McKinsey’s recruitment process is the subject of many rumours: the number of rounds, trick questions, an “impossible” test to prepare for, supposed selection rates. Most of this information circulates without a source. Yet the firm itself publishes a fairly detailed description of its process on its careers website, with preparation advice and sample cases. This article relies on those official pages to describe a candidate’s path, from submitting the CV to the last interview, and clearly flags what is interpretation.
Entry points depending on your profile
McKinsey recruits at several points in a career, and each entry point leads to its own role.
- The internship. The French office offers Business Analyst Intern positions, often during a gap year or at the end of a master’s. On its careers in France page 🔗, the firm publishes separate application deadlines for internships and for full-time roles, which shows that the two follow their own calendars.
- The Business Analyst role. This is the entry role for master’s graduates. It is a generalist consulting role, within teams that work directly with clients.
- The Associate role. It concerns candidates holding an MBA or an advanced degree, or those who already have a few years of experience.
- Experienced hires and experts. The firm also recruits consultants experienced in an industry or a function, as well as technical profiles (data, design, development), with adapted processes.
McKinsey’s careers page states that the firm looks for problem-solvers from a wide range of backgrounds, from law to medicine, engineering, military service or professional sports. Business and engineering schools remain the main talent pools for Business Analyst roles, but they are not the only ones.
In practice, the choice of entry point determines the calendar: a gap-year internship is often prepared nearly a year in advance, while a role after graduation is frequently decided during the final year of studies.
CV screening and what gets you through
The first filter is the CV, possibly with a cover letter or answers to a form. McKinsey does not publish a screening grid, but its careers pages and job postings describe what it looks for: the ability to solve problems through quantitative analysis, to drive an independent workstream within a team, to communicate clearly in English and in the office’s language, and to work with people at all levels.
A CV that passes this filter makes these qualities visible in a few seconds:
- a readable academic record, with the school, the programme, and usable results (ranking, distinctions, competitive exams);
- experiences described by their impact: a question addressed, an analysis carried out, a result obtained, rather than a list of tasks;
- evidence of leadership: an association led, a project launched, a team coordinated, with a measurable result;
- flawless form: one page, no typos, sober layout. A typo is a poor opening in a job where you deliver documents to executive committees.
On its interviewing page, the firm also states that it accepts the use of artificial intelligence to polish a CV, but not to exaggerate or invent achievements. Everything you write must be something you can tell in detail in interview.
The strategy consulting intern CV template shows a presentation suited to a gap-year candidate, with education first and experiences outside consulting written up as engagements.
The Solve online assessment
For most consulting roles, McKinsey invites candidates to take Solve, a game-based assessment. The firm presents it on its interviewing page 🔗 as a test of natural problem-solving abilities, and states that there is no need to prepare, only to approach it with curiosity and creativity.
What can be said about it without extrapolating:
- it is not a knowledge test: it requires neither business knowledge nor financial calculations;
- it is about understanding complex situations: identifying the factors that matter, forming and testing hypotheses, making decisions with partial information;
- it is taken remotely, before the interviews, and using artificial intelligence tools is not allowed unless specifically permitted, as the table published by the firm specifies.
Despite the official message, many candidates try to “practise” the game. The most useful approach is simpler: be well rested, take the test in a quiet place, read the instructions carefully and manage your time. For technical profiles, the firm mentions a separate technical assessment, centred on programming, data analysis or system design depending on the role.
The case format at McKinsey
Problem-solving interviews, which the firm also calls case interviews, present a typical client scenario to evaluate your approach to a complex problem. McKinsey publishes several sample cases on its page, with their logic, the expected reasoning and suggested answers, and recommends working through them.
These sample cases have a feature worth knowing: they are broken down into a series of questions asked by the interviewer. One question asks you to structure the problem, another to interpret a chart, another to do a calculation, a last one to make a recommendation. Candidates often infer that the interviewer steers the flow more at McKinsey than at other firms; the firm does not put it that way, but the form of the published cases points in that direction.
This has two practical consequences:
- every question counts: you cannot make up for a weak structure with a good conclusion, since the interviewer assesses each step;
- transitions are fast: you need to be able to move from a structure to a calculation, then to reading a chart, without losing the thread.
Finally, the firm insists on a point we develop in our article on case interview frameworks: there is not one logical solution, and it is better to listen carefully and offer a tailored answer than a standard framework. Profitability cases are frequent; our article on the profitability case details the method.
The Personal Experience Interview
The Personal Experience Interview, or PEI, is the part of the interview devoted to your experiences. McKinsey describes it as a discussion of your accomplishments and challenges, intended to assess the skills that will help you thrive at the firm.
The advice the firm publishes is precise:
- prepare two personal examples for each of the four themes the firm presents on its page, with the challenges you faced and the actions you took;
- choose experiences that genuinely mattered to you and talk about your specific role, not the team’s;
- lead with reasoning, not actions: explain why you acted as you did before describing what you did;
- be prepared for a conversation, not a rehearsed story: the interviewer will dig into the details.
This last point is essential. The PEI is not a classic motivation interview: an interviewer may spend twenty minutes on a single story, come back to a decision, ask what a given person said, what you would have done differently. A story that is too polished quickly collapses. Choose experiences whose every detail you know, and practise telling them to someone who asks questions.
For experienced profiles, the firm also mentions, for some roles, an expertise interview, which helps it understand how your experience and skills will enable you to excel in the role.
After the offer, the administrative steps
Once the offer is received, several steps remain, less often described but just as concrete.
- Answering the offer. The firm generally sets a deadline for accepting. If you are waiting for another answer, say so clearly rather than letting the deadline lapse.
- Background verification. Like many employers, firms check the degrees and experiences declared. One more reason for the CV to be accurate to the month.
- The internship agreement or the contract. For an internship, a three-party agreement is signed between you, your institution and the firm; the French administration’s Service public 🔗 website details its mandatory clauses and duration rules. For a job, the contract specifies the grade, pay and probationary period.
- Onboarding. New joiners generally follow initial training before their first engagement, then are assigned to a team.
If your internship leads to a job within three months of its end, its length is deducted from the probationary period, as Service public points out: a detail to check in the contract.
To prepare each step with an up-to-date CV, from the first submission to the version you may later send to other firms, the ConseilCV editor takes care of the layout and outputs a PDF that screening software reads without difficulty. The strategy consultant CV template shows what this document looks like after a first role.
Frequently asked questions
Can you reapply to McKinsey after a rejection?
Yes, as a general rule, after a waiting period. The recruiter often tells you at the time of the rejection. Use this period to enrich your background: a new experience weighs more than extra preparation alone.
Are the interviews conducted in English?
Part of them may take place in English, even at the Paris office, depending on the interviewers and the role. Postings ask for the ability to communicate in English and in the office’s language: prepare your PEI stories in both.
Do you need to know the client’s industry to succeed in a case?
No. Cases are designed to be handled without prior industry knowledge. Good general business knowledge nevertheless helps you make realistic assumptions and word specific branches.
Are remote interviews assessed in the same way?
McKinsey says it aims for an experience as close as possible to an in-person interview. The firm recommends a quiet place, your camera on, and disabling AI note-taking tools, which could record or assist with the interview.
Sources
- McKinsey & Company, Interviewing at McKinsey 🔗
- McKinsey & Company, Carrières en France 🔗
- Service public, Stage d’un étudiant en milieu professionnel 🔗