McKinsey Switzerland

The first step to becoming a consultant at McKinsey is to prepare your application. It should include:

• A letter explaining why you are interested in consulting, and McKinsey in particular
• Your curriculum vitae, covering your academic career, internships, professional experience, stays abroad, extracurricular activities, and hobbies
• A copy of your high-school graduation certificate (Matura, Abitur, or Baccalaureate) and intermediate and final transcripts from your most recent exams
• Relevant work references.
  

We accept applications for consulting positions all year round. We advise you to send in your application six months before you are ready to start.

McKinsey has two offices in Switzerland. If you are fluent in French but not German, we recommend you select our Geneva office on your application; if you are fluent in German but not French, we recommend you select our Zurich office. For either office, you will need an excellent command of English.

After reviewing your application, we’ll let you know within two weeks whether we would like to get to know you better. If we invite you to come and see us, we’ll ask you to complete a written problem-solving test and take part in a series of interviews.

The problem-solving test is a multiple-choice test based on business cases, and takes about an hour to complete. It helps us assess your problem-solving skills and understand how well you would perform as a McKinsey consultant.

All of our interviews are conducted by McKinsey consultants. Each interview lasts for 50 minutes and consists of three parts:

• First, we focus on your experience and ask you to talk about yourself, your achievements, and the skills you’ve developed. We ask you to describe important events in your life and explain the steps you took to achieve successful outcomes.
• Second, we ask you to solve a case study. This will be a wide-ranging two-way discussion, and you’ll be assessed more on your approach to solving the problem than on the solution you propose. No specific business knowledge is required.
• Third, we give you an opportunity to ask any questions you may have about McKinsey or the Swiss office.

If you complete the first round of three interviews successfully, you’ll be invited to attend a second round of two interviews later that day. If you complete the second round successfully, you’ll receive an offer on the same day.

This process applies to all full-time positions. For internships, there is only one round of interviews. If you complete it successfully, you’ll receive an offer on the same day.