ONLINE GAMES
You finally submit the McKinsey application.
Then another task appears.
Solve.
It looks like a game, so perhaps your months of case preparation are not relevant.
Or it is a consulting assessment, so perhaps you should attack it exactly like a profitability case.
Neither interpretation is quite right.
Solve is testing problem solving... without giving you the familiar interview
McKinsey describes Solve as a gamified assessment used for many consulting roles and says it is designed to assess problem-solving abilities.
That sounds broad because it is.
You are not sitting across from an interviewer who can explain a prompt, respond to your structure or ask what your recommendation means.
The environment itself becomes part of the problem.
You need to understand information.
Notice relationships.
Make decisions.
Keep track of what those decisions imply.
The interface changes. The thinking still matters.
That is why traditional case preparation can help indirectly, but memorising case frameworks is not the point.
For the full format and practice approach, use McKinsey Solve Game: Guide & Free Practice.
Your Master’s training can help... until you overuse it
If you are coming from engineering, economics, analytics, science or another quantitative Master’s, you may feel comfortable processing information.
Useful.
Then the trap appears.
You start trying to model everything.
You calculate possibilities that the task never asked you to calculate.
You chase precision where a decision is what matters.
Academic training often rewards proving that your analysis is complete.
Consulting assessments may reward identifying what is decision-relevant.
More analysis is not automatically better analysis.
| Your instinct | What can go wrong | The useful shift |
|---|---|---|
| Understand every detail | You consume time without improving the decision | Find the variables that actually matter |
| Search for a known framework | The task may not map neatly to one | Build logic from the information given |
| Optimise every move | You lose the larger objective | Keep returning to the goal |
| Panic after uncertainty | You rush later decisions | Update and continue |
So should you practise for something McKinsey says needs no preparation?
McKinsey’s official guidance says no preparation is required or expected.
Take that seriously.
Do not build a mythology around secret question banks.
There is still a difference between trying to memorise assessment content and making sure you can operate comfortably in the format.
Read the instructions carefully.
Use the permitted setup.
Know the integrity rules.
Make sure your technology works.
And practise the underlying habits you will need throughout consulting recruiting anyway: structured thinking, quantitative comfort and decision-making under incomplete information.
For tactical preparation principles without turning the exercise into memorisation, see McKinsey Solve/PSG: Proven, Non-Nonsense Tips & Free Trial.
One more thing can undo all of your preparation...
Do not improvise on the rules.
McKinsey currently states that candidates must complete Solve independently and prohibits outside assistance, websites, AI tools, prepared notes, screenshots and other unauthorised aids unless an approved accommodation applies.
That means the cleverest “hack” is remarkably boring.
Follow the instructions exactly.
If you want to use AI, friends or external tools, use them before the assessment to understand general problem-solving concepts where appropriate.
Not during it.
When the invitation arrives, the question is no longer whether you can discover every trick hidden inside Solve.
It is whether you can enter an unfamiliar environment, identify what matters, and keep making sensible decisions.
Which sounds a little less like a game now.