McKinsey APD / Exp. Professionals Round 1 Invite - Help!!

Hey everyone,

I very surprisingly got an invite to attend a McKinsey IWIA Round 1 Interview next week, and would like as much information as possible on what I need to do to perform my best.

I understand the most important thing, according to the invite, is the written exam. There are 2 group cases- can someone inform me to the weight of performing well in these. I feel screwed already.. my interview is in a week, and I just am starting to look at case books. I got Case in Point today and got several b-schools' casebooks from a friend.

Also, random q, the email said business casual attire (no suits). Is this really the case?

I just plan on taking the practice written exam, looking through the interview materials/videos on the McK website, and reading as many cases as feasible. I'm not really sure what else I can do at this point to help me.

My background- biomedical science and medicine, prestigious undergrad (but i don't think it's a target school), non-prestigious grad/professional school (but not horribly ranked I guess..), approx. 3.7 GPA, have a mix of experiences in the social services sector, teaching, leadership, etc.. Received interviews at Google (rejected), ZS (rejected), LEK overseas (passed round 1), and rejected at BCG, Monitor, Oliver Wyman, Morgan Stanley. I honestly don't know how I got a McK interview...

 
Best Response

McKinsey gives a lot of invites to IWIA. The set up for the day enables them to "interview" 50 people with minimal staff requirements whereas other firms jump right into one on one interviews which require higher selectivity in the resume screen.

Regardless, to prep for IWIA, you should be familiar with the practice tests, since they are reflective of the real test. The questions are not that hard, but time is very tight. Other than that, there is not much you need to do to prep for IWIA. If you are told it is business casual, then it is business casual. They are not trying to trick you.

At IWIA, they will walk you through cases in a group and give you tips on how to be successful in the case interview. They say these are non-evaluative, but they are probably evaluative in a social sense, not in a business sense (i.e., it's an asshole test). The weighting is probably 85% written test, 15% group cases.

In the meantime, start practicing cases with other people. Reading cases is only so helpful. You must practice in front of people. Do as many as you can. You must have some case experience if you interviewed with ZS and LEK already.

 

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