If this really happened, it sounds terrible and I feel sorry for the partner and the company he belonged to. I personally have never heard any such thing happen in my 14 years of professional experience so far. But I am not entirely surprised at this episode..there are freaks everywhere and the partner was clearly having a bad day. Good for your friend that he avoided working for that firm and that partner.

Don't draw any conclusion based on this. Believe in your plan and stick to it. Do your best and right things will happen.

Hi there,

This is indeed quite shocking. However, with tens of thousands of interviews every year, there will of course be the ocassional horror story.

Like anywhere (Food safety, delivery, etc. etc.) there is always a .1% fail rate.

Sorry about this experience, but it is definitely far from typical.

Personally I have never seen or heard of this during an interview. We are trained specifically to not do this and also with new diversity & inclusivity initiatives this would be extremely poorly recieved internally.

Considering there are loads of MBB partners from non-target schools, this story has no merits for concern or discussion... The current McKinsey global MD/CEO was recruited from what would be considered a "non-target" but I think he's done just fine!

Wow, I've never heard about this before and sort of struggle to accept it as true. 

I had lots of colleagues in McK from non-target schools and then as a coach I worked with lots of candidates who had non-traditional backgrounds and got into MBB. So this really doesn't make sense to me.

Hi there,

This story seems unlikely to be true.

1. Why should a partner act in such a way? It doesn’t make any sense. He/she could have just made the interview short and reject the candidate afterward
2. What was the solution on the whiteboard about if the partner didn’t even ask a question and left?

If it is true – I believe your friend was extremely unlucky and got an exceptionally bad and rude interviewer. Not impossible but definitely not the norm in MBB.

Best,

Francesco

Unless you're absolutely sure the source is trustworthy, I'd assume the likelyhood of this being true is rather low. All MBBs have a strong incentive to treat candidates like humans an not come across as a*holes. Most former candidates will eventually end up in companies where they might work with MBBs on projects or even hire them. Treating people like shit doesn't help this course.

Having said that....the might be the occasional odd ball....And you're friend might have been the unlucky person to have him as an interviewer.

Hi Anonymous,

This is very strange situation indeed and definitely not the norm. I have never heard or seen anything like this, so I would not worry too much about it...

What might have happened - and I am just guessing here - is that there was an internal communication mistake during one of the previous rounds and that your friend was actually supposed to be rejected before this final round, but wasn't. But even then, they should have handled this in a more subtle way.

Cheers,

Pascal

Hello!
Honestly, for me, it looks like it is not true. It is a very weird and unexpected situation. I have never heard about such a type of problem and never face it. So I really hope that interviewer can`t behave in such a rude way.
All the best,

GB