I applied through college or university. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at McKinsey & Company (Toronto, ON) in Sep 2010
Interview
Pre-interview communication was excellent. I received a phone call from the recruiter in Toronto to go over some initial details about the process (e.g. number of interviews, expected dates, interview format, etc.) He also informed me that I would be assigned a 'buddy' who would help me with interview preparation. My buddy went above and beyond even delivering a case to me in the middle of night (for him) as 8 time zones separated us and that was the only time that worked.
There were 2 x 60 minute first round interviews conducted by 2 Senior Associates/EMs in the Toronto office. Standard 20 minutes of deep behavioral probing questions and a 30 minute case. Plus a few minutes of chit-chat at the end.
Second round interviews were conducted by Associate Principals and Partners. There were 4x60 minute interviews in this round and they were held back-to-back over a 4 hour stretch one Friday morning. Two of these interviews were face-to-face and two were conducted over video conference. Format was similar to the first round but the partners were a little more free-form moving from behavioral questions to case and sometimes back.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A high level of personal preparation is required to succeed in the McKinsey interview process. Candidates should know that they need to do a lot of self-reflection to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. There was nothing too difficult in the case portion of the interviews for someone who is well prepared. The difficult questions are the probing behavioral questions. Expect to go into great depth in your answers to behavioral questions (e.g. expect to quote verbatim what was said in conversations).
I interviewed at McKinsey & Company (Ciudad de Mexico)
Interview
Cinco entrevistas, cuatro de ellas con caso y preguntas de comportamiento. El caso combina análisis matemático, pensamiento estructurado, resolución de problemas, comunicación clara y la capacidad de justificar cada decisión de forma lógica y organizada.
Exactly as described on the website, great resources available to prepare. Recommend practicing out loud with as many people as you can as much as possible to ensure preparedness throughout the process
I applied in-person. I interviewed at McKinsey & Company
Interview
Website, online, teams meeting, in person meet up.
It was pretty straightforward and they knew what they were looking for. They had to do a couple of interviews to get a better understanding of my skills.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How many army generals in the northern hemisphere?
Associate applicants have rated the interview process at McKinsey & Company with 4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 73% positive. To compare, the company-average is 64.4% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Associate roles take an average of 41 days to get hired, when considering 606 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at McKinsey & Company overall takes an average of 40 days.
Common stages of the interview process at McKinsey & Company as a Associate according to 606 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 32%
Skills test: 16%
Phone interview: 10%
IQ intelligence test: 9%
Personality test: 8%
Group panel interview: 7%
Presentation: 7%
Background check: 6%
Other: 3%
Drug test: 2%
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