McKinsey Interview Results

Hi there,

1) I've heard that candidates who are rejected tend to receive their notifications much earlier than those who pass. Is this true, and is it common for rejected candidates to be informed within two weeks?

Actually the opposite is usually true. If your performance is very good in an interview and you passed, you are normally notified earlier. However, this doesn’t mean that if you have to wait it is a no-pass - there might be delays for other reasons.

2) Additionally, can anyone shed light on why the announcement process at McKinsey can take quite a long time? Does waiting for a long time typically indicate that a candidate is likely to pass?

In general, the longer you have to wait after an interview, the less likely you are to pass. However, there might be delays even in case of a pass, for example due to the following:

1. Partners got busy and could not align
2. HR got busy and did not manage to call

If you don’t hear back after one week, it is fine to follow up with HR.

Good luck!

Francesco

Hi there,

before offer decisions are communicated, they have to be aligned between HR and the interviewers in the process. This can sometimes take time for various reasons. A few common ones are listed below for a general overview:

• internal scheduling conflicts between HR and the interviewers, especially when partners need to be involved
• the firm is still conducting more final round interviews with other candidates and they might want to wait for that to play out to look at the full candidate picture before extending final offers
• offers have been extended to “first choice” candidates and the firm is trying to keep “backup” candidates on hold until they know who accepted and who declined their first batch of offers
• holidays or year-end shutdown delay the decision-making and communication process
• there is uncertainty internally around budget and the exact headcount they can actually hire so they are trying to buy time

I know that this is unsettling and every candidate wants to have clarity on the status sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, you'll always have to wait for the official word. 

However, it is best to just assume a rejection and continue with the recruiting efforts with other firms until you have a written offer in your hands. That way you at least won't lose time.

Best

Hi there,

That is not true.

It depends on the office and specific situation but some offices will give you the offer/rejection on the same day even.

In general, you cannot infer anything from the wait time and there are many reasons for it (e.g., partners had no time to discuss, vacation season, waiting for all candidates to finish their interviews,…)

Fingers crossed for a positive outcome!

Cheers,

Florian

Hi,

1. No - usually other way around, you tell people that made it first and others second. 

2. It is not common for rejected candidates to be informed within a given timeline. In fact sometimes they are not informed for a very long time due to many reasons

3. It can take time for many reasons, the most common are

• Hard to get everyone's input in time and get them to agree on candidates
• People being out on vacation or very busy with a client deliverable
• HR processes that they have to follow before reaching out

Main conclusion - there is no real correlation between time to wait an decision on offer etc. Of course if it is really long (More than 3 weeks)  then typically it is not a good sign but again that is just a hypothesis.

All the best,

Udayan

Correlation between waiting time and likelyhood to pass / receive an offer is about zero.

You wait because client-related tasks always have priority over recruiting and interviewers are working on different projects, meaning that aligning agendas is not always easy / fast.

Hi there,

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

• First of all, I would advise you to not read anything into the timing of the response from any consulting firm, as this has nothing to do with the outcome.
• Moreover, nobody really knows for certain why the application processes in consulting, across firms and regions, has slowed significantly for the last several years. However, it also doesn’t really matter and you have to accept it.

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

Best,

Hagen