Guidance for prep for McKinsey interview in 1 week

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on the invitation from McKinsey!

I would be happy to share my thoughts on your situation:

• Given the limited amount of time and your lack of experience with consulting interviews, I would highly advise you to consider asking to postpone the interviews and working with an experienced coach like me to get the quality and acceleration you need in your preparation.

You can find more on this topic here: How to succeed in the final interview round.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare for your upcoming McKinsey interviews, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Hi there,

In a nutshell, you need to 

• learn a strong approach to cases and individual parts, including the right thinking techniques and communication.
• high-quality individual practice materials and peer practice opportunities

If you have only 1 week, the focus needs to be on quality over quantity even more so than for a normal preparation timeline -> The most effective and efficient way would be coaching, the second most effective way would be hiqh quality courses and practice drills.

Please reach out for a dedicated study plan and some resources.

Cheers,

Florian

I agree with asking for more time. You should also line up at least one mock interview with a McKinsey BA towards the end of your prep time (a week before the first round). If pushing back isn't an option, you must be very targeted in your prep. Here is what I would recommend with one week to go: 

1. Cases: a) understand the fundamentals of driving a case and delivering a compelling recommendation (very brief outline below); b) practice live with people who can give you quality feedback (feel free to look for time on my calendar -- can offer you the first session for free); c) do "drills" to strengthen your performance on the fundamentals (e.g., structuring, exhibit analysis, delivering recommendations)
2. Fit (PEI): prepare 5-6 stories using the STAR (situation, tasks, actions, results) or CAR (context, actions, results) method and ensure they cover the dimensions you will be assessed on (see below):
   1. Leadership: Your ability to lead teams, take initiative, and drive results in challenging situations.
   2. Problem-Solving: How you approach and solve complex problems, including your analytical thinking and creativity.
   3. Teamwork: Your experience working collaboratively, showing how you contribute to a team and manage interpersonal dynamics.
   4. Impact: The tangible outcomes of your actions, including how you've influenced others or driven change in your previous roles.
   5. Personal Motivation: Your reasons for pursuing a career at McKinsey and what drives you personally and professionally.
3. Questions: Many candidates neglect this part of the prep process and head into interviews with surface-level questions -- you want to close the conversation leaving a strong impression. I can offer you an approach to develop 3-4 thoughtful questions to impress your interviewer.  

Case cadence (25-30 min):

• Understand the problem / ask clarifying questions (2-3 min)
• Frame the approach / develop initial hypotheses (<2min to prep; 1-2 mins to walk through the main buckets, sub-issues, key hypotheses, and what data you’d look for – prioritize the 1-2 most important questions from what you know so far)
• Ask for data/run analysis – this includes dealing with exhibits that will be present to you (10-15min)
• Follow up on qualitative pieces of information to round out the recommendation (~2min)
• Prepare (1-2 min) / present (~1 min) recommendation

Hey! 

I recommend reaching out to McKinsey to ask for a postponement if possible—it’s common and could give you extra time. If they agree, you can focus more effectively on two key areas: preparing a strong personal impact story for the PEI (highlight leadership, problem-solving, and impact), and mastering interviewer-led case interviews.

Practice breaking down problems clearly and focus on structuring your answers. Let me know if you need any guidance or help with preparation—happy to support you!

Alessa

Agree with Alessa, you should try to postpone the interview to have some additional time for prepping

In terms of focus, I would suggest doing a few cases end-to-end (alone or with friends), and identifying where your largest gaps are (in which part of the case, e.g., is it the framework or is it the math part, or something else). And then spending some time just on the parts where you have gaps before doing end-to-end cases again

Hi there,

I agree with the sentiment here that you should try to postpone your interview. Applying at a consulting firm and not preparing for the interviews until you get an interview invite is not a recipe for success. More likely than not, you will not be prepared well enough in time to actually pass the interviews. Especially if you don't have a business background and have not done any case interviews before. 

So take that as a lesson for future applications: Be 80% interview-ready before you submit your application. Because if you do get invited, the interview date might only be a few days away (like what you have experienced).

Best of luck

Hi there,

Q: Does anyone have any advice/words of encouragement?

If you don’t feel ready, I would recommend reaching out and asking if it is possible to reschedule the interview. They won’t necessarily oblige, but there is no downside to doing so. Most candidates spend 100+ hours preparing, and it would be difficult to match that level of preparation in just a few days.

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In terms of how to prepare, I would recommend the following:

1. Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have before your interview and allocate a time slot for preparation in your calendar accordingly. As mentioned, many candidates need over 100 hours starting from scratch to be ready, so you might use it as a benchmark.
2. Start by reading good MBA Consulting Handbooks. You can find several for free online (INSEAD is a good one to start). Read the cases and try to apply your structure to solve them. Whenever you see something is missing, upgrade your structure with the new insights. Try to read at least a new case per day – in this way, you will absorb the information better with constant learning.
3. After the first 5-10 cases in books/handbooks and basic theory, start practicing live. PrepLounge can be helpful for connecting with other candidates for that. There is a relevant part of the interview score that is based on your communication, which you cannot practice at all if you only read cases.
4. Keep track of your mistakes and see which ones you are repeating. If so, try to identify the source of the mistake (feedback from experienced partners would be particularly useful for this). Be sure to focus on both the behavioral part (called PEI at McKinsey) and the case part during the mocks. The case part should also cover math and graph analysis.
5. Before the interviews, be sure to prepare your questions for the interviewers – a great way to show that you prepared in advance and to connect with the interviewers for a good final impression. Ideally, try to get information on who they are and study their profile to have good questions to ask.

If you are short on time, you might consider coaching. If you want, you can check out the program I created, which covers all of the above, at the following link:

▶ GYM Program

Good luck!

Francesco

Please ask for more time. They will not dock you for it, especially considering that recruitment is cooling down this period. 

Assuming you do get an extension; i recommend a few things

1. Start getting case books from MBA courses and platforms like these, and start practicing. At this point of your learning journey, any exposure (albeit it will be pattern recognition, rather than true first principles learning) will be beneficial
2. Prep with others
3. get a case coach
4. Take points 1,2,3 on what your gaps are, then practice on casebooks on specific sections you are poor in. Contrary to belief, this gaps can often be addressed without the need of a partner. Once you gain enough experience practicing on your own, rinse and repeat steps 2-3 to see whether these gaps are covered appropriately. 

good luck