How to become a McKinsey employee

McKinsey is looking for people with special qualities in its recruitment. Here's how McKinsey identifies these people (plus how you can show McKinsey you have these qualities). As listed in its mission statement, one of McKinsey's goals is to "build an organization that attracts, develops, inspires, motivates and retains exceptional people." The first step in achieving this is to recruit the best possible candidates to join the company.

As McKinsey’s Human Resources Department said elsewhere, McKinsey is trying to find the best of the best, the best of the best trained by prestigious business schools, law schools, and graduate programs in economics and finance. The company has also expanded its recruitment efforts to include "non-traditional" candidates, recruiting talent from outside the business world (doctors, scientists, politicians, and others).

McKinsey & Company focuses most on analytical skills when recruiting employees.

McKinsey is always looking for people with analytical thinking skills who can break a problem into its parts. What McKinsey wanted was evidence that they knew how to organize problems. Also looking at business judgment and a sense that the person understands the implications of his own solution. This is why McKinsey always likes to use cases.

Case studies are McKinsey’s weapon for selection during interviews. They range from generic McKinsey case studies to the more bizarre. For example: "How many gas stations are there in the United States?" "Why are sewer lids round?"

In an interview example, what the interviewer wants to see is the subject's ability to look at problems, and It’s not whether the answer is correct or incorrect. Like most business questions, there are no real answers. Success in a case interview requires breaking down the problem into its parts and making reasonable assumptions when necessary.

For example, when counting the number of gas stations in the United States, you might start by asking how many cars there are in the country. The interviewer may tell you this number, but he may also say, "I don't know. Tell me." Then, you say to yourself, the population of the United States is 275 million. You can guess that if the average household size (including singles) is 2.5 people, your computer will tell you that there are 110 million households. The interviewer will nod in agreement. You recall hearing somewhere that the average family owns 1.8 cars (or is it 1.8 children?), so there must be 198 million cars in the United States. Now, if you just figure out how many gas stations it would take to service 198 million cars, you've solved the problem. It's not the number that matters, it's the way you arrive at the number.

A lot has been said about cases, but I’ll leave you with Jason Kline’s best description of how to deal with cases:

I always ask Same case. I'm not looking for specific answers, but I'm looking to see how people deal with complex problems where a lot of information can be gleaned from them at once. Some froze, while others dug deeper and deeper. And the latter is exactly who I would recommend.