How AI is changing the storied McKinsey interview

• AI is changing everything at the top consulting firms.
• McKinsey and others are racing to both adopt AI internally and advise clients to do the same.
• Now, firms are requiring would-be consultants to prove their AI skills in interviews.

Entire books have been written to teach people how to beat a McKinsey interview. Now, the game is changing.

For decades, consulting firms like McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company have relied on case interviews, during which prospective candidates work through simulated client problems with higher-ups at the firm.

Now, as consulting firms race to both adopt AI and advise their clients on how to do the same — implementing the technology into everything from drafting reports to synthesizing data — the technology has become a new hurdle in the vaunted interview process at McKinsey, BCG, and others.

The changes come as these firms shift the type of work they do, focusing less on straight advisory projects and more on building, implementing, and maintaining tools for companies. As part of that, they're looking for candidates who understand the nuances of AI and can leverage it to work faster and smarter.

Earlier this month, several media outlets reported that McKinsey had begun piloting Lilli, its internal chatbot, in interviews. The firm declined to comment further on the use of Lilli.

Lilli is used within the firm to synthesize its proprietary research, which spans 100 years and over 100,000 documents and interviews.

McKinsey Senior Partner Delphine Zurkiya told Business Insider that over 70% of the firm's 45,000 employees now use the tool, and that those who use it do so about 17 times a week. Several McKinsey analysts told Business Insider that 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 for roles at McKinsey, BCG, and Bain through his company, Wall Street Guide, said that he's noticed Lilli come up in the later rounds of the case interview — often to the surprise of candidates.

"The biggest reaction is a little bit of a lack of preparation," said Turban, who is also the cofounder of Lumiere Education, a platform that connects students with Ph.D. mentors to produce independent research.

Even as a mentor, there's not much that he can do to help students, he said.

"It seems like the AI is created to give information that's not 100% correct or vague," he said. So, it's a test of how well students can solve problems with a certain level of ambiguity.

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Boston Consulting Group also has an automated portion of the interview run by its chatbot, Casey. Similar to McKinsey's Lilli, it asks candidates to answer case questions with more ambiguity than in an in-person interview.

Ammon Jensen, an MBA candidate at Brigham Young University who just accepted a summer internship offer at BCG, told Business Insider that one of his opening questions was a market-sizing exercise around a DoorDash competitor. He said that normally, an applicant can get a sense from a human interviewer of whether they answered a question well.

"It's really hard to get an interview, but once you've got an interview, they really want you to succeed," he said. Casey, however, is more neutral, he said.

There's a limit, however, to how much consulting firms want their applicants to be using AI.

During a networking call with a BCG recruiter, Jensen learned that the firm, at least in the Dallas office, had stopped reviewing cover letters because they are now so easy to write with ChatGPT and other AI tools.

And some applicants have been rejected for using technology in their interviews in unapproved ways.

"Some people have already gotten in trouble using AI during case interviews," Marc Cosentino, the author of Case in Point, the definitive how-to for acing consulting interviews, told Business Insider.

There have been instances where students have begun using AI in Zoom interviews to help them solve cases, he said. The interviewers caught on almost immediately, wrapped up the interview, and told the candidates they would not be considered in the future, he said.

"Word gets around," he added. "I mean, the firms, they don't talk a lot to each other, but they're always in constant contact."

Something to share about how consultants are using AI? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email Lakshmi Varanasi at lvaranasi@businessinsider.com or contact her on Signal at lvaranasi.70.