Navigating the McKinsey Personal Experience Interview: A Beginners Guide

The McKinsey Personal Experience Interview (PEI) is a key aspect of the consulting firm’s recruitment process, aimed at evaluating a candidate’s leadership potential, personal impact and drive, and as such a general fit within the organization. Preparing well for the PEI is crucial to increase one’s chances of success, as the interview is known to be both unique to McKinsey and more challenging than anticipated by virtually all candidates.

This beginners guide will provide a quick overview of the PEI format, offer tips on how to prepare effectively, and share strategies for showcasing your skills and potential.

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How to prepare for the new McKinsey PEI prompts “Embracing Change” or “Courageous Change” and “Values and Purpose”?

Currently McKinsey is testing 2 specific new Personal Experience Interview dimensions, which are

  • Embracing Change or Courageous Change, and
  • Values & Purpose.

Those 2 PEI dimensions are for the moment only tested in North American offices, although not consistently across all offices and not across all candidates. And since those are 2 brand new PEI dimensions, many candidates ask me in my 1:1 coaching sessions how to approach them, and we typically work through the exact McKinsey requirements and expectations for those 2 dimensions, as well as drafting the storyline for indiviual PEI stories to ensure that they resonate well with the interviewer.

Continue reading How to prepare for the new McKinsey PEI prompts “Embracing Change” or “Courageous Change” and “Values and Purpose”?

Can I pause for 60 seconds at the start of my McKinsey PEI?

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. Continue reading Can I pause for 60 seconds at the start of my McKinsey PEI?

McKinsey PEI dimension “Personal Impact” – what it’s all about

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. Continue reading McKinsey PEI dimension “Personal Impact” – what it’s all about

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

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?