Must the two final round interviews be great to get an offer? - McKinsey

Hi there,

Everything is still possible! The whole point of having at least 2 final round interviews is to get sufficient data points for evaluating you with the following logic:

Everybody can make a mistake or perform poorly on a question, even the best candidates, but not everybody can randomly excel across the different scoring dimensions if they don't truly have the potential that McKinsey is looking for.

Let's use math as an example:

• If you did really bad across various dimensions in the first interview, including math, it’s game over no matter what.
• If you did well in the other dimensions but screw up math in the first interview, they'll test math more rigorously in the second interview. If you screw up math again, there's now sufficient evidence that you have to develop that particular skill further and you're likely to fail the final round.
• If you screw up math in one interview but perform at a distinctive level in the other, the screw up could now be regarded anomaly and you might actually have what it takes (at least for this dimension). The premise being that having a random moment of genius when you're generally bad at math is not really a possibility.

Bottom line - get as much detailed feedback as possible in terms of where you were below the bar and prepare to be tested in the last interview on exactly those dimensions. If you do a great job, you'll have a good shot at getting an offer.

Hope this helps! Best of luck!

Hi there, 

No, the last two interviews don't need to be perfect. 

I actually made a couple of mistakes in my final one and still passed. 

The most important thing is to make sure you improve on the feedback given after the first round. 

You are not expected to be perfect. You are expected to meet the bar. It's more important to show that you are genuinely thinking through the case, interpreting the situation, structuring well from first principles, than getting everything right. It's not like the consultants themselves get everything right. 

Best,

Cristian

Hey there,

In order to get the offer at McKinsey, you need to perform consistently well across all interviews, both during the first and the second round.

McKinsey runs a strength-based feedback culture and that is also reflected in the interviews and their evaluation.

In practice this means that you should cover your baseline well (e.g., not make any mistakes or only minor mistakes once in a while in some elements of the case) and show some spikes in other areas of the interview across several interviews (e.g., exceptionally exhaustive structure with strong hypotheses). On the flip side, that means that you should stay away from grave errors or merely a good performance throughout the case. 

Now to your question:

It is always tough to say from the outside. Sometimes candidates assess themselves too harshly, other times not harsh enough. It might very well be that in the eyes of the interviewer your performance was good with a couple of spikes. Regardless, you need to bring your A-game to the last interview because, as said before, it is all about consistency.

Regarding your other question, depending on the office, 3 interviews are often the standard for the first round.

Have a look at the following articles for your final interview prep:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/mckinsey-pei

https://www.preplounge.com/en/articles/mckinsey-interview

Best of luck!

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there,

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1)  Can a great performance in my last interview still land me an offer with the assumption that I messed up the first one?

To pass the final you need to have both interviewers agreeing on the fact you should get an offer. If there are doubts, you may be offered to have a third final round interview. If you then do well with that, you will get the offer.

2) Another thing that worries me is that I needed 3 sets of first-round interviews to progress to the second round. Could this factor negatively when the decision to extend an offer is being made?

I can’t see why that should be the case, given you moved to the final. If anything, they will address any weaknesses they noticed in the first round in your other final.

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In terms of the self-evaluation: I know a lot of candidates who self-judged themselves too hard and were sure they would have not passed. The same actually happened to me.

I thought I bombed my first final round at BCG. I got a stress interview and the interviewer challenged every single assumption I made. 

It was also very unusual as it consisted of two market sizing and a brainteaser.

I was so sure I would have been rejected I thought about leaving after the first interview (I already had another offer) without waiting for the second one. I stayed just because I thought it would have been too stupid to do something like that.

I did the second final totally relaxed as I was sure it didn’t really matter and I would have not passed. In the end I got the offer.

So my recommendation is: forget completely about the first interview. Concentrate on doing 100% in your other final. 

If you do excellent and they still have doubts, they may ask for the additional round. But that doesn’t really matter, as you should focus just on doing your best in your next step now – your next interview. That’s what you can really control at this stage.

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Good luck!

Francesco

All interviewers need to be supportive about you joining McKinsey.  In other words, if one feels you don't have the fit/meet the bar then they will not extend an offer.  

It's hard to say but as they say “It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over”.  Sometimes you see final round candidates being asked to come back for an additional interview when performance was consistently very strong with one hiccup.  

Fingers crossed!

Others have covered already the standard required etc.

One additional perspective that might be useful - consulting firms often run different forms of stress interviews. That is, they will intentionally make you feel like you are doing poorly in the interview to test you how you respond to pressure (replicating in some ways the pressure clients will put you under in the job).

So I believe it is important not to get too caught up in assessing your performance real time and rather focus on doing the best that you can in the moment regardless of how it is going. 

Hello!

What needs to happen is that all interviewers reach an agreement - hence, you wouldn´t necessarily need to wow all of them, but do it well enough that they would agree with you joining. 

In cases in which it´s on the fence, there is that 3rd interview, that you have already experience. 

Hope it helps!

Cheers, 

Clara

Hey there, 

I wouldn't spend too much time assessing past interview performance and instead focus giving my best in the final interview. It's difficult to predict  whether somebody's perceived performance meets the actual bar, I wouldn't place too much emphasis on it. 

Thanks 

Hi there,

Yes, you need to do well.

How well? 7.2567 out of 10.

Jokes aside, this is so dependent across region, timing, candidate profile, etc. 

How well did you do? We don't know!

Unfortunately all you can do no is sit tight…and apply to + interview with other firms!