Hi,
I had an interview with McKinsey a few weeks back and noticed something strange. In the morning briefing before the final interview rounds the HR guy couldn't stress enough that all participants today would be hired if they reach the McKinsey bar. During one of my interviews with a partner I asked her about DEI at McKinsey and she told me that they have a very strict hiring policy for lower levels of 50/50 male/female because they seem to have the same problem as described in this practice case on their website: https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/interviewing/shops-corporation I am a white male.
Anyway, during my final hiring day at McKinsey I aced the 2 morning interviews and got invited to the final afternoon interview. I asked for feedback on which area I could improve for the afternoon round - there was none.
My honest feeling is that I knew from minute of this final afternoon interview that there's no chance that this interviewer would let me pass this final round. I have done well over 100 cases and got lots of offers from other consultancies. With time, you just develop a feeling for cases and how they are asked and what the interviewer wants to get out of this. She asked such weird follow up questions and no matter what I said it was wrong/she wanted to hear something else. At the same time, she made lots of mistakes, for example by using incorrect units, e.g. mn vs. bn, when explaining things.
My final feedback for why I wasn't hired was that my initial structure (Q1) would contain too much information. She literally said “there is a good amount of high level and in-detail information but it's just too much information”. I think this was extremely weird feedback and not at all in line with the morning interviews (I provided a similar amount of info in all cases, regardless of McK btw).
I chatted with a friend at Bain the other day who's involved in hiring. He interviewed someone the other day and told me that the candidate did a very good job. However, they decided not to hire him because they would only have x slots left for males for this year to align with their DEI 50/50 hiring approach. So the candidate would have to hit unnatural standards to be considered for the x remaining male slots for this year. My friend felt really bad about it.
Since having the interviews a few weeks back, I can't get off the feeling that the case my friend described from Bain also hit me at McKinsey. Do other people (insiders from MBB or other applicants) have similar experiences?
