Preparing

for your
interview

Thank you for your interest in McKinsey & Company – we are delighted to invite you to
interview with our firm. We are excited about meeting with you and getting to know you
better.
When you interview with us, you will meet some of our consultants, and these meetings
will have two aims:

To enable us to learn more about your skills and experience so that we can
1 determine your suitability for a career at our firm

To allow you to learn more about what we do and who we are so that you can be
2 more clear and confident in your career choices

We want you to realize your full potential in your interviews. This simple guide is intended
to help you prepare and give you some tips on what to do when the day arrives…
What are we looking for?
There are four key areas where we look for you to demonstrate your skills. Each of these areas is
critical to success in the day-to-day work we do. We hire distinctive people, so we will look for
outstanding potential in each of these areas when we interview you.

Problem Solving
McKinsey consultants help clients solve tough problems in their businesses and implement the
solutions. This not only requires strong intellectual abilities and rigor, but it also requires a good,
practical sense of what works and what does not work in complex organizations.

Achieving
Our consultants constantly strive to deliver distinctive client service. To achieve this while handling
multiple stakeholders and often tight deadlines requires outstanding energy, determination, and
judgment.

Personal Impact
McKinsey consultants work with a wide range of individuals in their day-to-day jobs. Developing and
implementing sound recommendations requires the involvement and support of these individuals.
Skills in interacting with people in sometimes tough situations are critical to driving distinctive client
impact.

Leadership
Leading people and fostering effective teamwork are key to success both within McKinsey and with our
clients. McKinsey consultants need outstanding leadership skills in order to drive positive change in
complex organizations.

All our consultants are well rounded individuals, who have a good mix of these skills and are fun to
work with. This is what makes them successful and valued by our clients. We will look for the same
mix of skills when we interview you!
How do I prepare?
We try to ensure we are as accurate and fair as we can possibly be when we interview you. To do this, we
employ a wide range of interviewing methods. In particular, you should be prepared for the following:

Case Studies
We believe the best way we can assess your problem solving skills is to discuss a typical McKinsey business
problem with you – we call this a case study. Our interviewers are trained to use case studies which are fair
to you and reflect the typical problem solving challenges faced by our consultants.

You will be required to have a discussion with your interviewer around a case study. During this discussion
the interviewer will assess many things, including:

• How you go about structuring a tough, often ambiguous, business problem

• How you think about which issues are important in the problem
• How you deal with and process data (numerical and otherwise)
• How you think about making conclusions and recommending actions required to solve the problem
• How you articulate your thoughts during an interactive problem solving discussion

Case studies are broad, two-way discussions, rather than one-way tests. There is no perfect answer. You will be
assessed more on how you go about dealing with the problem, rather than on the specific answers you come up
with.

Some practice at case study discussions is recommended, especially if you are inexperienced at interactive
problem solving discussions. There are many ways you can practice. For example:

• Try out the example case study on our website at www.mckinsey.com/careers

• Discuss some current business issues with friends/colleagues. The financial press will often contain
articles that can prompt such discussion. Try to think about what might be wrong and what you would do
to fix it.
• Practice your numerical agility through performing some basic calculations in your head, especially if you
have not done this in a while.

Experience Interviews
When we decided to invite you to interview, we were impressed by your achievements to date. However, it is
not just your achievements that are important to us – it is also the skills you exhibited in accomplishing those
achievements.

Our interviewers are trained to examine your past accomplishments in depth in order to determine if the skills
you exhibited would position you well for a successful career at McKinsey. Therefore, you need to be
prepared to discuss your most important past experiences in a detailed way, focusing on your specific role
and describing the key actions that were critical to success.

To prepare for this part of the interview you should:

• Review the key skills we look for (as described in the previous section).
• Think back and remember some key challenging times in your past where you needed to exhibit those
skills. Remember, you should discuss experiences that were truly challenging for you. It is unlikely that
we will see your full potential if you discuss accomplishments where your skills were not stretched.
• Remember as much detail as you can about these instances, and particularly about your role in them.

Preparing for these parts of your interview will help you to realize your full potential on the day. If there are
other important parts to your interview day, you will be made aware of these by a McKinsey recruiter.
On the day…
We want you to enjoy interviewing with us and we hope that you learn more about what we do
through spending time with our consultants. Here are some tips to ensure you get the most out
of the day…

Relax
Although it’s easier said than done, you should try your best to be relaxed and to enjoy the day.
Our interviewers are friendly, fair, and fun and they want you to succeed. You will perform better if
you are relaxed. Most of our candidates say that they enjoy the discussion that they have with
their interviewers, whatever the outcome.

Be yourself
There is no ‘typical’ McKinsey hire – we hire people from a very wide variety of backgrounds. Be
yourself in your interview. Do not try to behave differently from how you would normally behave,
and do not try to focus on what you think we want to hear. If you behave as naturally as possible,
you will allow our interviewers to get the most accurate assessment of your skills.

Take your time

Do not feel rushed at any point in the day. In particular, take your time during the interview. If
you respond to questions before having time to think them through, you are less likely to respond
well. Ask your interviewer for a moment to think if you need it, and always ask them to clarify
anything you do not understand – this will not affect how we evaluate your skills.

Get something out of it for yourself

Ensure you take time to find out what you need. If you have burning questions about McKinsey,
or about consulting more broadly, ask your interviewers. Interviewers expect questions from you
in the interview.

Again, we hope that you enjoy the experience of interviewing with McKinsey. We pride ourselves
on our recruiting process and are constantly looking for feedback on how we can improve it. We
will ask you for feedback when your interviews are complete, and we would appreciate your
comments.

Good luck!