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A year-and-a-half ago, management consulting firm McKinsey had just 3,000 AI agents in its possession, with its 40,000 employees far outnumbering its agentic fleet. But in just 18 months, that number has grown more than 500% to about 20,000 AI agents supporting the company\u2019s work, CEO Bob Sternfels said on Harvard Business Review\u2019s Ideacast. Now, the company is evaluating how well job candidates can work with its AI tool as part of the interview process.<\/p>\n
The consulting firm is asking candidates to use its internal AI tool Lilli in a test during its hiring process, according to consulting interview preparation company CaseBasix, which helps candidates solve McKinsey, BCG, and Bain cases. In a blog post, CaseBasix says it gathered information from internal sources who say some candidates would be asked to work with the company\u2019s AI tool as part of a final round AI interview. The Financial Times<\/em> also reported on McKinsey\u2019s focus on business school students using Lilli, citing people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n The move comes as the blue-chip company seeks to further implement AI into its operations, pursuing skills that extend beyond the interpersonal and problem-solving traits usually required of a consultant. Companies like McKinsey are looking for candidates who can be AI-ready on day one as the technology becomes essential to job functions.<\/p>\n In his interview with HBR, Sternfels said AI models have developed an expertise in problem-solving, and that the company would be \u201clooking more at liberal arts majors, whom we had deprioritized,\u201d for potential sources of creativity as the firm moves to find creative solutions beyond \u201clogical next steps.\u201d It\u2019s not just McKinsey, other leaders are looking to hire liberal arts graduates like CEO of IT firm Cognizant Technology Solutions Ravi Kumar S, who says he\u2019s recruiting candidates with liberal arts degrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n McKinsey hasn\u2019t shied away from AI in the hiring process. The company encourages AI use in the application process on its career page, saying that candidates can use the technology to refine r\u00e9sum\u00e9s and practice interview questions. Though it cautions candidates to use the technology responsibly, saying use of the technology during assessments and for generating interview responses, as well as embellishment, is not permitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe welcome those who share our curiosity about AI and its potential,\u201d the company\u2019s career page says.<\/p>\n But the pilot program goes a step further. According to Casebasix, the AI interview may be an additional step in the application process, alongside the case interview and a personal experience interview for candidates in the U.S. and North America.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the McKinsey AI Interview, you are expected to prompt the AI, review its output, and apply judgment to produce a clear and structured response,\u201d the Casebasix post said. The post says that McKinsey is looking to test soft skills essential to working at the consulting firm\u2014and for working with the company\u2019s AI\u2014including collaboration and reasoning.<\/p>\n A McKinsey spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fortune<\/em>\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Sternfels predicted the company will adopt AI aggressively within the following months. \u201cIn another 18 months I think every employee will be enabled by one or more agents,\u201d Sternfels said on HBR\u2019s Ideacast. \u201cWe\u2019ll have a workforce that is human and agentic, and we\u2019re going to have to navigate that.\u201d<\/p>\n That change could dramatically shift the work that McKinsey performs. With AI agents making the company\u2019s employees more productive, Sternfels says that the AI adoption could fundamentally change McKinsey\u2019s model.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re migrating away from pure advisory work, away from the fee-for-service model,\u201d Sternfels said. \u201cWe\u2019re moving to more of an outcomes-based model, where we identify a joint business case with our clients, and we underwrite the outcome by tying our fees to the impact our work delivers for them\u201d<\/p>\n But the human skills that Sternfels says AI can\u2019t replace: creativity, aspiration, and judgment. \u201cThere isn\u2019t truth in AI models; there isn\u2019t judgment,\u201d Sternfel said. \u201cHumans need to impose those parameters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #McKinsey #challenges #graduates #master #tools #shifts #hiring #hunt #liberal #arts #majors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A year-and-a-half ago, managem… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[8817,2225,8163,2007,7174,8816,8818,8815,8354,7532,2774,5283],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Putting AI skills to the test<\/strong><\/h2>\n
An agentic workforce reshaping the nature of consulting work<\/strong><\/h2>\n