11 McKinsey PEI Questions You Need to Be Able to Answer [2025]
- Last Updated January, 2025
Former McKinsey Engagement Manager
Are you planning to interview with McKinsey? If so, you need to prepare for the McKinsey personal experience interview (PEI).
Though the top management consulting firms have more similarities than differences, each has a unique corporate culture and their own way of assessing applicants. The McKinsey personal experience interview is one of the bigger differences. On this page we’ll tell you:
Let’s get started!
The McKinsey PEI is a behavioral Interview. Here’s the definition of a behavioral interview:
There are 2 types of questions that management consulting companies ask recruits. Case study interview questions test analytic and problem-solving skills. The behavioral interview tests the softer skills needed for consulting.
Will you work well with your case team?
Will you be able to persuade clients to make the difficult changes needed to improve their businesses?
The McKinsey PEI is different from other consulting firms’ behavioral interviews in 2 ways:
Interviewers typically spend ⅓ of the McKinsey interview time or 10-15 minutes on the PEI as part of every interview. The PEI questions may be asked either at the beginning of the interview or after the case. The remaining 30-35 minutes of interview time will be spent on the case study question.
McKinsey wants all their interviewers to get a sense of whether a candidate would be a good fit for the firm. Because of this, it’s critical that your stories are clear in your head. If you ramble, you’ll cut into your case study question time. Make sure you don’t spend too much time setting up the story, but get to the heart of what happened quickly.
For instance, if you’re telling a story about how you managed conflict on a team you worked on in the past, you’ll need to mention what the team was tasked to do and what the nature of the conflict was so that the interviewer understands the problem you solved.
But if you delve into all the different personalities on the team, you could get lost in the minutia rather than getting to your impact or the problem you solved. Introduce the challenge quickly and focus on the action you took and the results for the team and yourself.
The McKinsey Personal Experience Interview is “a mile deep and inch wide.” That means they look at one story from your resume or one personal characteristic (inch wide) and ask multiple questions about it (mile deep).
Take our example of someone who managed conflict on a team. Someone from Bain, BCG or Deloitte might ask about that experience, then go on to ask about something completely different— why you’re interested in consulting, or about a time when you overcame a significant setback, etc.
A McKinsey interviewer will ask more about your experience with that team. They might ask:
How did the team get into the situation that led to the conflict?
What were the stakes?
What did you personally do to overcome the problem?
What did you learn from the situation?
How might you avoid that kind of team conflict in the future.
What do you need to do to pass the McKinsey PEI?
There are many different questions used in the McKinsey personal experience interview, but they generally boil down to 4 key characteristics that the firm is looking for in its consultants: leadership, connection, drive, and growth. McKinsey is also looking for candidates with great problem solving, but this is primarily tested with the case study question.
First round interviewers will focus on leadership and connection. Each interviewer will assess one of these traits. In the final round interviews, all 4 traits will be assessed.
If you prepare to answer questions on these 4 topics, you’ll be ready for the PEI.
What does McKinsey say about leadership?
Harnessing the value of diverse thinking requires leadership grounded in understanding; empowering and motivation people to be at their best.
Why does McKinsey test leadership?
Leadership skills are essential to success in consulting. A consultant needs to bring out the best both on the McKinsey team and the client team and leverage ideas from all points of view to find the right solution to the business problem. A McKinsey consultant also needs to be a team leader, helping others to get work done and facilitating change.
They’ll lead client team members to find the data required to do analytical work, to structure the team’s problem-solving—breaking down large problems into manageable steps, and to brainstorm potential changes to processes or behaviors that are limiting the company’s success.
Your interviewer will typically test 3 sub-traits when assessing leadership: 1) leading others, 2) teamwork, and 3) empathy.
Example McKinsey Interview Questions on Leadership:
What does McKinsey say about connection?
Why does McKinsey test connection?
Connection is essential to success because a consulting firm’s clients are large organizations with multiple people who can influence business decisions: the business leader who asked for McKinsey’s help, peers of the business leader who run other parts of the organization, and employees within the business unit where the change is taking place.
To ensure a new product or process doesn’t just look good in a PowerPoint slide but is actually accepted and implemented by the organization, many people at all levels need to understand the benefits of the proposed change and buy into it. For this to happen, every consultant will need to impact key influencers of the decision.
Your interviewer will typically test 3 sub-traits when assessing connection: 1) listening, 2) confidence, and 3) the ability to influence.
Example PEI Questions on Connection:
What does McKinsey say about drive?
Why does McKinsey test drive?
Drive is also essential to success in consulting. The problems businesses face are all different, and therefore so is the work done on consulting cases. There’s no checklist for a junior consultant to follow and the partner or engagement manager on a team might be busy with other work and unable to provide direction.
A consultant has to be a self-starter, directing their own work and pushing their problem-solving as far as possible in the absence of feedback. Their solutions to business problems need to be creative.
Your interviewer will typically test 3 sub-traits when assessing drive: 1) goal-setting and overcoming obstacles, 2) practical judgment (using the 80/20 rule), and 3) creativity and entrepreneurship.
Example McKinsey PEI Questions on Drive:
Here’s what McKinsey says about growth:
Growing as a professional requires constant learning and openness to feedback and change. Revisit a time when you had to rapidly learn something new to tackle a challenging situation.
In order to help clients through big changes facing their organizations, McKinsey consultants need to have faced changed themselves and worked through it successfully rather than trying to stick with the old way of doing things. For this question, think of a time when you faced a big change in an organization you worked for or volunteer with.
By preparing in advance, you can be as prepared on this new McKinsey personal experience interview question as on the traditional ones.
To prepare for the McKinsey PEI, make sure you are familiar with McKinsey’s values, which are easy to find on their website. Reflect on how the McKinsey values intersect with your own personal values.
The following 2 questions are likely to come up in Bain and BCG interview but less likely to come up with McKinsey:
These questions test whether you’ve really thought about consulting as a career and what it would be like to work at that particular firm. If you’re applying to Bain and BCG, you’ll need to have answers ready anyway, but McKinsey won’t hold not having a prepared answer against you.
Stories are powerful. You should use them in your McKinsey PEI answers so your interviewer will remember you at the end of the day after they’ve met with 8 or more candidates and need to choose 1 or 2 to move forward to the next round of interviews.
In addition to developing stories to answer these questions, you want to ensure that you show how you contributed to the positive outcome of any team you discuss. Yes, it’s good to credit all members of a team with the win, but this is an interview. McKinsey wants to know that anyone they hire will have a strong impact on their teams so you need to toot your own horn more than you might otherwise.
It’s also important to put the results in the best light possible. Quantifying results and highlighting the impact of projects is always recommended. If achieved a record performance, point that out in your story.
Two things sometimes mess up candidates on the PEI. You should be aware of both.
McKinsey interviewers are listening for evidence that a candidate has the particular trait they’ve been assigned to probe. If you set up a story and the interviewer doesn’t think it will demonstrate the trait they asked you about (example: they ask you to talk about a leadership experience and it doesn’t sound like your story will demonstrate leadership), they may ask you to discuss a different story.
It’s easy to see how this can throw someone off. You’re laying out an experience and someone tells you to stop and talk about something else. The important thing to remember, though, is that each interviewer is tasked with assessing something. If your story won’t let them assess the trait, that will hurt your ability to move forward to second round interviews or get an offer. If you can come up with a story that does hit the trait they’re assessing, this will keep you in the running.
If this happens to you, take a deep breath and start over. Have multiple stories prepared in advance just in case.
In their instructions to candidates, McKinsey will ask that you do not repeat the same story to multiple interviewers.
If the interviewers find out that you’ve repeated a story, this can hurt you because it shows that you do not follow instructions.
To prevent this from happening, make sure that you have one leadership and one drive story prepared for first round interviews and different leadership and drive stories as well as connection and growth stories prepared for final rounds.
Because McKinsey personal experience interviews are inch-wide and mile-deep, you will get follow-on questions. They are likely to come from the following list of questions.
To learn more about the McKinsey PEI, check out this video.
For an example of an exceptional answer to a behavioral interview question, check out this article.
Still have questions?
If you still have questions on the McKinsey PEI, leave them in the comments below and we’ll have our coaches provide answers.
People who are prepping for PEI questions typically find the following other My Consulting Offer pages helpful:
To apply to work with one of our former McKinsey interviewers, find out more here.
Why does McKinsey test leadership?
Leadership skills are essential to success in consulting. A McKinsey consultant also needs to be a team leader, helping others to get work done and facilitating change.
They’ll lead client team members to find the data required to do analytical work, to structure the team’s problem-solving—breaking down large problems into manageable steps, and to brainstorm potential changes to processes or behaviors that are limiting the company’s success.
A consultant’s leadership needs to be inclusive in order to bring out the best both on the McKinsey team and the client team. An inclusive leader will leverage the best ideas from all points of view to find the right solution to the business problem.
Your interviewer will typically test 3 sub-traits when assessing leadership: 1) leading others, 2) teamwork, and 3) empathy.
Example McKinsey Interview Questions on Leadership:
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