McKinsey C&I Analyst Final Round Interview

Question

Hi everyone,

After a loooong wait, the HR team finally got back to me and confirmed that I’m moving on to the final round! 🎉 They mentioned that the final round will consist of two interviews:

Technical Interview: A deep dive into how I conduct research, methodologies I use, and discussions around industry-specific terminologies.
PEI + Case Interview: With a consulting partner, focusing on the usual format.

Do you have any tips on how to best prepare for this? Also, is there any significant difference between a case interview with a Junior/Associate and one with a Partner?

Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Hey there,

Congrats on passing the first round!

Second round

95% of partner rounds are just as standardized as the first round. The reason why you read about freestyle partner experiences is that they deviate from what people expect, hence they post about it more frequently online, hence giving others the impression it is much more common.

Additionally, partner rounds are often perceived as more challenging, just because it's a partner sitting across the table rather than a more junior colleague. It is purely based on the impression and not on the content. :-)

If there are any deviations from the standard McKinsey interviewer guidelines, expect them to be in the following realm:

Focus on one or two areas where you were perceived as not as strong in round one, which can be specific case questions or PEI stories
Only doing a case, only doing PEI instead of both
Doing two shorter cases in quick succession
Challenging your answers more
Not providing any time for you to think about the answer, making it more conversational
Asking standard fit questions besides PEI

In any case, the most important thing is not to be startled by this and just keep working on the case or the PEI in a calm manner. In order to do that, have a look at the following two articles that I wrote:

Case: https://www.preplounge.com/en/mckinsey-interview

PEI: https://www.preplounge.com/en/mckinsey-pei

Technical Interview

I have written a detailed article on it. Reach out for the link!

Overall preparation

I have created courses for all parts of the (McKinsey) case interview with hours of up-to-date and effective theory videos and thousands of practice questions. Among other things, they cover

Structuring for Frameworks and Brainstorming
Exhibit Interpretation
Case Math

Feel free to reach out for more information.

All the best for your second round!

Cheers,

Florian

Answer 2

The interview process and evaluation criteria for the PEI and case are the same as in previous rounds.

Expect more challenging questions and less time to think.

For the technical interview, prepare strong stories within your area of expertise that highlight what you can discuss, what you can do, and what you have repeatedly accomplished (you are an expert).

I’ve conducted over 100 Round 2 interviews at McKinsey, including TEIs.

Happy to help you with this—just send me a message.

Best,

Alberto

Answer 3

Hey there,

McKinsey typically has one case library where both Partners and first round interviewers get their cases from. So really, there's no difference from a type of case perspective.

The difference comes in with some of the additional features a Partner may ask or be interested in, for example: common and business sense, maturity, open mindedness, fit and personality/culture etc.

So you'd want to make sure you focus on these aspects too in addition to the technical case skills

All the best