My experience was pretty standard. 4/5 impressive people, who gives you the impression of they are interviewing or judging, rather getting to know you. 1/5 was a pressure interview, however, we will come back to it.
For the PEI, pretty standard. Approaching deadline/out of comfort zone situation, conflict in the team, convincing somebody to do something. In the first phase, all 3 interviews were similar. I will give my cases later, I can even detail them more with exact numbers but I believe it is not that important.
First 4 interviews were with impressive people, who is doing outstanding job and at one point I’m impressed by being in the same room with them. All of them were really friendly, helping me in the process by subtle hints (e.g. changing the voice while stating the numbers to make me realize there is a currency differences) or a smile, or with simple gestures to push me further. Sometimes they stop you during PEI, not because they want to bother but to get the details of the topic, especially what YOU did during the difficult situations. I literally had fun, talking, discussing and listening their experiences. Last one though, final interview with senior partner. If it wasn’t in McKinsey, I will even go further and say there was a bias against me, but since they are one of the most liberal companies, I would rather assume that I misinterpreted the intensions. I rather assume he was just pressuring me during the interview; however, there are few of them just made me angry. He came in saying that did not look at my CV, which I assume he definitely did but just pressuring me. (asking me to continue in a different language, which you normally assume if it’s not written in the CV, it means that the candidate does not know that particular language). Checking his phone, googling stuff during interview for some numbers, reading something else during the interview and seems like not listening what I was saying, all are the best examples of pressure case/seeming not interested style. PEI part, rather listening me, constantly asked new questions with different topics. I didn’t had chances to finish my sentences. First time in 5 hours I felt like I wasn’t being listened. The thing that bugged me was that the discussion was eventually coming back to where I’m from (none in other four interviews, 3 times during the last one) once when I made mistake while stating a number about the population, saying it’s a different country not where I came from (ouch!). After the interview, after a quick check of my accomplishments in my CV (yes after the interview) saying “you wrote this and this in your CV, is it something important where you came from?” (I wanted to say no that’s why I placed them under my hobbies). Finally during the final last 5 minutes, instead of me asking questions, he rather asked my opinions on the political situation of my home country, as most of you have imagined now, it’s not the best country to live in.
I never questioned what was going on, thinking it was a pressure interview. However, as everybody knows, the papers you used while solving the case is taken back from you before you leave. He forget to take the papers on the table. When I reminded him the papers, he just grabbed them, wrinkled and put them into garbage! WAOW! That was the point that I felt offended, I believe it was the only example of such thing happened in McKinsey interviews, unless you literally swear to the interviewer. It was at this moment, I knew I will get rejected and no need for a further discussion. But that was just doesn’t suited with my previous impressive hours with people ranging from recruiting to expert principal. Everybody I have interacted during the process are gentle, kind and willing to help me with the process.
Feedback tough, I knew I will get rejected when my papers wrinkled into the dust bin, but after passing the first phase with little to less recommendation, my final recommendation was I wasn’t good at the case math (I’m pretty sure I was -that should be the reason to not to pass to the second round- I might not be a math genius, but my strong part is the math itself, not the business part ) and I was told I should rather have a technical job then consulting, because it will suit me well. I felt this is a bit dishonest, since we never discussed my technical background even a bit and I aced all my previous cases with the numbers. In the end, the decision was solely depended on the final interview only, which honestly I wasn’t as good as any of the previous ones.
If you’re lucky, you’re the only thing standing between you and the offer. If you prepare properly, there is nothing to be afraid of.
I can even give the exact numbers for the each cases if requested.
Good Luck!