A year-and-a-half in the past, administration consulting agency McKinsey had simply 3,000 AI brokers in its possession, with its 40,000 staff far outnumbering its agentic fleet. However in simply 18 months, that quantity has grown greater than 500% to about 20,000 AI brokers supporting the corporate’s work, CEO Bob Sternfels stated on Harvard Enterprise Assessment’s Ideacast. Now, the corporate is evaluating how properly job candidates can work with its AI software as a part of the interview course of.
The consulting agency is asking candidates to make use of its inner AI software Lilli in a take a look at throughout its hiring course of, in accordance with consulting interview preparation firm CaseBasix, which helps candidates resolve McKinsey, BCG, and Bain circumstances. In a weblog publish, CaseBasix says it gathered info from inner sources who say some candidates could be requested to work with the corporate’s AI software as a part of a ultimate spherical AI interview. The Monetary Occasions additionally reported on McKinsey’s deal with enterprise faculty college students utilizing Lilli, citing individuals aware of the matter.
The transfer comes because the blue-chip firm seeks to additional implement AI into its operations, pursuing abilities that reach past the interpersonal and problem-solving traits normally required of a advisor. Corporations like McKinsey are on the lookout for candidates who may be AI-ready on day one because the know-how turns into important to job features.
In his interview with HBR, Sternfels stated AI fashions have developed an experience in problem-solving, and that the corporate could be “looking more at liberal arts majors, whom we had deprioritized,” for potential sources of creativity because the agency strikes to search out inventive options past “logical next steps.” It’s not simply McKinsey, different leaders need to rent liberal arts graduates like CEO of IT agency Cognizant Know-how Options Ravi Kumar S, who says he’s recruiting candidates with liberal arts levels.
Placing AI abilities to the take a look at
McKinsey hasn’t shied away from AI within the hiring course of. The corporate encourages AI use within the software course of on its profession web page, saying that candidates can use the know-how to refine résumés and observe interview questions. Although it cautions candidates to make use of the know-how responsibly, saying use of the know-how throughout assessments and for producing interview responses, in addition to embellishment, shouldn’t be permitted.
“We welcome those who share our curiosity about AI and its potential,” the corporate’s profession web page says.
However the pilot program goes a step additional. In line with Casebasix, the AI interview could also be a further step within the software course of, alongside the case interview and a private expertise interview for candidates within the U.S. and North America.
“In the McKinsey AI Interview, you are expected to prompt the AI, review its output, and apply judgment to produce a clear and structured response,” the Casebasix publish stated. The publish says that McKinsey is seeking to take a look at comfortable abilities important to working on the consulting agency—and for working with the corporate’s AI—together with collaboration and reasoning.
A McKinsey spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
An agentic workforce reshaping the character of consulting work
Sternfels predicted the corporate will undertake AI aggressively throughout the following months. “In another 18 months I think every employee will be enabled by one or more agents,” Sternfels stated on HBR’s Ideacast. “We’ll have a workforce that is human and agentic, and we’re going to have to navigate that.”
That change might dramatically shift the work that McKinsey performs. With AI brokers making the corporate’s staff extra productive, Sternfels says that the AI adoption might basically change McKinsey’s mannequin.
“We’re migrating away from pure advisory work, away from the fee-for-service model,” Sternfels stated. “We’re 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”
However the human abilities that Sternfels says AI can’t substitute: creativity, aspiration, and judgment. “There isn’t truth in AI models; there isn’t judgment,” Sternfel stated. “Humans need to impose those parameters.”
