Robert's McKinsey PEI Blog

Contrary to the case interview, I don’t recommend to pause for 60 seconds at the beginning of your McKinsey PEI to structure your story.

Looking at the overall time frame of roughly 12-15 minutes for the whole Personal Experience Interview, 60 seconds is already quite some time. And during this time, your interview would be probably bored, watching you thinking in silence about your PEI story.

Also, the whole McKinsey interview procedure is clear and transparent, and you also know that you need to prepare PEI stories for the 3 dimensions Leadership, Personal Impact and Entrepreneurial Drive.

In other words: you should prepare your PEI stories upfront. Therefore, as an McKinsey interviewer also I expect a rather quick answer to my starting question.

It’s perfectly fine though to pause for a few seconds before you start off with your Personal Experience Interview example. Especially if the interviewer asks a starting question with a slight spin, so that you need to frame your example accordingly first.

In that situation it’s mostly the case that you don’t need to rethink your whole example, but you will mostly need to tailor only the “P” (Problem) of the “PARADE” framework to the specific question of the interviewer. And this should take siginifcantly less time than 60 seconds. (You can find more information concerning the PARADE framework and structuring your PEI here)

To really master your own McKinsey PEI, get your copy of The Ultimate McKinsey PEI Prep eBook right now!

Right now included in this special offer:

• Ultimate PEI Prep eBook (value $412)
• PEI Cheat Sheet (value $297)
• Bonus 1: General fit (value $97)
• Bonus 2: Your questions (value $97)
• Bonus 3: Must-read books (value $97)

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Or looking for some McKinsey PEI Coaching? Click here!

In short: It’s mainly about convincing another person about something.

What makes a strong PEI story for Personal Impact?

The most basic ingredient for a strong “Personal Impact” example is a strong underlying conflicting interest between you and the other person. Both parties need to have a strong interest in the outcome of the situation – without this, it will never become a strong Personal Impact example, since if there is nothing at stake, it’s not difficult to convince someone.

Furthermore, it’s good if your Personal Impact example is going on at least over several days, even better for weeks, since your interviewer is interested in understanding your approach to convince someone from a more strategic, and not only operational/tactical perspective, having candidates clearly laying out a strategic masterplan on how the other person could be convinced. And that’s something which usually doesn’t happen in one meeting or over night, but requires time to “design” and execute this process of convincing someone.

Should I focus my whole McKinsey PEI Personal Impact example on 1 person to convince?

Yes, for sure. And here is why.

As soon as a third party gets involved, it’s immediately immensely more difficult to communicate your example in a structured and clear way in the very limited amount of time within the PEI. As long as only two persons are involved, it’s easy to follow the situation and know who is you and who is the other person you are trying to convince, and it’s also quite easy to follow what are your interests as opposed to the other person’s interests and concerns.

As soon as you involve a third person , it’s already a triangular relationship and it’s much more difficult to follow the situation since now the interviewer needs to clearly understand what are your interests as opposed to the interests of other person A and other person B, how your interests are conflicting with those of other person A, how your interests are conflicting with other person B, how interests of other person A and other person B are going along with each other or how they are conflicting.

Very very difficult to communicate such a situation in a structured way in a short period of time.

To succeed in your own McKinsey PEI, get The Ultimate McKinsey PEI Prep eBook now!

Right now included in this special offer:

• Ultimate PEI Prep eBook (value $412)
• PEI Cheat Sheet (value $297)
• Bonus 1: General fit (value $97)
• Bonus 2: Your questions (value $97)
• Bonus 3: Must-read books (value $97)

GET EBOOK SPECIAL OFFER now for only $97!

Or looking for some McKinsey PEI Coaching? Click here!

Is there any difference for a McKinsey PEI question concerning conflict vs. disagreement? Is one just more extensive than the other?
Continue reading McKinsey PEI – Any difference between conflict and disagreement?

Is it possible to postpone the planned interview date, once agreed with McKinsey? If so, does it have any negative consequences for my application?

Continue reading Not yet prepared for my McKinsey PEI – can I postpone my interviews?

Most candidates have at least 2 or 3 interviews on a given interview day. This means that for the PEI you need to prepare at least 2 or 3 examples as an absolute minimum.

So – can those PEI stories come from the same context, just with a different focus? Or do I need to have completely non-overlapping examples?

Continue reading Is it OK to re-position your McKinsey PEI stories, or better have new ones?

Finally it does not matter too much for McKinsey, if you failed because of your case interview performance, or because of your PEI performance. A reasonable time-frame to re-apply is usually 18-24 months.

But why not earlier? Continue reading I failed in my previous McKinsey PEI – when can I re-apply?

Many candidates wonder how recent their McKinsey PEI stories should be, and if they need to be related to their work experience (in case of young professionals). So let’s look at those 2 topics one after the other.

Continue reading Can my McKinsey PEI examples come from experiences some years ago, related to work?

This is a very common issue for most candidates at the outset of their McKinsey PEI preparation. According to experience, there are 2 factors why most candidates have difficulties to finding the right examples (hint: it’s mostly not because they lack suitable examples at all – it’s more about how you start thinking about your examples). Continue reading How to find the right McKinsey PEI examples

As an introduction, I recommend in general using the PARADE framework for structuring your McKinsey PEI, and talking about your impact usually goes into the “A” for “Anticipated consequence”.

Since the “PAR” is just to give your interviewer a general understanding of the overall situation within 1-2 minutes (and since the core part of your evaluation is based on your specific “Actions” and “Decision-making rationale”), I am perfectly fine with summarizing your impact on a situation more or less in one sentence as a start.

However, since the “Anticipated consequence” demonstrates the real-life impact of you, it’s common that interviewers follow-up on that and want to understand your real-life impact in more detail. Continue reading How to demonstrate your impact in the McKinsey PEI

Looking at this question firstly from slightly broader perspective, your example for the Entrepreneurial Drive dimension should circle around a situation in which you wanted to achieve something by yourself (and no one else imposed this task on you). If you follow a goal which you wanted to achieve yourself, you should be also able to explain a strong motivation behind taking all those efforts and overcoming many obstalces to reach this goal.

Ideally you can use the typical McKinsey hierarchy for laying out your motivation in 3 different layers (and only in this sequence with client-focus first, and your personal benefits last – since you are in the service business, with the goal of serving your clients best, and for this reason the primary motivation should stem from this area): Continue reading What should I say about my motivation in the Entrepreneurial Drive McKinsey PEI dimension?