Hi,
Congrats on reaching the final rounds. Great achievement!
The final rounds are not harder. It's the same format - 30ish mins for the case and the remaining 20 mins for PEI. The difference is that most of the times these are actual cases that the Partners interviewing you have solved, so they are usually more passionate and can expect more creative and out-of-the box answers from you. But your preparation should not really be that different for final rounds vs what you've done so far. Bottom line - don't stress about it!
For PEIs - I'm sure you know by now that McKinsey interviews go deep on the answer rather than going broad. It is critical that you flesh out 4-5 good stories that cover topics like Leadership, Conflict, Personal Achievement and Entrepreneusrhip. Usually, these should be sufficient to answer all questions.
One thing I ALWAYS recommend is to start with a headline for your PEIs. For instance, if someone asks about Leadership say something like 'A time when I showed leadership is when I did X despite Y which helped us achieve Z'. This has 2 important benefits:
1) It shows top-down and concise communication which helps you stand out from the remaining candidates
2) It gives the interviewer the chance to tell you to change the story if they don't find the right content. This saves you 5-6 mins of going down the rabbit hole and then being told to change the story, which can be very frustrating
I'd be happy to do a Final Round McKinsey Case with you and work on fine-tuning your stories before your interview. Please let me know if interested. Thanks!
Nirmit
Hi,
Congrats on reaching the final rounds. Great achievement!
The final rounds are not harder. It's the same format - 30ish mins for the case and the remaining 20 mins for PEI. The difference is that most of the times these are actual cases that the Partners interviewing you have solved, so they are usually more passionate and can expect more creative and out-of-the box answers from you. But your preparation should not really be that different for final rounds vs what you've done so far. Bottom line - don't stress about it!
For PEIs - I'm sure you know by now that McKinsey interviews go deep on the answer rather than going broad. It is critical that you flesh out 4-5 good stories that cover topics like Leadership, Conflict, Personal Achievement and Entrepreneusrhip. Usually, these should be sufficient to answer all questions.
One thing I ALWAYS recommend is to start with a headline for your PEIs. For instance, if someone asks about Leadership say something like 'A time when I showed leadership is when I did X despite Y which helped us achieve Z'. This has 2 important benefits:
1) It shows top-down and concise communication which helps you stand out from the remaining candidates
2) It gives the interviewer the chance to tell you to change the story if they don't find the right content. This saves you 5-6 mins of going down the rabbit hole and then being told to change the story, which can be very frustrating
I'd be happy to do a Final Round McKinsey Case with you and work on fine-tuning your stories before your interview. Please let me know if interested. Thanks!
Nirmit