What are the most common personal questions at the Mckinsey first round interviews?

Hi Anonymous,

in general, the most common fit questions are:

• Tell me about yourself (personal overview)
• Why consulting (motivational)
• Why McKinsey (motivational)
• Give me an example when you led a team (leadership)
• Tell me about a time when you had to convince someone not agreeing with you (impact)
• What has been your major achievement so far (drive)
• Why should we hire you (motivational)

For McKinsey PEI, there is a particular focus compared to other companies on the leadership, impact and drive areas. Many candidates think PEI is less important than the case, since it’s shorter, however they actually have equivalent importance – if you are not convincing in your stories you won’t move to the next round.

The best way to prepare is to complete the following check list:

1. Understand the difference between, leadership, impact and drive areas. You can find a link with their differences here: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/mckinsey-pei-difference-drive-and-personal-impact-918#a1780
2. Identify good stories for each area. Ideally you want to have at least two stories for each area. Three would be even better.
3. Use a structure for your story. Both STAR and PARADE structures would work well
4. Identify for each story one sentence clarifying what you are going to discuss and start with it. Think of it as the title of a journal article.
5. Practice live, collect feedback from people listening to you, reiterate till when you get fluent and convincing

Best,

Francesco

(editiert)

Hey anonymous,

Francesco already gave you some ideas on how to prepare...so let me just address the following point: "how important is to perform well at them?"

It's critical, really crucial (as important as the case itself), and you would be surprised with the number of people that arrive to the actual interviews underprepared for this part...and fail due to it

Best

Bruno