McKinsey built a free AI tool so candidates can stop paying $500/hour interview coaches

McKinsey launched a free AI practice tool in April that gives candidates unlimited practice on the math they will face in their interview. The tool is available worldwide to applicants for entry-level business analyst and related roles. The company says it’s designed to level the playing field for those who can’t afford expensive trainers.

The negotiation training industry charges anywhere from $200 to $500 an hour. McKinsey’s free tool allows candidates to practice the same quantitative situations they will encounter in a real interview, as many times as they like. Marie Christine Padberg, McKinsey’s global talent attraction leader, told Business Insider that the tool also speaks to emotions: “Doing a lot of things is one thing, but doing them while someone is watching is another.“

The training tool is one part of a broader AI integration into McKinsey’s recruiting process. The other part is very important. Since January, the company has been testing the use of its internal AI assistant Lilli during final interviews for business school graduates.

Candidates for the pilot are asked to use Lilli to analyze the case study and refine their conclusions. Interviewers evaluate how applicants implement the program, evaluate its results, and apply it to the client’s specific situation. The test measures curiosity and judgment, not rapid engineering.

McKinsey does not test whether candidates can avoid AI. It tests whether they can work with it effectively. The difference reflects how consulting itself has changed. Professionals are now expected to go beyond the analysis clients can do internally and move toward problem formulation, judgment, and implementation.

The scale of AI within McKinsey makes the hiring shift logical. CEO Bob Sternfels said at CES in January that the company now has about 25,000 AI professionals supporting its 60,000 employees. Eighteen months ago, that number was 3,000. More than 75% of McKinsey employees use Lilli every month.

McKinsey also cut about 200 technology roles as AI automates non-customer-facing tasks. The company has reduced its total workforce by more than 10 percent between 2023 and 2025. Entry-level roles have been particularly affected, which are positions that the AI ​​training tool is designed to help candidates secure.

The tension between AI and creating and eliminating jobs continues throughout the hiring market. Forward-distributed engineer deployments increased 19x year-over-year. Claude’s evangelists received $240,000. Senior AI managers make around $500,000. The jobs created by AI pay more and require different skills than the jobs being replaced.

McKinsey’s method incorporates that transition into the interview itself. The company does not ask candidates if they can use AI. It makes AI fluency an entry criterion. CaseBasix, a consulting interview preparation company, said BCG and Bain are likely to follow suit with similar parts of the AI ​​interview.

A broad pattern is consistent. Detroit automakers are cutting white-collar workers while outsourcing AI roles. Salesforce eliminated 4,000 support jobs after deploying AI agents. McKinsey is simultaneously downsizing its workforce and reorganizing its hiring process to focus on the people who can work and the technologies that make others redundant.

The plural part is very important, says Padberg, because “even in an AI-enabled workplace, communicators still need to understand how the numbers connect and what they mean.” AI can generate analytics. It can’t yet determine whether the analytics are relevant to a particular customer problem. That judgment gap is now what McKinsey’s interview is designed to test.

The class of 2025 and 2026 graduates are entering a job market where AI fluency is no longer a bonus skill. At McKinsey, it is now part of the entrance exam. A free practice tool makes preparation accessible. Lilli’s discussion makes the standard clear: if you can’t work with AI under pressure, you won’t get the job.