Entire books have been written to teach people how to ace McKinsey interviews. Now the game is changing.
For decades, consulting firms such as McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company have relied on case interviews, where prospective candidates solve simulated customer problems with company executives.
Now, as consulting firms race to implement AI and advise clients on how to do so, deploying the technology in everything from report creation to data synthesis, the technology has become a new hurdle in the vaunted interview processes of the likes of McKinsey and BCG.
This shift is happening as these companies change the type of work they do, focusing on building, deploying, and maintaining enterprise tools rather than just advisory projects. As part of this, we’re looking for candidates who understand the nuances of AI and can leverage it to work faster and smarter.
Earlier this month, multiple media outlets reported that McKinsey had begun piloting an internal chatbot called Lilli in an interview. The company declined further comment on Lili’s use.
Lilli is used internally for integration. 100 years of original research and over 100,000 documents and interviews.
Delfin Zulkiya, a senior partner at McKinsey, told Business Insider: Today, more than 70% of the company’s 45,000 employees use the tool, and those who do use it about 17 times a week. Several McKinsey analysts told Business Insider they use it for research, document summarization, data analysis, and brainstorming.
Stephen Turban, a former McKinsey analyst who has worked with hundreds of students applying to McKinsey, BCG and Bain through his firm Wall Street Guide, said he noticed Lili coming up late in case interviews, often to the surprise of candidates.
“The biggest reaction is a bit of a lack of preparation,” said Turban, who is also co-founder of Lumiere Education, a platform that connects students with doctoral programs. Mentoring to generate independent research.
Even as a mentor, he says there’s not much you can do to help your students.
“AI seems to be built to give information that is either not 100% accurate or vague,” he says. In other words, it tests how well students can solve problems that have some degree of ambiguity.
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At Boston Consulting Group, automated portions of interviews are also performed by the chatbot Casey. Similar to McKinsey’s Lili, candidates are asked to answer more ambiguous case questions than in an in-person interview.
Ammon Jensen, an MBA candidate at Brigham Young University who just accepted a summer internship offer with BCG, told Business Insider that one of his first questions was a market size review of DoorDash’s competitors. He said applicants can usually tell from a human interviewer whether they answered the questions well or not.
“It’s really hard to get an interview, but once you get an interview, they really want you to succeed,” he said. But Casey is more neutral, he says.
However, there are limits to the extent to which consulting firms require applicants to utilize AI.
During a networking call with BCG recruiters, Jensen learned that the company has stopped reviewing cover letters, at least in its Dallas office, since they can now be easily created using ChatGPT and other AI tools.
Additionally, some applicants have been unsuccessful because they used technology in an unauthorized manner during their interviews.
“Some people are having trouble using AI in case interviews,” Mark Cosentino, author of Case in Point, the definitive how-to book for successful consulting interviews, told Business Insider.
In some cases, he said, students have started using AI in Zoom interviews to help solve cases. He said the interviewer spoke almost immediately, ended the interview, and told the candidate he would no longer be considered.
“Rumors are spreading,” he added. “So the companies don’t really talk to each other, but they’re always in touch.”
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