diversifying your prep since you never know what might end up going wrong. Putting all my eggs in one basket was a risky decision, I should have done atleast a little bit of prep for other domains as well as a contingency plan

Interviews

Day 1 was an emotional roller coaster for me. As someone who isn’t a morning person, my day started off pretty groggy. It was also raining but thankfully my runner showed up at my hostel with an auto and Dahi-Cheeni ready for good luck (which he ended up feeding everyone at the venue btw, not just me :P)

The first bunch of interviews I gave didn’t go according to plan. I ended up panicking, to the point where I even excused myself to the bathroom and talked to my friends and parents to calm myself down. At that point, Day 1 was looking pretty grim for me, but I gathered myself somehow and went back out onto my next interview. When the news came that I had received an offer from McKinsey, I couldn’t believe it! It took a couple of weeks for it to sink in to be very honest. 

Talking about my interview experience, Mckinsey is known for its “unconventional cases” and it was no different for me. I had one slightly long round lasting about 40 minutes, but my interviewer was a very good guide throughout.

I still remember the rush of excitement I felt when I heard the news. I ran so fast to the Mckinsey room that I forgot my phone and resume, but thankfully my runner took care of that. It had been a crazy ride.

Tips: Apart from general HR preparation and case preparation, make sure you prepare your resume well too (it’s something people end up missing, speaking from my observations as an IC). Being very neat and systemic with the way you write things on paper is just important as good communication in consult case interviews. During the season, there may be moments where you might feel like things are going south, but sometimes even a 5% chance that it works out is enough if you keep your composure.

Internship Experience

My internship began with a three-day training, where I met and bonded with the other interns. We were their pilot business analyst intern batch and they had recruited only from top IITs. After training, we were assigned to our studies. My client was in the chemical industry, which was both exciting and nerve-wracking as a mechanical engineer. I knew nothing about the chemical sector, but I was eager to learn.

At McKinsey, studies are divided into workstreams, and I discovered soon enough that I would be leading mine as the sole consultant. This meant daily interactions with working-level clients and a couple of meetings with higher-level clients too, for alignment on initiatives and data. My responsibilities also included performing extensive Excel analyses and handling a couple of administrative tasks.

Initially, I found all of this daunting, but my supportive team eased the transition. Working in a fast-paced environment can be overwhelming, with many ad-hoc tasks but reaching out to my manager helped me figure out task prioritisation. I enjoyed the complete ownership and independence in my work, it became my favorite part of the internship. Sometimes I would get anxious over small mistakes but I  gradually realized that making mistakes is a normal part of being an intern.

Overall, I gained valuable skills and a good glimpse into the consulting world. It’s hard work and they definitely keep you on your toes, but yes the dinners are pretty nice 🙂

In consulting, however, your experience is very project dependent so I would advise talking to multiple people about their experience to get a more holistic idea (you will hear the phrase “it depends” quite a lot while asking generic questions about consulting lifestyle)

Tips: Learning Excel beforehand can be super beneficial. You’ll likely receive plenty of feedback during your internship since you’re just starting out in the corporate world; focus on the actionable points and don’t take it personally. Always keep the big picture in mind—understand the ultimate goal of your study, workstream, and specific task you’re currently doing, it will guide you whenever you’re stuck. Mastering top-down communication (it’s a specific way of communicating) takes time so don’t worry if you don’t perfect it immediately, but make a strong effort to improve.I would also say that you definitely should take your mid-term feedback seriously and try to improve on whatever is told to you. But while that is true, even if you do get good feedback consistently, work hard, and create impact; you still may not get a PPO because there is a lot more to it than just your performance, just like intern season going wrong even though you had a good resume & interview skills. So don’t be too hard on yourself during your internship, or even after it 🙂

Final Thoughts

Sometimes things start off rocky but can end well. Luck plays a big role during the internship season (I didn’t believe this either until I saw it actually happen) and while it’s easier said than done, trusting that you’ll figure it out helps. Talking to people at every stage—whether for emotional support or advice—was invaluable and is my top ‘tip’ for the intern season. Seniors, buddies, friends, family, and colleagues have all played crucial roles in my journey. Thanks for reading my story and random gyaan —I hope it was helpful. Feel free to reach out to me in case of queries and best of luck 🙂