Mck PEI Interview Tell me about a time you have failed

Hi there,

This question is not really testing the standard McK PEI questions, which as mentioned by Erica are related to:

1. Personal impact: Tell me about a time that you persuaded someone to go along with an idea you had.
2. Entrepreneurial drive: Tell me about a time you achieved something impressive in a limited period of time
3. Inclusive leadership: Tell me about a time when you led a diverse team

However, I helped a candidate once who got this question at McKinsey before a question on leadership. So you may indeed get this question, although it is not common.

If asked, I would not use the failure in consulting for the following reasons:

1. You cannot show yet you have applied the learning to be successful, given you are still interviewing
2. The topic is not impressive and common to many candidates
3. You would remark that this is your second attempt which may lead to more challenging follow-up questions

Best,

Francesco

Hello,

I agree with the other coaches here - this isn't a “serious” enough failure in the sense that everyone gets job rejections and the lessons you learned from that are probably only applicable in that context. I would dig deeper on more active experiences you had - in other jobs, groups, extracurriculars, etc. Identify an actual failure, and workshop it to showcase some skills sought for in the PEI interview, and be sure to talk about what you learned from it.

As others have mentioned, that is not a McKinsey PEI dimension. It's always good to have answers for generic interview questions but talking about a failed job application wouldn't be a relevant “experience”.

Hi there,

This isn't enough and isn't a real failure (everyone gets turned down from offers).

You need a significantly more serious failure, and, ideally you need to have come back from this failure. 

My personal failure story was about a startup that I created. It was doing extremely well (exponential growth in follows/customers), but it was shutdown due to Time Warner buying soundcloud and affecting our business model legally.

I failed to account for legal implications in the business. However, in the story I highlight how I was actually right in my business idea, built it successfully from the ground up, and just failed on x particular aspect. I then highlight my lessons learned.

Make sense?

Hey there,

This is not a PEI question you need to prepare.

Have a look at this article to understand WHAT stories to prepare and HOW to communicate them: https://www.preplounge.com/en/mckinsey-pei

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there. The three dimensions McK test potential candidates are inclusive leadership, personal impact and entrepreneurial drive, among which personal impact is the dimension that comes up the most (again based on experience, not statistics :)) 

Bear in mind that regardless of the specific question, you’re still being tested on one of the three dimensions mentioned above. Failing your consulting interview and how you crawl out of it doesn’t really demonstrate your leadership or personal impact. It could show your entrepreneurial drive somehow but it’s still a stretch. For this dimension it’s best to talk about your experience of initiating sth. and seeing it through. 
 

Therefore the short answer is no, it’s not a good story to tell :) Hope this helps!

Dig a little deeper into your school, uni, internship or professional experience. Am sure you can find a better example of when things didnt go your way

Hi!

I totally agree with the other coaches.

Your story should be more around a relevant experience (e.g. a failure at a previous job, etc.). I am sure you can build a more solid story to tell.

Best,

Anto