How to ace McKinsey Interviews? | Mckinsey interview preparation | Pavan Sathiraju

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I worked as a management consultant at McKinsey for 8+ years. I interviewed candidates from different universities and as a part of off-campus hiring. In this video, I’ve talked about my experience of the interview process at McKinsey and how they evaluate candidates. This is my perspective and things might be different elsewhere but understanding this process will definitely help you to come up with the next best answer probably.

Understand if you get an interview call from McKinsey then it means that McKinsey believes that you are a great candidate and you can become a good consultant too. Otherwise, they wouldn’t waste their time and yours too. In the first round of interviews, there will be one or two associate managers who spend an hour interviewing each candidate. The value of their time in money is roughly $400-500. This means that Mckinsey will be spending about $1000 on you upfront during the first interview. So, now it’s your responsibility to ensure that you crack this interview. This video will help you crack the McKinsey interview.

If we see what happens in the actual interview then you’ll notice that there are two interviews in every round. The reason is very simple. If you don’t perform well in one interview, you can always perform better in the second interview. McKinsey interviews are done differently. If you perform well in any one of these interviews then you can get selected. If one of the interviewers thinks you were exceptional then they’ll debate whether to push you ahead or not. The whole interview structure is designed this way. I’ve explained the whole McKinsey interview process in this video. McKinsey interview preparation can get a lot easier if you follow these tips.

Before you go for the interview, you are assigned an interview buddy. These interview buddies are assigned to help you understand what is expected from you in the interview and what you’re supposed to do. This support system will try to help you through the interview process. The whole objective of the interview process is to make you shine. Typically each interview lasts for about 40-50 minutes and the first five minutes are dedicated to making you feel relaxed. To help you bring up your A game. There are two components to each interview. Case interviews and personal experience interviews.

Further, I’ve explained the McKinsey interview questions types and how to answer them. In the case interviews you are given a business situation that can have multiple outcomes. There is never a rush toward a perfect answer. In my case, I was constantly asked to consider multiple factors in analyzing the impact of advertising on laptop sales. There is never ever a perfect answer to a case question. If your answer is similar to everybody else’s then there is no reason for the interviewer to mark you as exceptional. A lot of candidates don’t contextualize their answers according to the question and sometimes don’t even listen to the question properly. Answer a question specific to the industry that you’re questioned about.

In personal experience interviews, you are supposed to demonstrate your personal experiences about overcoming challenges at work and solving complex problems. The issue is the majority of candidates come up with boring stories. Don’t tell a technical story but rather a personal one. Go back to your previous managers and colleagues and ask them if there was any time when you did something exceptionally well. Ignore the noise around the technical stuff. Collect two to three such stories from your colleagues and managers. Talk about what you did instead of talking about other factors and the impact on other members.

About Me

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Chapters

0:10 - Intro
0:11 - About me
0:26 - Video Pointers
0:52 - If you get a call
1:46 - What happens during interviews
3:17 - Interview buddy
4:20 - What happens in interviews
5:15 - Case Interviews
6:40 - Biggest mistake in case interviews
7:52 - How to contextualize answers
8:50 - Personal Experience interviews
10:50 - Summary
12:08 - Outro