Overall the interview process was rather disjointed. The initial telephone interview with HR was as expected very glossy and easy to walk through. After this a series of telephone interviews took place with various members of staff in London and New York. I spoke for some time with a member of staff n New York, in my opinion a rather dull and emotionless interview. It was very clear that no common ground was being discussed and I was given the feeling that the person on the other end of the call was doing her nails. The interview style was unlike anything I had experienced before, with questions being so 'open' it was hard to nail any specific answer.. The face to face took place in McKinsey & Company's office in London. I was led into a meeting room at 10:00am by a lady who had obviously forgotten her personality that morning. After 30mins of waiting it was clear that I had been forgotten about. A short while after this two young men entered the room with a look of 'We will carry out this interview even though we only found out about it 2mins ago', (I was due to meet someone else that morning who was called away to a meeting in Scotland), these things happen i guess.. Worth pointing out that this was for a contracting role and not perm, also worth noting that I had travelled 200miles for this interview and was under the impression that we were at final stage.. The opening line from my expert interview panel was, Sorry Mr X is away, after this interview could you come back later in the week.. However unbeknown to them, at 10:15am that morning I had decided that a career move to the mighty McKinsey would end badly! "No" was my response, which to my amusement confused my new found friends. As you can imagine this was a great opener and something neither of them had experienced before, however they looked more shocked when I asked for drink, having sat in the nasty little room for over an hour. To be honest, the questions were as expected. Interviews around agile based software delivery always yield the same competency based issues, so nothing new or out of the ordinary. Having said that, I would imagine we had all mad our minds up way before this dance started. As for the agility "expert" sorry I forgot your name (I shall call you Mr Nice Suit), not everyone has the compulsion or obsessive need to increase their Klout by writing a Blog and although I'm sure the internet appreciates the endless bandwidth you consume with your thoughts and opinions, it really doesn't deserve the kudos you believe, in fairness it more than likely adds to the problem of miss-information and bad advice that any search for 'why can't my team deliver quality?' returns in Google;) As for attending Agile hangouts of an evening afterwork, while i'm sure they are interesting in their own right and full of like minded people, i'd sooner fight my way home and spend time with the little ones. I normally spend 9 hours a day at the office, couple with that an additional 3 hrs on the train, the last thing any sane person would wish to do is talk about the latest additions to SAFe or Scrum 2. Whilst i'm sure the departure from 'commitment' to 'forecast' provides the stimulation of a night in Las Vegas it's not for those who don't have a World of Warcraft account or girlfriend. So, please accept my open apology for waisting your time and whilst I appreciate you are the mighty McKinsey & Company, you need to let the professionals represent you front of house! Parting words of wisdom: Arrive late, they won't mind Take your own refreshments