BCG tells the interviewer profile before the interview by e-mail. What about Bain and McK? Is it Ok to ask HR who the interviewer is going to be?

Hi Daniel,

you should not ask HR at McKinsey or Bain to give you details about the interviewers beforehand. Simple reason is that the allocation is very often only done on the day of the interview (it depends on actual availability of interviewers). So asking HR for information before they have finalized logistics and planning would come across a bit weird I guess. At BCG, interview day planning is less "fluent" than at McKinsey, so giving you information on your interviewer is a defined part of their process. But this is not true for McK and Bain.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi,

On my interviews Bain was sending the profiles before the interviews, however, the interviewers could be replaced the last minute. McKinsey sometimes gives you the information before the interview. 

I guess you are asking because you want to prepare the question to the interviewer. I would try to be prepared in advance even without knowing the interviewer profiles:

• Industry questions: Check what are the projects / industries that are the most common in the particular office and prepare the industry questions. Chances are high that your interview will specialize in one of them
• Questions on the topics of your direct expertise (even if the interviewer has a different background, you'll be able to demonstrate your expertise and have a good conversation
• Questions on the trends in consulting that can demonstrate your intellectual capacity and help you make a good discussion (e.g. data science in consulting)
• Questions that cause positive emotions and highlight consulting pros (e.g. Mck people)
• General Non-business questions (e.g. team retreats)

Good luck!

Yes, it's absolutely normal practice, but according to feedback left by appliers, Bain is more likely not to disclose this information.

Hey anonymous,

At McKinsey, depending on the office, you will receive information on your interviewers in the day of the interview - a 1 page with their McKinsey CV.

Thus, when I was interviewing for them, I used to go a bit earlier for the interview and read this info, as this helped me into the final 5min of questions.

Btw, I know of offices that wouldn't share such information ahead anyway, because each interviewer has only 1/2 cases, if you know who's going to be you would just need to find people in your uni (or so) that already did with him/her; would remove fairness from the process!

Best

Bruno