Firm library
McKinsey & Company
A personal experience interview plus a problem-solving case in each interview, the Solve assessment, and an AI-assisted case now used in selected offices.
Key takeaways
- McKinsey & Company tends to run interviewer-led cases, where the interviewer steers each step.
- There is also a fit or experience interview.
- Practice interviewer-led cases until you can answer each question in a clear, answer-first way.
- Candidates and prep sources describe McKinsey cases as interviewer-led: the interviewer moves you through a set of questions, for example a structure question, a chart to read, a calculation, and a final recommendation.
- Application and Solve: You apply online.
- Understand how interviews typically run at McKinsey & Company, and what varies by office
- Know what each stage is designed to test
- Follow a preparation plan for this firm
Lessons
Look it up
At a glance: McKinsey & Company
How it positions itself
States its purpose as helping to create positive, enduring change in the world, and its mission as helping clients make distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in performance.
Case style
Interviewer-led: the interviewer drives the case.
What it values
Leadership (earlier name: Inclusive Leadership), Connection (earlier name: Personal Impact), Drive (earlier name: Entrepreneurial Drive), Growth (earlier name: Courageous Change), Structured problem solving, tested in the case interview.
Fit interview
The personal experience interview asks for one real story on one dimension and then probes it with many follow-up questions, often for 10 to 15 minutes (reported). The four dimensions were renamed in summer 2025 to Leadership, Connection, Drive, and Growth (reported by several prep sources that cite McKinsey's careers page). McKinsey suggests preparing two personal examples. Because each interviewer usually covers one dimension and candidates are advised not to tell the same story to a second interviewer, plan for at least two stories per dimension, eight or more in total.