McKinsey Personal Fit

Question

Hi!

I was told that McKinsey in the office Im interviewing with will ask me for my story within 1. Leadership, 2. Personal Impact and 3. Entrepreneurial Drive.

For Leadership, I feel pretty confident in my story (it relates to me being a leader for a group in which there are language barriers and how I overcome this).

However, for Personal Impact and Entreprenurial it is so much less clear! For personal impact, I tried giving my "mock buddy" the story in which I persuaded a shy girl in my class to join Toastmasters (a public speaking club). But he said that he though "Personal Impact" more often would be demonstrated through one making a superior (at work) change their minds? The one example I could think of at the moment would perhaps be when my boss at a summer job divided up a few companies between me a my colleage to look for some key trends; she gave them to us in alphabetical order, but I said that we should maybe do it per sector, and she agreed. But that story falls very flat in my mind! Not so much more to it?

For entrepreneurial, it is very hard to come up with something too, especially since I havent founded a company or started my own business or anything like that. I have a good example of a volunteering service I managed, but this was 8 years ago in high school! I.e. doesnt feel that relevant. Yeah, I guess Im really struggling to find an example for this that one can talk in depth about... I also think that it would easily overlap wih personal impact/persuading people. For example, I guess I could talk about how I convinced a business leader to be interviewed for a project magazine at university.. Because it would bring a sense of ethos to our entire project. But again, perhaps isnt very "entrepreneurial.."

Anyone has had experience with personal impact questions from McKinsey? What have been your feedbacks?

Thanks in advance! //Struggling

Answer 1

Dear Alice,

For your clarification I want to share with you some questions which can help you to streamline your stories into right direction:

Leadership

Tell me about a time you led others.
Tell me about a time when you were on a team that had a conflict that was keeping it from achieving its objective.
How do you motivate people?

Personal Impact

Tell me about a time you had to convince someone to change their mind on something important to them.
Tell me about a difficult situation where you had to rely on your communication skills.
What do you want to be remembered for and how are you achieving it?

Entrepreneurial Drive

Did you ever have a goal that you weren’t able to achieve? What did you do?
Tell me about a time that you dealt with a tough problem.
Tell me about a failure.

Hope it helps you,

Best,

André

Answer 2

I think that are two key things when thinking about the PEI(Personal Experience Interview) at McKinsey:

Your stories need to be very specific. When you tell a story, it is important to share all the details that go with it. For example, if you are telling a story about when you convinced someone, they'll want to know how was that interaction, what did you say, what did the person responded, and so on. Write down your story.
Don't confuse the stories. Leadership is about leading teams, is about managing people to achieve one specific goal and dealing with the innerworkings of a team, it is not about achieving exceptional results (it can be a failed story). Personal impact is about how you, and not the team, achieved exceptional result. Don't ever use the word "us", always "I". Entrepreneurial drive is not about founding a company, is about having an idea and implementing it despite a not helpful scenario.

Hope this helps clarify a little bit.

Good luck!

Answer 3

1) Concerning Personal Impact = Convincing one specific other person (not multiple persons at once, no team included in this dimension) about a topic, so that he finally changes his opinion

What is a ncessary core ingredient for s strong Personal Impact example is an underlying conflicting interest – and both parties need to have a strong interest in the outcome of the situation.

Ideally, your example is going on over at least several days, better weeks for showing a strategic masterplan on how you convinced this person.

2) Concerning Entrepreneurial Drive = Achieving a goal which is clearly outside your regular role and responsibilities

You wanted to achieve something by yourself (and no one else imposed this task on you) and can explain a strong motivation behind. Necessary core ingredient of a strong example are several big obstacles which you needed to overcome.

Answer 4

Hi Alice,

thanks again for participating so actively in our forum.

An answer that was given by Guennael on another thread might be helpful for you. He is explaining the differences between leadership, drive, and impact:

Have you ever taken a leadership position, in a sporting club, student organization, non-profit... even study group?

Drive is the fire in your belly: what do you do when you want something bad? Are you going to make it happen regardless of time commitment or difficulties?

Impact is the result your actions have had, typically on others. Did you raise money for your organization? Increase membership? Help a couple of poor kids learn how to read? If you hadn't been here, how much worse would things be? That is the impact you've had.

Drive typically comes before impact, but these are two very different concepts

You can find the original thread here: Different selection criteria of MBBs

Hope this helps!

All the best for the rest of your prep,
Astrid

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Answer 5

Hello!

On top of the insights already shared in the post, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB" has been recently published in PrepLounge´s shop (https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/integrated-fit-guide-for-mbb-34)

It provides an end-to-end preparation for all three MBB interviews, tackling each firms particularities and combining key concepts review and a hands-on methodology. Following the book, the candidate will prepare his/her stories by practicing with over 50 real questions and leveraging special frameworks and worksheets that guide step-by-step, developed by the author and her experience as a Master in Management professor and coach. Finally, as further guidance, the guide encompasses over 20 examples from real candidates.

Feel free to PM me for disccount codes, since we still have some left from the launch!

Hope you find it useful!

Best,

Clara

Answer 6

Personally, I like your story of persuading a shy girl to join toastmasters, since you did have impact on that person and is quite unique story. I also like your volunteering service as an example of entrepreneurial drive. I cannot tell you what other example to use, since I dont know you and dnt know what experience you have, but I think the most important part is not the story itself, but what you make of it. Using a story-telling approach is a good method for the PEI questions with McK: start explaining the context of the example youre using (1), elaborate the problem you (and your team) had (2), discuss the solution you used to solve it (3), if in a team tell about the impact you had in solving the problem (4), finish by evaluating how you handled it and the lessons you have learned. You can prepare for this part really well and adapt the story based on the specific question the interviewer is asking. Don’t spend too much time on the context, but rather on the other parts of the story and especially what your role was.

Answer 7

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