My first full-time job was as a strategic consultant at McKinsey & Company. A very intense 2-year learning experience.

Their Alumni News Service recently interviewed me and published this great article on SharpBrains. The writer does a superb job of providing an overview of what we do, so I recommend you read it. I’d like to emphasize the following quotes for anyone looking for jobs these days, so that “brain exercise” is part of the equation:

• “Alvaro has some very high praise for the mental gymnastics that the McKinsey experience provides.  Given that the frontal lobes in our brain (behind the forehead) only mature in our late 20s, he says, the jobs we take in our early and mid-20s are very important not only for our career prospects, but also for our brain development fitness. This is the stage in our life where, consciously or not, we can improve our decision-making, initiative and self-regulation abilities, all of which literally affect the physical growth of our frontal lobes in a significant way.”
• “Joining McKinsey as a BA is literally like joining a brain gym,” Alvaro says. “The demands of the ‘McKinsey model’ – hypothesis-driven problem solving, 80/20 sequencing rule, issue tree logical analysis – supported by a very structured performance review process, contributes to the development of the frontal lobes, where these so-called Executive Functions reside.”
• “It is important to continue developing our brains beyond our 20s, however. Neuroscientists have shown that adults retain neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to rewire itself through experience) and neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons) every single day of our lives. Factors such as well-targeted mental stimulation and physical exercise enhance these capacities, while, conversely, long periods of stress and anxiety inhibit them.”

Have you had similar experiences with your jobs?

Some related posts:

Use It or Lose It: what is It?

What do successful Traders and Students have in common

Executive Functions and MacArthur “Genius Grants”