How to get a job at McKinsey helped me develop ‘biz rizz’

• The construction of well -related relationships is largely considered a desirable gentle skill in the workplace.
• You could call it “networking”. But Langni Zeng called him “Biz Rizz”.
• Zeng, who acquired people’s skills in McKinsey, shared his best advice to develop “Biz Rizz”.

This test also filed is based on a conversation transcribed with Langni Zeng, 25, based in Los Angeles. The following has been modified for duration and clarity.

During my college years, studying affairs at Queen’s university in Canada, many parents of my comrades were VPs in major organizations.

There is a certain culture in their history about the way you dress, how you talk and what you are talking about. A great culture shock for me was to learn to choose wine at dinner.

My father is an engineer and my mother is a former speaker, so I was not very exposed to the America company. I did not grow up around business functions or did not know what the investment bank or the advice space looked like.

In college, I learned more from advice and I saw it as a good area for someone like me who wanted to be a general practitioner and work on problem solving. I participated in the parascularly consultation and I won an internship in McKinsey for the summer of my third year.

After the internship, I joined McKinsey full -time as a commercial analyst in 2021.

I stayed with McKinsey for about two years, then I left to assume a director of strategy and commercial operations for a technological company. My mandate at McKinsey has strengthened my capacity to establish relations in professional environments, a competence that helped me throughout my career. I also used a fun term to describe this skill: Biz Rizz.

The mentors helped me with skills in terms of creating relationships

When I started with McKinsey, I was linked to a professional development director who helped me staff on projects. In consultation, you don’t really have a sets and team manager – everything is based on projects. Every few weeks or months, you work with new people, customers and often in new cities.

There are obviously difficult skills that consultants should have, like making Excel models and analyzes, but also general skills – the ability to establish relationships with customers. Part of this was officially taught, as in a training session on trust, but I also developed general skills in a organic way.

One of my biggest obstacles to the development of relationships in the workplace was confidence and comfort. At McKinsey, you may be 21 sitting in a room with C-Suite frames, which can be intimidating. You think about these situations on what is appropriate to say.

When my parents discovered that I had this work, they advised me to keep my head down, but I think that the establishment of professional relationships is important. I tried to find out how to network and make small discussions.

I was lucky to have great mentors on my first projects. One of my managers led me to present to a C-Suite frame. One of my mentors told me to think of the executive as my friend’s uncle or someone I know in real life so that things feel more familiar.

At first, I had trouble connecting myself during certain conversations with my peers. Travel came a lot; I did not grow up by skiaing in the Alps or by playing golf. Going to business school helped me train for these conversations, and my history were not as important as I thought. I think the key is to be authentically yourself.

Having “biz rizz” helped me throughout my career so far

I used the comments of the teams with which I worked to assess the way I developed my skills in terms of relationship creation.

On a project, I was responsible for preparing a celebration at the end of our off -site. It was an appreciation circle. Everyone had to say what they enjoyed about someone who had been assigned to him, like a secret Santa Claus.

I wrote a funny poem with silly rhymes on the person who had been assigned to me, who was a customer. I was more experienced at that time, so I could assess with confidence what was appropriate. Earlier in my career, I wouldn’t have done something like that. Subsequently, the main stakeholders of this customer referred to the poem for months after the out -of -site site.

General skills like this can strengthen your reputation and your work relationships. They were useful beyond my time in McKinsey.

In a previous job, I was director of strategy and commercial operations for a technological company. I was trying to facilitate change management and I worked with leaders through different functions. You must establish relationships based on trust to bring people to align themselves with your vision. It can be difficult when you are younger or new, but my stay in McKinsey taught me to dialogue with the superior stakeholders.

As I have coffee cats or mentoring sessions with students, many of their questions concern the notes they need or the tactical skills they should develop to obtain a certain job. All this is important, but another really important part is the way you network and build a personal brand.

Here are some of my best tips for building “biz rizz”

I casually use the term “biz rizz” with friends for years. “Rizz” has become a popular slang term used to designate charisma, so we use “biz rizz” to describe the establishment of professional relationships. I posted a tiktok about last year, which really took off.

One of my relationship creation advice is to end each interaction with the question: “How can I help?” Or say: “If there is something you need, let me know.” This can be considered strategic because people love it when you help them, but it is also a generally positive thing that I would do with people on my network.

Another large piece is communication. People really react to a good concise and eloquent speaker. I was not naturally a good speaker, but to be part of an international case competition team in college and make presentations at McKinsey helped me.

Be authentically positive. Do not think of the network as a ploy to advance your interests, but think about how you can have the most fun working with people.

Many people perceive networking as kissing senior leaders, but I think it goes beyond. I learned so much and I got so many opportunities.

Do you have a story to share on professional networking? Contact this journalist at ccheong@businessinsider.com