The process took 5 days. I interviewed at McKinsey & Company (New York, NY) in Jan 2010
Interview
Case interview and a personal fit part with questions of the "Tell me about a time when..." They were very inquisitive with fit questions, asking things like, What was your thought process, what did you say, how did they take that, and another full list of why's. The case part was very guided, the first question will always be "How would you go about answering this question" try to be very thurough in this answer. In the quantitative questions, always give the "business meaning of the numbers" when you reach an answer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time where you faced a difficult leadership situation
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