I applied through college or university. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at McKinsey & Company (Boston, MA) in Oct 2008
Interview
McKinsey starts with a written quantitative assessment that you must pass before moving on to first-round interviews. You will feel pressured for time. The criteria here is unclear for who makes it to interviews and who does not.
Interviews are very structured, the most structured I've ever seen case interviews. Each case has a short prompt with the problem statement, and then you're asked a high-level question along the lines of "how would you approach this?" or "What factors would you consider?"
The interviewer may choose one of the factors you mentioned to dig deeper, and will eventually show you a graph or chart or some other data. At this point, you're expected to do some math to arrive at an answer. Finally, they ask for a 30-second summary ("imagine partner on your case steps into the elevator with you and asks how things are going").
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All the cases are so different. Depends on what your weaknesses are. If you're not a math person, the quantitative part will be hard. If you don't know the business side well, then the big-picture question at the very beginning will be hard.
Had 2 rounds. First was a virtual interview with 2 sessions back-to-back. One case and one PEI in each. Second was a final in person round, with 3 sessions back-to-back with one case and one PEI each.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about yourself
Behavioral questions - There are only 4 PEIs which are listed in their career prep site
3 step process. first was a screening then followed with around 7 case studies. the case studies ranged in varying industries and scope. this was done over a course of 2 months
Too long, too many rounds, too many people interviewing you and you need to follow up several times in order to get a response. They give you the materials to prepare which is good, but everything else is suboptimal