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How can I ace the McKinsey PEI?

Kannika September 7, 2026 Management consultant, McKinsey, Behavioral
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Profile picture for Peter S.
Management consultant, Strategy and operations manager
IAG, McKinsey & Company, Strategy&
5.0 avg rating, 7 clients
Answered September 8, 2026

Prepare 2 stories per PEI theme. Structure your stories using a desired format - there are a few formats (STAR, SCR, SAIL, SCAR) - the main points to cover are:

Situation / context, Challenge, Consequence of not solving the challenge, What you personally did (not the team you worked in), Result / outcome, and Learning

When in the interview, offer the interviewer 2 stories to choose from "That's an interesting question, 2 stories come to mind... provide 10 second executive summary of each... "which one appeals more to you?" - let them choose what is more interesting to them - this way you will have them engaged from the start.

Walk through your story along your structure, maintain top-down communication, do not ramble, allow natural pauses for interviewer to engage and ask questions

Be detailed and thorough in your responses, prepare what you thought, prepare verbatims of what people said, how you responded, how you felt in the situation - show the story is actually genuine, make the interviewer feel they were there with you in the situation

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