Dear Jose,

Thanks for the kind words and congrats on passing!

Now to your questions:

95% of partner rounds are just as standardized as the first round. The reason why you read about freestyle partner experiences is that they deviate from what people expect, hence they post about it more frequently online, hence giving others the impression it is much more common.

Additionally, partner rounds are often perceived as more challenging, just because it's a partner sitting across the table rather than a more junior colleague. It is purely based on the impression and not on the content. :-)

If there are any deviations from the standard McKinsey interviewer guidelines, expect them to be in the following realm:

• Focus on one or two areas where you were perceived as not as strong in round one, which sounds like in your case is mostly related to the opening of the case
• Only doing a case, only doing PEI instead of both (PEI is unlikely in your case)
• Doing two shorter cases in quick succession
• Challenging your answers more
• Not providing any time for you to think about the answer, making it more conversational
• Asking standard fit questions besides PEI (could be relevant in your case since the PEI went so well)

In any case, the most important thing is not to be startled by this and just keep working on the case or the PEI in a calm manner. In order to do that, have a look at the following article as well, which discusses frameworks for McKinsey interviews in more detail. In short, it is all about

• Breadth
• Depth
• Insightfulness

Read more about these here: https://www.preplounge.com/en/mckinsey-interview

All the best for your second round!

Cheers,

Florian

You have some great answers here.

To add, when it comes to brainstorming, I like to do the following

• Try to aim for a lot more points and don't restrict yourself
• Have buckets that are practical and more easy to implement
• Also have space for ideas that are more out of the box and you can state that these are some out of the box ideas before you speak about them

The first part of your question seems to be all about structuring. In my opinion it would be good to work with a coach specifically on that is structuring is the most important part of a McK interview.

Udayan

Congrats! 

1. Creativity:  it's difficult to generalise but my own experience is where one finds themself not being exhaustive enough with different ideas.  My best tip on this is to take a matrix approach:  take two axes which can have 2+ components and use the matrix to fill out different ideas which might be a blind spot.  For example, you are asked to improve profitability of a train operation,  first axis could be revenue/cost and the second could be 3-5 aspects of the operations (e.g., pre-boarding, onboard, post-journey, etc.) 

2. Analytical:  this should be referring to the structuring section of the case which McKinsey calls “Analytical Thinking”.  To me, this sounds related to your first point where it seems like your interviewers are keen for you to go more broad (and likely deep) in your thinking  

Working on your feedback is definitely priority number 1.  I would also continue to polish/rehearse your PEI stories.  Good luck!

Hi there,

Congrats on passing the first round and glad to hear the site resources were so helpful!

You should essentially expect more of the same. At the same time, always expect the unexpected :)

Continue training to solve any case type, any PEI question variation, etc. The key here is flexibility.

Additionally, focus on any weaknesses identified by yourself and them in the 1st round.

Finally, it never hurts to hire a coach! If a coach just improves your chances by 1% that's an ROI of $1,000+!