Mckinsey PEI dimensions

Question

Hey All,

I hope all is well and that you and your families are staying safe during these times. I have two questions.

Question number 1: is regarding the Mckinsey PEI specifically the dimensions. In Mckinsey's website you see four dimensions, however, people only talk about the three Dimensions which are Leadership, Personal impact, and Enetupernurial drive. Should I prepare a story for the last one which is problem-solving or just consider these three?

Question number 2: You get many different ways to ask about one dimension and what's confusing me is that some of the questions for a single dimension would require different answers, for example in the leadership dimension, you would get, Give me three examples of a time that you lead a group and another question would be Tell me about a time where you were leading a team and you needed to force someone to work when they didn't want to do it. So for the first question, you would be giving three different examples and in the second you would give a context about a person and how you made him work. How would you go about formulating stories that would take into account this difference?

Thank you

Answer 1

Hi there,

To your questions:

1) You should prepare 2-3 stories for each of the 4 dimensions

2) Regardless of how the interviewer frame the question, the dimensions and what you need to prove are always the same:

Entrepreneurship: focusing on how you delivered impact out of your comfort zone
Leadership: focusing on leading a team towards a challenging goal
Personal impact: focusing on persuading an individual or group with an opposing opinion
Courageous change: focusing on dealing with ambiguity

Best,

Alberto

Answer 2

Hi!

1. Problem Solving is NOT part of the PEI! Problem Solving is the most important dimension, and this is why it is tested in every single interview. The instrument to test PRoblem Solving is the Case! The other three dimensions are tested in rotation via the PEI.

2. "Give me three examples..." is a very uncommon way to ask in the PEI. In fact, it goes against what interviewers are trained for at the Firm, so this example seems very weird to me! The PEI should be about one specific situation where the candidate has to show the exact qualities that the Firm believes makes you successful as a consultant. For Leadership, this means at the very core "Enabling the people around you". So a leadership story should be about a situation where you were part of a group/team that was working towards a common goal and facing some (internal or external) obstacle. So you have to explain precisely what YOU did to help the team overcome this obstacle. This is what Leadership is about according to the definition at McKinsey.

It is indeed crucial that candidates understand what the PEI dimensions actually mean - it is not very self explanatory unfortunately.

Cheers, Sidi

Answer 3

Dear A,

Agree with Sidi that problem solving part represent case solving where you can actually how you solve the problem in action.

Best,
André