Hi there, 

Sorry to hear it didn't work out. 

I doesn't have to have anything to do with hiring freezes. I have candidates currently interviewing in the Middle East so this complete hiring freeze is a bit of a scare. They are downsizing, that's fair, but not stopping interviewing altogether. 

If you didn't pass this stage it might also have nothing to do with the test. Perhaps it was the rest of your application that wasn't convincing, or just the fact that they had even better profiles. 

Overall, sorry to hear. The only thing you can do is to continue applying to other firms. Go as broad as possible at this point. 

Best,

Cristian

Hi there,

We are seeing a significant decrease in hiring across all firms at the moment, also in McKinsey.

Hence, it is likely that the average scores to move further in the process have increased as well unfortunately for the moment.

All the best,

Florian

Hi there,

First of all, I am sorry to hear about the rejection from 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:

• First of all, it's important to note that there may be a slowdown in recruiting among strategy consulting companies. While this might not be the case for your specific company and office, it is still worth mentioning. In the end, however, no one really knows.
• Still, even if you performed well on the McKinsey Solve, there could have been other factors that influenced the decision not to move forward with your application such as your overall profile, the specific application files, a potential referral aso.

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 there,

Sorry to hear about the rejection. In terms of your question:

Q: I received an automatic rejection email from McKinsey yesterday. Any inside information about a hiring freeze? 

McKinsey sent rejection emails in a few countries explicitly mentioning the possibility to apply again on September 2023 – this seems to indicate they are slowing down recruiting there due to lack of need rather than the performance of the candidate, as the usual ban is 12-18 months.

I haven’t seen that yet for the Middle East though, so it could well be that the rejection was due to the performance in the test / application material.

Best,

Francesco

Sorry to hear about that.

The test scores are an additional parameter as the first stage filter. If one performs poorly on such tests, it is pretty much a rejection. If one does really well, it might be a slight bonus but your overall profile and CV still really matter, especially if others also performed well on the test. 

In an environment where hiring is slowing down, the competition among applicants is much greater and firms will truly cherry-pick candidates for the reduced number of openings they currently have. All you can do is fire on all cylinders to get out as many applications as possible because it becomes a numbers game.

I also received the same rejection email from McKinsey Dubai yesterday. I spoke to a friend of mine(recruiter at McK), even though I think I did well too, she says performance was around the median of all test takers. Thus the rejection. 

Unfortunately recruiting is slowing down, meaning that requirements (on both CV and game performance) are going higher.