The Complete List of McKinsey Interview Questions

You have a McKinsey interview coming up — congratulations! Less than 20% of applicants are granted an interview, so you’re doing something right.

You might be wondering how to ace the behavioral part of the interview. (More information on the other part of the interview, the case interview, in my comprehensive McKinsey Guide.) The good news is, there are only four prompts you can be asked, and you’ll only have to answer one of them during each interview. Yep, that’s right — rather than posing a series of unrelated behavioral questions, McKinsey interviews dive deep into a single behavioral prompt during each interview. These questions are:

• Explain a challenging situation you encountered when working with someone with an opposing opinion to yours.

• Talk about a time when you had to work to achieve something in a limited period of time that was outside your comfort zone.

• Share an example of an instance where you effectively worked with people with different backgrounds.

• Revisit a time when you experienced a significant change or encountered an ambiguous situation and share the actions you took to adapt to the new circumstances.

For your interview, you’ll have to pick a killer anecdote to respond to these questions, talk your interviewer through your story from start to finish, and respond to ointense follow-up questions to drill deep into your answer. I’ve taken the time to put together a guide to doing each of those here. Although the interview process is incredibly selective, I believe there are surefire ways to improve your chances. So I’ve tried to compile all the unwritten rules – when you follow them, you maximize your chances. Check it out!