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What's the most important advice you would give to someone facing McKinsey's final round interviews?
Overview of answers
I agree with everything that Adi has said! You need to approach final round interviews in the same way as earlier ones. Make sure you do some final practice to further improve your case delivery. Take the feedback you got after the first round and actively work on it during a few final cases. After that, the offer is yours to lose!
I have three not one :)..
- Most importantly, genuinly enjoy it, you deserve to be there
- Improve on feedback from previous rounds
- Come across like you are already in the firm- NO BS, NO arrogance though
All the best!
Went through process two weeks ago. Few tips:
- Be cool. If you're not a sociable person, think of the most sociable person you know and try to imagine yourself as them. McKinsey partners want to know you have people skills.
- Make sure your casing is impeccable. Unless you want to take the chance of rejection, go above and beyond to make sure there are no doubts. Competition is fierce and the current economic situation isn't great.
- Smile. Force yourself to smile before the interview. It'll be contagious. Also, don't forget to take deep breathes before your interview starts. If you stutter, pause yourself and calm down.
- PEI - prepare all your stories in-depth. Focus specifically on your role and human interaction, not the setup or the end achievement. McKinsey partners care about what you did and who you are as a person and leader.
- Be personal - Pass the airport test. Do your best to make small talk at beginning and end (unless you're very socially awkward, then don't). Treat them as your friend.
Ultimately, in my experience, the McKinsey partners are very nice and they become your friends at the end of the interview. Follow these general guidelines above and at the end of the interview, you should have that same realization too.
Cheers,
Engage the interviewer
Good luck
Antonello
Hello!
As an ex-Mckinsey consultant and part of recruiting team, here is my perspective:
How do these interviews with the partners differ from the first round interviews?
Every partner discussion is different and the direction the conversation takes depends on role that you are interviewing for, feedback that the partner has got from earlier rounds and of course the Partner’s personality.
However, generally it is advisable to keep the following things in mind.
1) Are the cases delivered with the same style of precision and structure as the first round?
- A lot of times, the Partner round case discussions are less structured. Partners tend to give real life case from their experience or sometimes they can also pick a situation from the candidate’s CV, make a few changes and turn it into a case.
2) Is the Fit format consistent with the PEI, or do the partners take these conversations in different directions?
- Generally, Partners will hit fewer topics but will go much deeper. So they will ask you about something and then you should expect a lot of follow on questions. They really want to understand the full story
3) Generally, what portion of the hour-long session is dedicated to the case study?
- approx. 30-40 minutes
3) What personality traits are most important to demonstrate with the partners?
See the answer below.
Keep the following things in mind while preparing for the Partner interview:
Better synthesis – Your analytical mindset has already been tested in earlier rounds. Partners would like to test your client readiness. Partners pay more attention to how you draw your conclusions, communicate your conclusions, how you synthesis etc.
Comfort with less structured case discussion – Partners love to test your creativity, out of the box thinking. Multiple times in the discussion they can ask you your opinion on the data point/clarification that you had asked, to check your business acumen e.g. you asked, what is the growth rate of our client; partner responds what number would you want to assume? or open ended questions e.g. tell me more, is there anything else?
Consistent stories and deep dives – Partners would want to know your story. They want to see whether your decision to join McKinsey is consistent with your career story. Whether the achievements you have mentioned on the CV are consistent with your project stories. Partners will drill down into your experiences and achievements to the extreme. They want to understand how you react to challenges and how you think and communicate about your past work.
Does it make sense to you?
Feel free to get in touch with me in case of further clarification/advise on this topic.
All the best!
GB
Be ready for anything
Memorizing every single case type, fit question, etc. is not what prepares you. You need to expect the unexpected and embrace every single ambiguous question, unknown area, point of confusion with a "I'm going to figure this out" attitude.
Be ready for any case type, any industry, any interviewer style, etc. etc!
Hi there,
Without knowing your current level and areas of improvement, no one can give specific hints unfortunately.
Besides reviewing PEI and cases I would recommend the following:
- Use the last day to review your previous mistakes in cases (assuming you have a file for that) – avoid new stuff if possible
- Have a good night sleep
- Keep a positive body language – smiling is a must – regardless of your perception of how you are doing. It will help to show the right attitude in the interview.
Best,
Francesco
Don't sh*t the bed!