Summer Associate applicants have rated the interview process at McKinsey & Company with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 100% positive. To compare, the company-average is 68.7% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
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I applied through university. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at McKinsey & Company (Chicago, IL) in Jan 2013
Interview
The recruiting process at the school was enjoyable and positive. They make a real effort to let the students know about the company and to get to know the people.
There were two interviews, each 45 minutes long. The interviewers were pretty poker-faced, didn't help out too much, and were actually quite intimidating, and not very personable.
They say that they're rooting for you and they're trying to help, but it really doesn't feel that way in the interview. If I didn't tell them exactly what they wanted, they would look upset and would not make any effort to push me in the right direction.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The first case was a little unusual, the second was pretty standard.
On campus, met with three different partners/associate partners. Behavioral question followed with case. Behavioral interview they were fishing for something very specific in the story and more often than not I didn't even get to the end of what I prepared.
Case was much shorter than Case Book examples. They take your scrap work so make sure it's clean.
1)Framework (MECE is very important to them)
2)Insights from Graph (Important to hit 3rd level insights)
3) Math Calculation (Math wasn't complicated but had many coponents, organization is key)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time where you handled a conflict with a coworker
Long and hard. Overall, the people were really nice, but one of the partners in my very last interview gave me a very difficult time with one specific chart. The cases were much harder than I had actually prepared for.
I applied online. I interviewed at McKinsey & Company in Jan 2026
Interview
It consisted of three case interviews and a personal experience interview question. Mine were in one day back to back. The PEI was pretty standard. the case interviews were difficult.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a challenging situation you encountered when working with someone of an opposing opinion