IT Home On October 15, according to the Wall Street Journal, if you want a job at McKinsey? You might first need to successfully face a virtual AI opponent.
The top consulting company will adjust the interview process for some junior consulting positions this fall, adding a new type of client simulation session. This session is designed to test the candidates’ ability to handle unexpected situations and their level of communication with McKinsey clients, some of whom are more inquisitive and difficult to deal with.
Although it is a simulated scenario throughout, this AI conversation that lasts about ten minutes will take place in a real McKinsey office. Partners or interview examiners will observe the candidate’s performance on site.
McKinsey’s partner said that this AI tool will not score or evaluate the performance of candidates on its own. This virtual avatar has learned various customer personality types, such as those who are like scholars and want to understand company proposals in depth.
Saleem Zafar, a partner who participated in the design of this pilot project and works at McKinsey’s Dallas office, said that the tool is not used to simulate customers with emotional outbursts or customers who deliberately set up traps, but its goal is to replicate scenarios that occur in nearly 80% of McKinsey consultants’ daily work.
Zafar said, “What I focus on is: did you capture the key information in the other person’s words? Did you respond based on that? Or did you simply ignore it? Would you stick to your pre-set ideas and force the answer onto the other person? What we need to see is how you react when faced with constantly changing information.”
This fall, McKinsey will test this virtual competitor interview system on undergraduate students applying for business analyst positions at some offices in North America. It is expected that hundreds of candidates will participate. If the pilot project is successful, the company plans to roll out it to other positions next year.
Companies in all industries are adjusting their recruitment methods to adapt to the era of artificial intelligence and leverage the capabilities of this technology more effectively. Some employers have added AI screening tools, and some companies have introduced cheating detection software into the recruitment process.
For a long time, to receive a McKinsey offer required multiple rounds of tedious assessments. Candidates usually had to meet with partners and other interviewers, then participate in case analysis challenges and solve problems on the spot.
Now, after the case challenge is over, candidates must also engage in conversations with AI virtual characters on their laptops.
Blair Ciesil, the co-head of McKinsey’s global recruitment work, said: “Through this approach, we can assess a candidate’s overall ability to interact with people, without being influenced by prior preparation. Some candidates will prepare a set of statements that they have practiced repeatedly. It’s not that these experiences are not impressive, but it makes it difficult for interviewers to see the true qualities of the candidate.”
Zafar presented a hypothetical case: A city hires McKinsey to research the location for new sports venues. In this scenario, the AI virtual avatar acts as the mayor and questions the proposals put forward by the consultants.
He said, “The mayor will have some demands that are very important to her, and she hopes to hear your suggestions. But when you present your plan, she might raise more concerns or add more background information.”
IT Home has noted that many companies are reluctant to use artificial intelligence in recruitment, fearing bias or violations of the constantly evolving AI-related regulations in the recruitment field. A McKinsey partner said that this AI tool is intended to improve the fairness of the recruitment process, as there are differences in the strictness of human interviewers during role-playing sessions.
Zafar said that in the recruitment process, companies need to predict “whether this person will be able to perform the job in the future.” This new tool is designed to help interviewers better understand: “What is this person really like? What is their true nature?”