Get Feedback From Your 1st Round McKinsey Interview - Why It's Important

To get hired by McKinsey, you typically have to pass two rounds of interviews.  McKinsey's feedback-driven culture doesn't just apply to the job, it applies to interviews as well.  It's also possible that former McKinsey consultants will apply this approach when interviewing candidates for non-consulting jobs.  In this post we'll cover why it's important to get feedback from your 1st round interview...


The best football and basketball teams look at their first-half performance with a critical eye and make adjustments at halftime so they can play better in the second half.  Think of 1st round interview feedback as your coach's halftime locker room speech, only much less inspiring.  Just a reminder - because of McKinsey's tendency to focus on negative feedback or "improvement opportunities", you might come away from your 1st round feedback feeling like you're getting routed at halftime rather than up by 10 points.

Can every candidate get 1st round feedback?

Yes, but you might have to ask for it.

After your 1st round interview, one of your McKinsey interviewers will call you with your decision - you'll be offered a 2nd round interview, get dinged, or, least frequently, informed that a decision is pending.  Regardless of the outcome, you have the option of receiving feedback on your 1st round interview performance.  If it's offered to you, take it.  If it's not, ask for it.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  If you pass up the chance to get feedback from any consulting firm on any interview, you're missing a huge opportunity to improve your performance during future interviews.

What can I expect from 1st round feedback?

Every interviewer rated your performance during the case and personal experience interview (tips for doing well on the PEI) along multiple dimensions.  Good interviewers also take notes on specific things you did well or missed during both parts of the interview.  Diligent ones will also compare notes with the other person who interviewed you and can give you feedback that reflects both interviewers' perspectives - those conversations usually inform the post-interview decision meeting where your outcome was determined.

As with any McKinsey feedback, you should be getting feedback that's specific and actionable, even if it's not framed according to the McKinsey feedback model.  At the very least, you can expect directional feedback like "you need to show better structure in the case", "you should consider a different PEI story", or "your public math needs work".

If your interviewer is good and/or you're being offered a 2nd round interview, your feedback is likely to be more detailed and actionable.  In that case, your feedback might sound like these examples: 
"Your initial case framework was good, although you missed a key lever.  But, you made up for it by being creative and thorough when you drilled down into each of the levers you did identify".  Or, "even though you fumbled that one calculation, you caught it yourself, which showed good understanding of the case.  And, because you were walking me through your math, I could see that you have a good grasp of numbers and just misplaced a decimal."

Why is this important to me?

If you got dinged:

Your feedback will be helpful if you have other consulting interviews in your future.  If you were interviewing for a summer internship position, I hope you'll try again next year for a full-time position.  In that case, your feedback will be highly relevant.  If you still have upcoming interviews with other firms, McKinsey feedback can still be helpful to you as you course-correct and prepare for them.

If you were offered a 2nd round interview:

It's critical that you receive and apply 1st round interview feedback prior to your 2nd round interview.  Here are a few reasons why...

1.  Your feedback is meant to help you get a job offer

During "assessment training", McKinsey interviewers are instructed to help each candidate demonstrate their best possible performance (while being fair to other candidates, of course).  That means the person giving you feedback is on your side and wants you to do as well as possible in the next round.  Their feedback is being given with the best intentions - for you to perform even better in the next round and get a job offer.  Whether the feedback is nitpicky or harsh, take it with an open mind and address it.  Your feedback should help you feel more confident about the areas where you did well and help you focus your time and efforts on improving where you did not perform as well.  In this case, nitpicky feedback is a good sign - it means that in the 1st round you did well enough on the big things that your two interviewers had to think pretty hard for things for you to improve.

2.  Your 2nd round interviewers will also see your feedback

Each of your 2nd round interviewers will have seen your interview assessments from the 1st round.  That means if you performed poorly along a particular dimension, at least one of your 2nd round interviewers will be asked to probe or test you further on that dimension.  If you fumbled the math, you'll likely get at least one 2nd round case with a challenging quantitative element.  If you struggled with PEI, you'll be asked more questions on the same PEI topic.  Remember that in the 2nd round the stakes are higher - the result of a "false positive" assessment is a job offer, not just a follow-up interview - so the bar is also higher.

3.  It's your chance to show that you respond well to feedback

McKinsey is all about feedback - a good consultant has to be able to take a lot of negative feedback but also be able to process it and make the necessary improvements.  In addition to seeing your 1st round interview assessments, your 2nd round interviewers also know that you've received feedback on these points.  So, if your performance on those dimensions doesn't improve significantly, it will a) confirm the initial assessment and b) reflect poorly on your willingness or ability to improve based on feedback. 

In some ways, it's almost better to have a minor stumble (that doesn't get you dinged) on a particular dimension in the 1st round only to crush that same dimension in the 2nd round - you'll be seen as a candidate who learns from mistakes, takes feedback well, and is "coachable".  That said, I wouldn't advise that you tempt fate by trying to do this on purpose!  But I hope you find it reassuring if you made a misstep during your 1st round interviews but still got a 2nd round interview offer.

Releasing Your Agenda - What It Means and Why It's Important

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It's likely that, at some point, you'll be asked by your McKinsey boss to "release your agenda".  In this post I'll explain what that means, and why it can be helpful.

What does it mean to release your agenda?

This phrase is typically used regarding client interviews or problem solving sessions with clients or thought leaders.  It's best practice to prepare for these sessions by aligning on goals and proposing an agenda for achieving them.  Ideally, your meeting will be constructive and your agenda acts as a roadmap to getting the information you need.

Sometimes, the conversation will veer off course, but still be productive.  In those cases, it's important to let the discussion run its course, even if it means giving up on your original goals, letting your subject talk about whatever they want, and "releasing your agenda.

Why is this important?

Although releasing your agenda can be frustrating, it's often helpful and can lead to valuable outcomes, even if they're not the ones you were anticipating.

If it's a client interview, your subject might not talk about what you want, but could still provide beneficial information or insights on other matters.  In such cases, it's often more important to keep your subject talking and sharing than it is to get them back on the track you wanted.  You can always circle back later and ask those questions at another time, especially if releasing your agenda and letting your subject talk or vent helps you build a strong working relationship.

Unless you're facing a crucial deadline, any good McKinsey boss will understand that establishing client relationships has long-term value.  That can make releasing your agenda worth the frustration and additional time it might take to revisit the conversation and get the answers you want later.

If the context is a problem-solving session with a subject matter expert who's going off on a tangent, you're still likely to learn something helpful.  While it might not help with the question on the table, it might give you insights on how to solve other elements of your workstream or other, related workstreams.  That said, with a colleague, it's more acceptable to try to keep your conversation on point or to bring it back to your agenda after briefly straying.

80/20 Thinking, 110% Execution - Why McKinsey Decks Are Often Warm

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One of my favorite McKinsey client quotes is "I like McKinsey decks - they're always nice and warm".  The reason McKinsey decks are often warm to the touch is because they're fresh off the printer.  It's common for McKinsey teams to be making edits and adding content until the very last minute, then scrambling to print documents and race to client meetings.  You also might see this behavior if you work with or for a former McKinsey consultant.  Here's why this happens...

Why the last minute rush?

You would think with all the long days and late nights, McKinsey teams would have plenty of time to get their ducks in a row.  But there are a few reasons why McKinsey teams end up working on decks until the very last minute...

1.  Late feedback from leadership

McKinsey Partners, Directors, and Experts often make valuable contributions and suggestions to improve client deliverables.  But, because they split their time between multiple client engagement teams, their input is not always delivered in a timely manner.  Teams still have to reflect these edits in the deck, so there's often a race against the clock to make sure the deck reflects the Firm's best thinking.

One way to mitigate this cause is to schedule problem-solving sessions with your thought leaders before the deadline.  However, this can be difficult because they have such busy schedules - if you don't get everyone together at once, you might get input in series - in the worst case, each contribution conflicts with another - adding more and more churn to the process. 

2.  Endless problem solving

Although McKinsey promotes 80/20 problem solving and a focus on big picture, high level, hypothesis-driven answers, those hypotheses need to be supported by detailed analyses.  Teams are constantly working to improve and refine their analyses to make them bullet-proof.  Since there's no finish line to this process, it can go on as long as you let it.

A good way to limit this type of rework is for the team to agree on a date and time to "freeze" the deck.  After that point, no more edits can be made to the deck and the team moves on to next steps.

3.  Attention to detail

As superficial as it might seem, typos, formatting issues, and other small errors can undermine credibility and reduce the client's confidence in a McKinsey team.  So, while the team's approach should be 80/20, its execution has to be impeccable.  As a result, documents are constantly being proofread and scanned for mistakes - if something is discovered at the last minute, it needs to be corrected, even if it means reprinting an entire stack of decks.

Freezing the deck can also help with this cause as long as the team commits to limiting themselves to minor edits once the deck has been frozen.  Correcting typos and formatting errors are allowed, but revising analyses and adding new content is not.

Why is this important?

If you understand what causes these last-minute scrambles, you can seek to prevent them.  Not only are they incredibly stressful, but for some clients, being late to a meeting can be as damaging to your credibility and working relationship as a half-baked analysis or obvious typo in a critical document.

McKinsey Interviews - 3 Tips For Selecting Your Location Preferences

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Prior to joining McKinsey, you will have 3 major decisions to make - 1) whether or not to apply for a job at the Firm, 2) to which location you'd like to apply, and 3) whether or not to accept your offer.  This post will focus on your location preference decision.


Although McKinsey is a global firm - with thousands of consultants in over a hundred locations spread across more than 50 countries - you'll have to select one location to be your home.  For some people it's an easy decision, for others, it can be more challenging.

Terminology:  Office vs. Location

At McKinsey, Office and Location are not interchangeable terms (even if they sometimes are used that way).  Think of "Location" as a city and "Office" as a region.  For example, the Southern California (SCA), Silicon Valley (SVO), San Francisco (SFO), and Seattle (SEA) comprise the McKinsey West Coast Office (WCO).

How location preferences work:

During the recruiting process, you might be asked several times for your location preferences.  Typically, you'll be asked for your top 3-5 locations, weighted by preference.  The location preferences you provide going into your first-round interview will inform where you end up going for your second-round interview and - if all goes well - ultimately working for McKinsey.

Typically, at our core business schools - places like Harvard, Wharton, and Kellogg, your first-round interviewers will be from the Office complex that best matches your preferences.  (CAVEAT - this post is for US b-schools and US McKinsey locations - interviews for international Locations are handled differently and the process varies by which international Office is involved)  Based on Office and Location needs and number of applicants preferencing Locations, your interviewers might be from the Office of your 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Location preference, but the Firm typically tries to match you with your top choice.

If you pass your first-round interview, you will then be flown to a specific Location (hopefully your top or second preference) for your second/final round of interviews.  Any job offer would be from the Location of your second-round interview.

I have seen some rare cases of horse trading occur during first-round decision meetings.  Depending on Location needs and preferences of passing candidates, there's sometimes a need to adjust second-round interview Locations.

Three tips for making your location preference decisions

1.  The bar doesn't get lower

One of the guiding principles of interviewing is that McKinsey never "lowers the bar" - that is to say that we always maintain the same high standards for passing a candidate on to the next round or making them a job offer.  That means no matter what Office or Location is doing the interviewing, you still have to exceed a Firm-wide performance standard.

However, the bar can get higher if there are a lot of qualified candidates vying for a small number of slots.  This is why the summer internship interviews are viewed as a more rigorous and selective than full-time interviews.  Also, if a particular Location is over-subscribed - more candidates have preferenced it and passed to the next round than there are openings - the bar might go up.  This is when some of those candidate who clear the Firm's bar might be offered 2nd round interviews in other, preferenced Locations.

2.  You can't "game" the system

Every recruiting season there are candidates who think it might be easier to get into certain Locations than others - unfortunately, this is not true.  For some reason, it seems that the Cleveland Location is one that's often cited by McKinsey consultants who tell candidates that there are no easier paths into the Firm, as in "it's not like you can apply to Cleveland and have a better chance to get an offer because no one else is applying there".  The best you could hope to do would be to avoid the locations where the bar might get raised.

As we covered in the first point on this list, the bar for passing to the next round or getting an offer isn't lower in any of our Locations.  The other reason you can't game the system is because, as a candidate, there's no way to predict the following:  1) what a particular Location's needs will be, 2) how many other candidates will preference that Location, and 3) how those candidates will do in their interviews.  When you add in other factors like the supply and demand dynamics for other Locations on your preference list and the lists of other candidates, it becomes impossible to predict where your chances might be best.  Better to save your mental energy for case prep and thinking about PEI.

3.  Know yourself and what you want

The more you understand and can be honest with yourself about what you want, the better your location preference decisions will be.  There are three primary reasons to preference one Location over any others.  

• Where you want to live:  Even though McKinsey consultants travel a lot, you'll still be spending a lot of time in your home city, including most weekends and several months at a time if you get staffed locally.  If you don't mind traveling, you can do client work in other cities if your Location doesn't serve the industry or clients you want. 

 

• What work you want to do:  The leadership in an Office and Location can provide you better opportunities to work with certain clients or industries.  McKinsey consultants can't discuss clients with you, but you should know what industries are around a given Location.  If you also considering the Firm serves most of the Fortune 100, you can guess what companies near 

• Who makes you feel most comfortable:  If you get an offer, make sure you attend the cultivation weekend so you can get to know people from the Location.  Also, get to know your fellow offerees since many of them will be in your incoming class and a significant part of your McKinsey experience.

Cover Letters for non-Consulting jobs - 4 common mistakes

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As I mentioned in a previous post about consulting resume screens, cover letters are not critical when applying for a job at McKinsey.  However, in my pre- and post-McKinsey experience, I've found that non-consulting hiring managers rely heavily on cover letters to differentiate between candidates with similarly impressive resumes.  In this post I'll discuss the most common cover letter mistakes I've seen from candidates for non-Consulting jobs...

Why cover letters don't matter for Consulting resume screens

At McKinsey, there were a couple of factors that allowed us to make our interview invitation decisions without cover letters.  First, we sent an army of consultants to interview at our core schools so we had enough interview slots to invite most of the candidates with compelling resumes.  Second, we had a resume scoring methodology that we felt enabled us to make good assessments of candidates without cover letters.  Finally, we didn't really filter for interest in management consulting or McKinsey.  There was an underlying assumption - right or wrong - that if a candidate was willing to go through the case prep and interview process, that they would seriously considering accepting a job offer from us.

The only exception to this might be for the few "experienced hires" - candidates with significant industry experience who are not applying out of business school, JD, MD, or PhD program.  In those cases, a cover letter would help us assess why you want to go into consulting and what specific skills and expertise you could bring to the Firm.

 

Why cover letters DO matter for non-Consulting resume screens

For most job postings, a hiring manager is reviewing dozens of resumes.  This is especially true during interview season at a top business school.  Some of the resumes are, in McKinsey terms,  "clear turndowns" or "clear passes" - it's easy to see from just the resume that a particular candidate is one of the best or worst applicants.  That leaves a big pile of resumes left that often have similarly impressive credentials.  Cover letters can help candidates stand out as hiring managers try to differentiate between those remaining candidates.

The stakes are higher for the non-consulting resume screen because those companies usually have fewer interview slots available to offer.  A "false positive" (a candidate we think is great but turns out to be a dud) represents proportionally greater opportunity cost for a non-consulting company with 14 interview slots than it would for a consulting firm with hundreds of interview slots.  Furthermore, many non-consulting companies want to know how interested candidates are in their industry or company, something that's usually not readily apparent from just a resume.

Four common cover letter mistakes

1.  Not submitting a cover letter

Without a cover letter, your hiring manager has no way of putting your resume into context.  That might be fine if your academic, volunteer, and/or professional background are tied to the job for which you're applying.  Otherwise, you need a cover letter to help your hiring manager understand why you're a good fit for the job.  If you have an opportunity to submit a cover letter for a non-consulting resume screen, DO IT, especially if you're a career-switcher or you've bounced around between multiple industries.  Unless you do so, you're relying on your resume to tell your entire story.

Many companies use scoring rubrics to assess resumes.  The more information you can convey to the resume screener(s), the greater the likelihood you'll address what they're looking for, and the more opportunities you give them to increase your resume screen score.

Failing to submit a cover letter also forces your resume reviewer to wonder why you didn't while other candidates did.  Even if a cover letter is "optional", you should submit a cover letter.  Otherwise, it might come across like you couldn't be bothered to put one together while your competitors did.  My omission, you will have chosen the option of seeming less interested in the job than other applicants, which brings us to the second point...

2.  Not conveying genuine interest in the job

The hiring manager's goal is to fill open job postings.  The last thing a company wants to do is go through the effort of screening resumes, interviewing candidates (often at great expense), and make an offer, only to have that offer declined.  Therefore, many companies want to understand how likely you might be to accept a job offer, which is hard to tell from just a resume.  At the non-consulting companies where I've worked, we look for genuine interest in the industry, company, and location.

In order to do this well, it's critical to research the company and industry well enough to articulate your interest.  At the very least, this will show your hiring manager that you're diligent and are interested enough in the job to do your homework.  Communicating how excited you are about a job opportunity can help set you apart from other, similarly qualified candidates.  

Hiring managers for very attractive jobs are flooded with applications so any means of differentiation is helpful.  They also want to know that you actually want to do the job, not just something prestigious on your resume.  Hiring managers for less attractive jobs might want to know that you're not just using them as a back-up plan or the professional version of a "safety school".  Other hiring managers might be concerned that candidates aren't interested in working in a certain geography or a specific role.  For example, if you've always lived and worked big, coastal cities, you might want to let the hiring manager for that job in an industrial town in the midwest know why you're truly open to moving there.

3.  Insufficiently customizing your form letter

Hiring managers are not naive - we understand that you're applying for a lot of jobs.  It's also inefficient to write a letter from scratch for every potential interview, and efficiency is something we like in our employees.  That said, there are plenty of things you can do that don't take that much time or effort to make your form letter feel less generic.

The worst-disguised form letters are the "insert company name here" variety.  Nothing about the letter is specific to the job other than the company name.  The second least-disguised form letters are those with the "company specific paragraph".  It's very apparent when one paragraph is highly specific to the job and everything else is completely generic.

The letters that come across best, from the perspective of feeling company-specific, are those where the customization is peppered throughout the document.  This is especially powerful when it's done in parts of the cover letter where most candidates cut-and-paste.  A good example is the bullet point list of relevant skills or experiences that many candidates use.  These are often highly applicable across a number of jobs, so it makes sense to recycle this text.  However, candidates who explain how each item relates to the specific company or job might stand out as having tailored their cover letters.

When I was applying for jobs, I did this by having several different cover letters and resumes, with a boilerplate set written specifically for each industry I was considering.  Then, I would heavily customize for each company and job.  I felt it gave me the right balance of being customized and efficient.

4.  Poor attention to detail

Your cover letter and resume are often the first impression you make on a company, so the stakes are high.  If you can't be bothered to get the details right on such important documents, your hiring manager will have to wonder how much attention to detail you'll exhibit once you're in the job.  You have plenty of time to get your cover letter and resume right - if you screw that up, what will your hiring manager think of your ability to execute on last-minute issues or against tight deadlines?

Common mistakes here include:

• Wrong company name
• Typos
• Misspellings - especially of the company or your interviewer's name
• Addressing to the wrong gender

Proofread with these things in mind.  Better yet, get someone else to do it for you.  If you're the right kind of candidate, it's likely you've been writing and refining your cover letter and resume countless times.

This recruiting season, a candidate emailed us a resume and cover letter that was addressed to the wrong company.  We thought about forwarding the email and attachments to the other company with a note saying "we think this meant for you" and cc'ing the candidate, but decided to not torpedo the candidate's chances at a second company.  But not all hiring managers will be so forgiving!

McKinsey Presentations: The Page Pull Deck and How to Build One

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There are many types of PowerPoint decks that your McKinsey boss might ask for.  One that is relatively common and easy to prepare is the "page pull" deck.  In this post I'll cover what it is, and how it's used...

What is a page pull deck?

A "deck" is consulting-speak for a Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) presentation, or collection of PPT pages.  A "page pull" is when you use an existing page that has already been created, usually by your team, the Firm, or your client.  A "page pull deck" is, therefore, an entire presentation created by cobbling together pages from other, preexisting presentations.  Think of it as forming a poker hand by picking and choosing the specific cards you want.

How should I assemble a page pull deck?

1.  Understand the request

The first thing you'll want to do is understand what your McKinsey boss wants to accomplish with the deck.  You need to know the topic so you can reference the right materials.  You need to know how the deck will be used to understand which pages to pull and how much material you need.

Often, you'll be asked for page pulls because your McKinsey boss doesn't want you to over-invest time in creating new materials or revising existing materials.  But, it's worth asking in advance what the expectations are for how polished the final product needs to be.

2.  Gather the source material

To create a page pull deck, you need PPT documents from which to pull.  Make sure you have all of the relevant source material available - all of the PPT decks that might contain useful information or analyses.  Don't limit your scope to pages you or your team created.  If you're not at McKinsey, think about decks from colleagues, other departments, old documents in your own department, or decks created by consultants.  If you are at McKinsey, remember to check Know for relevant Practice Documents (PDs), ask the appropriate McKinsey Practice for relevant decks, reach out to other teams, Partners, Firm experts, and don't forget about your clients - they often have treasure troves of material.  Remember to ask your McKinsey boss if there are specific documents that should be included in your search.

3.  Select the appropriate pages

As you assemble the source material, familiarize yourself with the contents - it helps to have a sense of what you have before you start pulling specific pages.  Once you start pulling pages, it's better to err on the side of pulling too many pages.  It's easier to cut from your page pull deck than it is to have to hunt through the source material for a page you later realized you should have pulled.  It's also helpful to record the source document on each page you pull for future reference.

4.  Make edits as needed

Usually, when you're asked for a page pull deck, your McKinsey boss just wants a collection of pages.  This is often the case when the deck is for internal, team problem solving or to understand what information the team has on a specific issue.  If this is the case, congratulations, you're done!

However, sometimes there's a need for the pulled pages to be assembled into a storyline.  If that's the case, you'll want to rearrange the sequence of pages and revise the leads (the titles or headlines of each page) to tell the right story.  It will also become apparent where your storyline is missing pages - this is a great way to understand what new material you and your team need to create to fill in the holes in the storyline.

How page pull decks are used

Usually, page pull decks are created for internal, team uses because the intent is to minimize any additional work that needs to be done.  However, under the right circumstances - and with a little extra work - they are sometimes presented to clients.  Here are the most common uses for page pull decks:

1.  Internal problem-solving

Time with McKinsey partners or your former McKinsey boss might be hard to come by.  So, when you have a chance to pick their brain on a topic, you want to make the most of the opportunity to problem solve with them.  It's much easier and constructive if you can put materials in front of them that capture what you know and don't know about the problem you're trying to solve.

However, no one wants you over-investing time on putting together a document for an internal meeting.  One way to balance getting the right information together to put your question into context and saving time is to rely on page pulls.

2.  Identifying workstream needs

If you have a client deliverable to prepare, using page pulls can help you storyline the presentation.  Figure out the story you want to tell the client, then start assembling page pulls to populate the narrative.  As you go through the process, you'll find that you can't find pages to pull for the entire story you want to tell.  Whenever that happens, create a placeholder page - a blank page that has just a lead and/or headline and perhaps some notes on the content you'd need to continue advancing the story.

Once you complete the storyline deck, you can use the placeholder pages to define the additional work that needs to be done.  You might also find that some of the pulled pages need additional work, too like updating old data, refreshing some analyses, or wordsmithing leads, headlines, or takeaways.

3.  Presenting a subset of existing client materials

Often, after presenting materials to a client, there will be a need to present subsets of those materials to specific client groups.    When that happens, it doesn't make sense to build each audience-specific deck from scratch when there's a larger, "master" document available for page pulls.  In addition to making life easier of you and your team, it also ensures that each audience is getting materials and messages that are consistent with the master document. 

For example, suppose your team prepared an enterprise-wide strategy that your client presented to the Board of Directors.  Now, your client needs to give presentations to the leaders of each Department in the company, but a) you won't have time to go through the entire master document with each Department and b) not all of the master is relevant to every Department.  Rather than create brand new decks for each Department, your team can pull relevant pages from the master document.  In this case, you might pull the intro chapter, the Department-specific chapter, and any other relevant pages from other Department chapters.

T-shaped Problem-Solving at McKinsey and 3 Reasons Why It's Preferred

At McKinsey, there's a strong preference for T-shaped problem solving - making sure you've considered all of the applicable topics before going too deep on any of them.  This applies to problem solving a client engagement, case interviews, and working for a former McKinsey boss.

What is T-shaped problem solving?

Business is usually more about identifying better answers than finding a single, "right" answer.  So, it pays to make sure you've considered a wide range of solutions when problem-solving.

The universe of potential answers can typically be organized as topics or "buckets" of more detailed ideas or options.  Think of BREADTH as considering multiple topics and DEPTH as going into greater detail on specific topics.

T-shaped problem solving requires being diligent and exhaustive across all relevant topics BEFORE going deep and committing to going into detail on a specific topic.

Why is that the preferred approach?

1.  It has structure

The T-shaped approach provides a clear, logical means for looking for the best answers and is superior to any UNSTRUCTURED response.  You will get almost on credit for a "laundry list" of answers, even if they are among the best answers because a) there's no way to know if the list is thorough, b) you might over-invest time pursuing suboptimal answers, and c) you lack the ability to walk clients through the logic used to get to the answers helps increases your credibility and client buy-in to the answers.

2.  It enables collaborative problem solving

The T-shaped approach requires building and considering a list of all of the potentially relevant topics or buckets of answers.  This allows others to help you consider a) is your list comprehensive and b) are you choosing the right topics to investigate further?

3.  It focuses your time and resources on the most promising areas

Going deep on a particular topic or bucket of potential answers takes a lot of time and effort.  By being thoughtful about where to go deep, you can prioritize and apply your resources more wisely.  Not doing this and trying to go deep everywhere is viewed negatively and referred to as "boiling the ocean".  Even worse is going deep in the wrong places.  When your time is precious, there's nothing worse than exhausting an avenue of thought only to find nothing of value at the end.

 

What's wrong with I-shaped problem solving?

The alternative to T-shaped problem solving is an I-shaped approach.  This is when you begin by going deep on one or two topics.  The concern with I-shaped problem solving is that it's inferior to the T-shaped approach on each of the 3 points listed above.

1. It's only structured vertically - your sub-list(s) of details might be structured and thorough, but your list of topics is not.
2. It only allows vertical collaboration - others can see and understand your approach to building your sub-list(s) of details, but it's too late for them to contribute to choosing on which topics you go deep
3. You might waste a lot of time and effort - If you've selected the wrong topics on which to go deep, you won't get the right answers and will have to start again elsewhere.  Even worse, you might not realize that you missed an important area of investigation and deliver poor solutions.

Why is this important to me?

Whether you're a) on a McKinsey team, b) working for a former McKinsey consultant, or c) are being interviewed by a current or former consultant, structured problem solving is critical to success.  T-shaped problem solving can help ensure that the structured approach you use is a good one.

Caveat

As far as I know, the term "T-shaped problem solving" isn't an established term, but it's how I like to describe it.  My apologies if this terminology already exists - I'm not trying to take credit for someone else's framework or phrase.  My internet search for the term did turn up references to T-shaped careers and expertise, but not to T-shaped problem solving.