Does interviewer seniority matter?

Hi there! As an ex-Mckinsey consultant and part of recruiting team, I would say that every partner discussion is different and the direction the conversation takes depends on role that you are interviewing for, feedback that the partner has got from earlier rounds and of course the Partner’s personality.

Basically the seniority doesn't really matter when making the decision on your performance. 

As for the personality traits most important to demonstrate with the partners, keep the following things in mind while preparing for the Partner interview:

Better synthesis – Your analytical mindset has already been tested in earlier rounds. Partners would like to test your client readiness. Partners pay more attention to how you draw your conclusions, communicate your conclusions, how you synthesis etc.

Comfort with less structured case discussion – Partners love to test your creativity, out of the box thinking. Multiple times in the discussion they can ask you your opinion on the data point/clarification that you had asked, to check your business acumen e.g. you asked, what is the growth rate of our client; partner responds what number would you want to assume? or open ended questions e.g. tell me more, is there anything else?

Consistent stories and deep dives – Partners would want to know your story. They want to see whether your decision to join McKinsey is consistent with your career story. Whether the achievements you have mentioned on the CV are consistent with your project stories. Partners will drill down into your experiences and achievements to the extreme. They want to understand how you react to challenges and how you think and communicate about your past work.

Feel free to get in touch with me in case of further clarification/advise on the preparation.

Cheers, GB

Not really and all interviews matter. Collectively feedback is considered to make the final decision.

On very rare occasions a partner might be willing to take a leap of faith and deviate from rest of the team who interviewed to either accept or reject the candidate.

Your focus should be on smashing every interview to the best of your ability and treat every stage as your life depends on it :)

At McKinsey, each interviewer has equal weighting to the decision of whether you progress to final round or receive an offer. During the decision meeting, more senior interviewers (i.e., senior partner) may challenge the junior interviewer (i.e., EM) more if there is a difference in perspective. However, the whole point of doing multiple interviews in each round is to ensure consistency across different interviewers.

Hi, 

MBB conduct a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of their candidates. The weights they attribute in scoring a candidate don't depend on the seniority of the interviewer but on the performance you achieve on that scoring variable.

Hope this helps.

Best,

Antonello 

Hi,

The final decision on every round will be based on collective feedbacks from the interviewrs. So seniority usually does not carry any weight during the discussions.

Best,
Iman

Hi there,

Honestly, what are we to say here? I can definitively say that sometimes it matters, and sometimes it doesn't.

Now, it *shouldn't* matter (i.e. both reviews should be weighted equally), but seniority obviously plays a role if that's the dynamic at play in that particular office with those two particular people.

I wouldn't think about this a second longer...none of it whatsoever is in your control

Hi,

Indeed, seniority matters in consulting, and although it's not a written rule, the Associate Partner will not argue too much with a Director. Thus, if a Director has a very strong negative opinion about your performance - it'll be hard for others to prove the opposite.

However, I do not recommend thinking too much about this. The more you think of it - the more stressed you'll be during the interview. Do your best and demonstrate your best performance.

Best

Hello!

Short story: no. 

Furthermore, they need to both agree. If they don´t, there would be a 3rd interview. 

Hope it helps!

Cheers, Clara