What to ask interviewer?

Hi,

The main objective is to have a good conversation and highlight your intellectual capacity and curiosity. Thus:

It is ok to ask:

• Questions that cause positive emotions and highlight consulting pros (e.g. Mck people)
• Questions on the topics you are excited about (e.g. data science)
• Non-business questions (e.g. team retreats)

It's not ok to ask:

• Questions that can cause negative emotions (e.g. work hours)
• Information you should learn before the interview (e.g. typical career path)
• Questions that may show that you are unfamiliar with consulting work (Like are you specialized in strategy or operations?)

Be prepared and good luck!

Hi there,

I would say it depends on the profile of the interviewer, stage of interview, anything "interesting" that the interviewer may have said earlier, and of course what you are really interested in learning about.

When I was recruiting, the ultimate goal I had in mind was to give the impression that I am eager, curious and also someone who listens and can hold a conversation well. 

As such, I would have a few buckets of prepared questions but try hard to tailor the question depending on some of the factors above. For example, I would usually try to start the question by linking it to something particular about the interviewer's background or something the interviewer said.

For example:

1. [For a partner / later round interview] I loved hearing about your consulting experience earlier - if I was also looking for long term success in this profession, what do you think were some of the key things that you think is important to being a successful consultant in the long term?

2. [For a more junior consultant / early round interview] As you know I am just starting out in my career, so learning and development is really important for me - how have you found the amount of learning and development you've had at Firm X? What do you think were some of the biggest learning areas?

Hey anonymous,

I fully support Mitch's point - the interviewer is not going to take any decision based on your final questions (at least for McKinsey!), so you should really feel free to ask about something that is really important and relevant for you (and that's not too general that could be easily find in a 1min google search or company presentation). But it also depends highly on the communication spin that you are able to introduce to your question: back in my days I've asked one my interviewer, who had a heavy financial background, why did he chose McKinsey/consulting over Investment Banking and still got my McKinsey offer (while I hear so many people labelling this as a too generalist question, which I still disagree).

Best

Bruno