Practise your behavioral and fit interview
Fit interviews test 14 signals. Practise an opening question for each one, and the follow-up that breaks a weak story.
The spoken interview
In all plansThe live version answers out loud, asks follow-ups, and returns a scored debrief. Three lengths:
The case simulators are scored the same way: see the six assessments.
Personal impact
Describe a situation where you got someone to act differently without any authority over them.
Follow-up: What did they believe at the start, and what specifically changed it?
Leading without a mandate
When did you end up running something nobody had put you in charge of?
Follow-up: Who else could have stepped in, and why didn't they?
Judgment under incomplete information
Talk me through a call you had to make before you had the data you wanted.
Follow-up: What would you have needed to be confident, and what did you do instead?
Owning a decision
What is a decision you made that you would still defend, and one you would not?
Follow-up: What changed your mind on the second one?
Working through disagreement
Tell me about a disagreement you lost, and what you did afterwards.
Follow-up: Were they right? How did you establish that?
Analytical insight
When did the numbers say something different from what everyone expected?
Follow-up: How did you check it before telling anyone?
Trade-offs accepted
Describe something you shipped knowing it was worse than what you wanted.
Follow-up: What did you give up, and was that the right call in hindsight?
Recovering from a failure
What is the most expensive mistake you have made, and what did it cost?
Follow-up: What did you change so it could not recur?
Creating clarity
When were you the person who made an unclear situation workable for others?
Follow-up: What was confusing, and what specifically did you do about it?
Persuading upwards
Tell me about convincing someone more senior than you that they were wrong.
Follow-up: How did you open the conversation?
Delivering under a hard constraint
Describe the tightest deadline or budget you have actually worked inside.
Follow-up: What did you deliberately not do in order to finish?
Commercial judgment
When did you argue for something on the basis of what it was worth rather than what it cost?
Follow-up: How did you size the value, and were you right?
Initiative
What have you started that did not exist before you started it?
Follow-up: Who was against it, and how did you get past that?
Working across difference
Tell me about the collaborator you found hardest to work with, and what you did.
Follow-up: What did you get wrong about them at first?
Index your stories against the signals rather than against the questions. Six experiences that each answer three of these cover an interview that could ask any of the fourteen; fourteen rehearsed answers collapse the moment the wording changes.
Preparing a story that survives follow-ups
Most candidates prepare the story and stop there. The interview is decided in the follow-ups, where the question moves from what happened to why you chose it, what you rejected, and what you would do differently. A story you can only tell once is not ready.
Pick two experiences you can defend for ten minutes each, rather than six you can narrate for two.
The PEI guide covers the McKinsey format in depth, and the behavioral overview covers the rest.