Hi there,

First of all, I am sorry to hear about the rejection from McKinsey!

I would be happy to share my thoughts on your situation:

• First of all, I would highly advise you not to try to find out the reason for your rejection, because only the recruiter knows, and you won't get a detailed answer this early in the application process.
• Moreover, as with any other pre-interview assessment, the details of the McKinsey Solve are highly confidential.
• Lastly, how do you even know about your percentile? And how do you know that the decision is "primarily determined" by the McKinsey Solve result?

You can find more on this topic here: How to deal with a rejection from a consulting company.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on your specific situation, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

You can find the consulting salaries report 2024 here!

While I am not able to give you the passing score (if that actually exists… I don't think so), I can provide you the following information that may shed some light on your case:

• Usually only 20% of candidates are invited to interview (considering all elements). This means that usually being top 25% does not grant you an interview
• Consulting companies looks for solid candidates, but also for spikes. Being “20% quartile everywhere” is worse than being top 10% on your score and top 30% on the rest of your application
• Current recruiting environment is very challenging. Consulting firms are postponing interviews and starting dates. As such, they are probably only interviewing top 10% of applicants vs. the previous top 20%. 

(finally, consider and reevaluate the possibility that there is an issue with CV and CL; they may be solid, but most likely they are not top 10% - otherwise there's a good chance you would get an interview).

Sorry to hear about your rejection. After this you have to two options:

• Waste your precious time and energy finding out you were reject by a 1% percentile (you can't do anything about it, sorry)
• Invest your precious time and energy in broadening your application strategy and applying to other firms

I suggest the second :)

Best,

Alberto

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Check out my latest case based on a real MBB interview: Sierra Springs