Alle Fragen zum Tag PEI - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hi Anonymous,

the PEI at McKinsey is structured around three key dimensions, leadership, impact and drive. I have provided a description for them below:

1) Leadership is about leading a whole team in a challenging situation and showing team management skills. Questions include:

1. Give me three examples of a time that you lead a group. 

2. What are some key lessons you have learned about motivating people? 


Here you want to emphasize how you overcome a difficult situation leading a team.

2) Personal Impact is mainly based on persuading someone about doing/not doing something. Questions include:

1. Tell me about a time that you persuaded your boss to go along with an idea you had.
2. Tell me about a difficult situation where you had to rely on your communication skills. 


Here you want to emphasize your influence on someone else, usually in disagreement with you.

3) Entrepreneurial Drive is about implementing something overcoming major difficulties. Examples include:

1. What was a situation where you set a major goal and been able to achieve it?
2. What has been your major accomplishment so far?

Here you want to emphasize the achievement you reached and the process that led you there.

Besides the previous dimensions, common questions also include:

• Tell me about yourself
• Why consulting
• Why McKinsey
• Why should we hire you

Best,

Francesco

Hi there,

The following high-level characteristics are good to include in your Entrepreneurial Drive example:

• Sets high aspirations for oneself
• Expects and achieves outstanding results
• Handles obstacles well
• Shows signs of entrepreneurship
• Has a willingness to take personal risks

In short, a strong example is: You set an ambitious goal, work hard to achieve it and you overcame difficulties (where you will make a deep-dive).

Needless to say, that's just a high-level summary of the core concept of Entrepreneurial Drive dimension. If you need additional support, let me know and we can arrange a coaching session for that as well.

Hope that helps!

Robert

Hi Olegs,

1) If you have an option, work story is more relatable than non-work story, and is a safer route. But if you really have a great non-work story, go for it. 2 things about the PEIs - a) It's always about the delivery. You should be top-down so the interviewer can let you know early on if they want to change the story and b) It's not about the 'what', but the 'why'. You need to spend time explaining why this was a great leadership/personal impact story for you. For instance, someone saving $10K for their company can have a much better answer than someone who saved $5M

2) This should be the same. Having a structured and genuine 'Walk me through your resume' is important and having multiple versions just makes it more confusing.

Hope this helps!

Nirmit

Hi!

It should have all the things that you've mentions:

1. 1 sentence summary what's the story is about
2. 2-3 sentences of context
3. What was exactly the problem
4. HOW you solved it - 3-5 actions that you've taken
5. IMPACT - should be ideally measurable and impressive

Best

Hi there!

It's a typical question and unfortunately most candidates do not prepare accordingly for the PEI, even though it contributes to ~50% of the overall evaluation - so I am glad that you are proactively tackling this topic!

Definitely, the McKinsey PEI is an interview format of it's own, and there are many many specifics to consider - it's not just talking 'something' about leadership etc.

In order to avoid copy/paste from other sources, you can find on my blog many short articles on the McKinsey PEI to get a much better understanding of this interivew format (https://pei.consulting-case-interviews.com/blog/). For a structured, complete guide to the McKinsey PEI I have summarized everything you need to know for PEI prep also in an ebook (https://pei.consulting-case-interviews.com/).

Hope that helps to get you started!

Robert

Hi! From my experience, 8 weeks is a realistic time frame for covering all aspects of becoming "offer-ready" while still having to work/study. However, it varies for each person, also based on whether some flawed habits need to be "unlearned".

Cheers, Sidi

Hi Anonymous,

as mentioned by Sidi, I would try to add a short story/example for each story, since this will help the interview to visualize the skill and remember you.

Everyone can say that their greatest strength is not giving up on challenges, but if you can relate that to your own experience where, for example, you did not quit on your startup/project although went almost bankrupt 4 times and had to rebuild your team from scratch when everybody left, and finally succeeded, you will be a lot more memorable for the interviewer.

Being too theoretical in answers is one of the most common mistakes people do in the behavioural part, and adding a short story is a simple but powerful way to avoid such a mistake.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hi,

Tell the manager:

1. About the mistake
2. The correct version

Best,

Hi Lucas,

I would be cautious with such stories. The main reason being that there is a high probability that your intervieweer just can't relate to the story and struggles to understand the context and challenges. It might also be interpreted as a bit "weird" to answer a question for your personal experience with a story that is embedded into a "virtual reality" context. So I would personally advise against this story, unless you are able to explain it extremely well and understandable to any non-gamer!

Cheers, Sidi

Yes, this is totally fine! If you exhibited the required qualities that McKinsey wants evidence form then this can be an excellent story! Leadership essentially means enabling the people around you to reach a common goal in the face of adversity/obstacles. This you can further break down by means of a logic tree - very similar to how you break down case problems.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi,

I recommend buying some great books on leadership that have all the relevant frameworks and go through them trying to assess where on that scale you are now. For example:

• The positive leader - John Muhlfeit
• High output management - Grove
• HBS articles on leadership

Best

HI,

Your question itslef illustrate well your abitlity to talk as well : you took 23 lines where the same question could have been asked in Max 3 lines :)

First of all we need to differenciate two mode of communication :

- conversational mode : establish contact with people, do whatever it takes, but it seems you are alredy good the

- working mode : be sharp and conscise, to the point. Avoid wasting time in prononcing unessary word. This is were you need to focus your effort.

My reco to sharpen your "working mode communication

- keep in mind time is constrained, so go directly to the point

- stay structured in your conversation : context + what you have done. If the conversation derives, go back to your structure

- be factual : announcing fact is usual shorter and more impacting and don't require overcommenting

- Listen twice as much as you speak

Hope this will help

Best

Benjamin

In spite of the question setup, I think the answer wont be tied to PEI exclusively. The personal ones, typically not directly work related yet somehow relevant.

The absolutely best I heard was a STEM PhD student ending up counting toads in a pond as part of a side project to help a friend with statistical analysis. It was relevant, it was funny (this applicant was an amazing story teller), it was very unexpected, and definitely memorable. He ended up joining BCG btw :)

The simple answer is no.

Hi,

Don't think about the time, since the interviewer will be interrupting you with the additional question. I recommend the following approach:

1. One sentence summary to give the interviewer the idea of what the story is about. Thus if it's not the right right story - he will tell you up front instead of interrupting in the middle.
2. In Situation, you should briefly provide the context, usually in 1 or 2 sentences
3. The problem usually includes 2 or 3 sentences describing the problem and your objective.
4. Then you provide a list of specific actions you took to achieve the goal. It should take 1 or 2 sentences per action (Usually 3-4 actions). Note that the interviewer can stop you at any minute and ask for more details.
5. The results part should have 1 or 2 sentences describing the outcomes. This part is finalizing your story - make sure it can impress the interviewer and stay in the memory.

It is important that the Interviewers will drill down into your story to understand the dynamics, your reactions and decisions and most of all the rationale behind them. They will follow up with other questions as you tell your story to make sure they understand it in enough detail. I recommend preparing for these additional questions in advance.

Best,

Vlad

Hi Anonymous,

I have replied to your questions below:

- is it done before resolving the case?​

Yes, the PEI is the starting part of the interview and includes the first 10-15 minutes.

- how many questions are asked? one main questions? A big question (e.g., tell me about a time you had to convince someone) and some follow-up questions based on my answer? or different questions not related to each other?

Normally 2 to 3 different questions, according to the level of details the interviewer wants / followup questions he/she will ask

- how much does the PEI part last? 15 minutes?

The range is normally 10-15 minutes.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hello,

I believe the key here is to understand what is meant by 'entrepreneurial drive'. From my understanding, entrepreneurial drive is when an individual goes above and beyond what was required to deliver an exceptional output. This does not mean you have to of set up your own business (although that could be a good example). Completing an assignment during an internship to an extremely high standard where you exceeded all expectation, despite significant challenges, would be a great example.

Good entrepreneurial drive stories must include:

• New approaches

• Having an idea and implementing it despite a not helpful scenario

• Achieving a goal which is clearly outside your regular role and responsibilities

• You wanted to achieve something by yourself (and no one else imposed this task on you) and can explain a strong motivation behind

• Several big obstacles which you needed to overcome - Ideally, you have 3-5 major obstacles which you needed to overcome in this situation to be successful – while the obstacle as such is needed as general context information, the interviewer will be mainly interested in how you overcame those obstacles (your “actions”) and what your thinking was (your “decision-making rationale”

One final point, you highlighted that often PEI stories cover similar themes (e.g. teamwork or leadership). This isn't a problem (if anything it's a positive because you can use one story for answering several different PEI questions), however, it's critical to focus on the aspects of the story which answer the specific PEI question being asked.

Hope that helps and good luck!

Best,

Harri

Hi,

As Robert mentioned there's no real shortcut for preparing for PEI. However, here are some tips that I found useful when preparing for my PEI:

1) First off, here are some key things to remember before you start your preparation:

1. Typically, the PEI interview is 10-20 minutes long.

2. The PEI interview will cover ONE topic for whole period focusing on a particular skill McKinsey wants to test. You might be asked to recall details down to the conversations you were having, how you felt and why you were feeling like that for any specific point in time during the story.

3. Questions are often predictable as McKinsey tend to ask similar questions every year which makes it easier to prepare for

2) The skills McKinsey are looking for in the PEI (from their website):

• Leadership

• Personal Impact

• Entrepreneurial drive

• Problem-solving

Be sure to develop at least 1-2 stories for each of the skills listed above. Ideally, select stories which can be used to cover more than 1 skill. This reduces the amount of information you need to retain. When developing your stories it's important to consider the following points:

• Timeline - Over what time period did the story unfold? Stories which unfold over a couple of days (or more) are often better than stories that happened over an hour. It allows the candidate to talk through how they reflected on the problem, formulated a plan, made a decision about the best way forward, etc
• Decision making & planning - Stories which include decision making and planning are better as they show the application of skills that consultants use every day
• Communication - Who did you communicate with? And how did you communicate with them? As stated above, it's possible that you will be asked to recall conversations during the interview so do think about what was said beforehand.

3) Create a list of typical PEI questions based on information available on Glassdoor

Think about how you would use the stories you've developed to answer the types of questions listed on Glassdoor. As stated, questions are predictable so practice is key.

4) Practice, practice, practice...

Finally, make sure to practice telling your stories. This will ensure that you are comfortable with all the details and can recall them without any 'waffle'. When giving your response, be sure to spend the majority of the time on the key details (e.g answering the question asked) rather than providing background information to set up the story.

If you have any further questions about PEI please feel free to get in contact.

Good luck with the preparation!

Harri