McKinsey first round

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on conducting the first interview round with McKinsey!

I think this is an interesting question that may be relevant for many people. I would be happy to share my thoughts on it:

• While I can completely understand your ambition to read between the lines and as such control the situation, I would highly advise you not to do so since you essentially no longer control it. Moreover, even if the interviewer actually meant to give you a hint, he/she will not be the only person to decide whether you will pass the interview round or not.
• Instead, I would highly advise you to distract yourself in the meantime by spending time with family and friends, pursuing a hobby, or applying, preparing, and interviewing with other strategy consulting companies.

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

Best,

Hagen

Hi Giulia,

From my point of view, the way the interviewer said goodbye should not be seen as a positive or a negative sign.

Juste wait and relax.

Cheers,

Hi there,

I'm sorry but it literally means nothing.

Please move on.

The interview happened. Now, you have no control over anything that happens next.

This should actually be reassuring…you can move forward in peace and focus on things you can control!

Keep casing and preparing for your other interviews. Keep networking and applying to other firms.

McKinsey will get back to you when they do, and no amount of thinking/stressing about it now will change a single thing….use that time and energy on productive things!

Hi,

this phrase does not reveal anything about your chances to advance. 

It is just a common courtesy to say. Interviewers are not supposed to give the candidates any hints as to how their evaluation will turn out. Plus, the decision of whether someone advances to the next round is an aggregate of all the interview evaluations of that round. So it is often not only up to one interviewer anyway. 

You will just have to wait for the official feedback.

Fingers crossed!

It is a standard phrase designed so people do not read into every statement too much :)

It doesn't mean anything I'm afraid. We're trained as interviewers to say kind things which don't encourage / discourage the candidate. It may be that one interviewer loves a candidate, the other does not, so you don't want to say something encouraging just in case the other interview went badly and it's a rejection. So just take it as kindness and nothing more. 

Hi Giulia, 

good question & congrats on having been selected for the first round. It is important to know that interviewers are trained to be friendly to interviewees to represent their companies in a positive way. This is independent of how an interviewee has performed. So ultimately, I would not read too much into it. 

Good luck!

Andreas

I agree with Alexandre, don't read too much into it.

Quite often the decision on whether to progress candidates through to the next round will also be informed by discussion with other interviewers and the hiring team not the interviewer alone so perhaps your interviewer was wishing you luck for that decision.

Most likely, this was a generic closing remark like “have a good day”

Good luck!

(edited)