Joining McKinsey
My name is Khaoula Tlili. I am 28 and I joined McKinsey 2 and a half years ago. Prior to McKinsey I worked at an investment bank in London for 2 years, but I wanted to reconnect with my real passion: information systems and new technologies. I joined McKinsey’s Business Technology Practice, which addresses IT issues from a top-management perspective.
I started as an intern, which was an opportunity to find out about the day-to-day work of a consultant. The best way to understand what it really means in practice to be a consultant is to work on the ground. At the end of my internship I received an offer to join the Business Technology Practice as a junior associate.
The role of a consultant
As a junior associate I have played a range of different roles in teams and have really enjoyed being able to work on technical subjects relating to information systems. We have created some quite sophisticated models for these projects, talking to McKinsey experts and discussing the issues with the client. I have also carried out more qualitative analyses based on interviews.
The role of a junior associate is essential to the success of any project. Often you are responsible for the most advanced analyses, which will lay down the conceptual framework for the rest of the team—the engagement manager, the client, and the McKinsey partners. It is a source of great personal satisfaction when I do technical analysis on Excel, we discuss my conclusions as a team, and then come up with tangible recommendations for the client.
Create your own path
I was happily surprised when I joined McKinsey to discover just how much freedom everybody has to build their own career path. You can choose between a range of different sectors, and participate at the level of the Paris office, at European level, or a global level. After several years at McKinsey, everyone has their own distinctive career path, all the while accumulating relevant and timely expertise in meaningful areas.