Firm Profile
McKinsey & Company
Prepare for personal experience and problem-solving interviews, with role-specific assessment guidance.
Overview
McKinsey’s guidance for most client-facing roles describes a Personal Experience Interview followed by a problem-solving interview. Some roles also involve expertise interviews. Solve is part of the process for most consulting roles. Your recruiter confirms the format relevant to your application.
Interview process
- 1
Application and assessment
Check the role requirements and any assessment instructions in your invitation.
- 2
Personal Experience Interview
Prepare to discuss your specific role, actions and challenges in depth.
- 3
Problem-solving interview
Explain your analysis of a business scenario and respond to the evidence provided.
- 4
Role-specific stages
Confirm any expertise interviews or other requirements with the recruiter.
What they look for
- Clear reasoning tied to the question being asked
- Accurate calculations and a practical interpretation
- Specific evidence of your own actions and impact
- Willingness to revisit a hypothesis when the data changes
Plan your preparation
Build depth in both personal examples and analytical responses. Practise explaining one decision you made, why you made it and what changed as a result. Then have a partner ask follow-up questions about the details.
| Preparation area | Practice task | Self-check |
|---|---|---|
| Personal experience | Select specific examples and reconstruct your own actions | Can you explain the difficult choice and its result? |
| Case discussion | Practise structuring a prompt, doing the calculation and drawing a conclusion | Does each answer address the question asked? |
| Assessment preparation | Read the official instructions and check the required setup | Do you understand the format and logistics? |
Adapt to your invitation
Use your recruiter’s instructions to confirm the assessment, interview stages and logistics for your role and location. A general firm profile should not be treated as a fixed global schedule.
Separate a practice habit from a firm rule. Preparing to guide an analysis is useful, but the interviewer may direct the next question. Listen, answer the prompt and make your reasoning easy to follow.
Review your evidence
After a mock interview, record one analytical issue and one communication issue. Repeat the relevant section before attempting another full case. For personal examples, check that you can describe the context, your own decisions and the result without relying on a memorized speech.
Use the firm’s sample material to understand its guidance, then vary the problem in practice. Change the numbers, add a constraint or ask a partner to challenge an assumption. The aim is to make your reasoning adaptable.
Official interview resources
The process overview above is based on McKinsey & Company’s official interview guidance, reviewed September 2026. The practice tasks are Quick Prep’s preparation suggestions. Compare the other firm profiles and explore case interview practice.
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