McKinsey Built an AI to Get Past the Rehearsed Answer. We Taught the Rehearsal.

In The Wall Street Journal, Chip Cutter reports in To Get This Job at McKinsey, You'll Need to Survive a Debate With AI First that the consulting firm is adding a new step to its interviews for some entry-level candidates this fall. After the case challenge, candidates will spend about 10 minutes in conversation with an AI avatar playing a client, such as a mayor pressing on a stadium recommendation, while partners or assessors in the room observe. The AI does no scoring of its own. McKinsey says the point is to see how candidates listen and respond when a conversation changes direction.

The reason the firm gives is the part that stayed with me. Its co-leader of global recruiting told the Journal that candidates often arrive with stories that are quite rehearsed, which makes it hard for interviewers to see what lies underneath. Another partner described the goal as understanding who the person really is.

We Trained the Rehearsal

It is easy to read this as a story about technology in hiring. I read it as a story about what we have taught young people to believe about being chosen. From the college essay to the first internship interview, the message has been consistent: figure out what the room wants, then deliver it smoothly. Career offices coach the ideal answer to the question about a time you failed. Online, there are libraries of model responses. Students who follow that advice are doing exactly what we asked of them.

Now the tools make the rehearsal effortless. In Common Sense Media's 2026 census of 1,204 U.S. young people ages 9 to 17, 85% of those who use AI said they use it for help with schoolwork. A generation is growing up with a polished draft one prompt away. That has real benefits. It also means a well-prepared answer tells an interviewer less than it once did, because almost anyone can produce one.

So one of the most selective employers in the world has built a machine to do something that should never have been necessary: get past the performance to the person.

What the Avatar Is Really Testing

Look at what McKinsey says it is watching for. Did the candidate hear what mattered to the client? Did they act on it, or push their own agenda through? How do they respond when new concerns appear? None of that can be memorized. It depends on whether a person can stay present, think in real time and stand behind a view while remaining open to new information.

Those are not interview tricks. They grow out of self-knowledge. A candidate who knows what they care about and how they think doesn't need a script, because they aren't trying to become someone else for ten minutes. They can listen, because they aren't busy managing an impression. I explored a related idea in AI Can Learn Your Expertise. It Can't Learn Who You Are. The more machines can reproduce, the more value shifts to what only a particular person brings.

McKinsey also argues that the avatar adds fairness, since some human interviewers play the client tougher than others. That is a reasonable goal. A shared, repeatable format gives every candidate the same starting line, and good structure is what makes a hiring process trustworthy. But structure earns its keep when it helps reveal the individual. The firm seems to understand that, since it keeps people in the room and leaves the judgment to them.

Prepare to Be Yourself, Not to Perform

For young people, the lesson isn't to rehearse for the avatar. It is to spend less time polishing stories and more time understanding the person telling them.

Before your next interview, write down three moments when you changed your mind because of something another person told you. Being able to explain how you listen is worth more than a perfect answer.

Practice conversations, not monologues. Ask a friend to interrupt you halfway through an answer with a new concern, and notice whether you adjust or plow ahead.

Know what you believe about the work you want, and why. That kind of conviction lets you respond to a skeptical client without folding or steamrolling.

For parents, educators and career offices, reward the honest, unfinished answer as much as the smooth one. When young people learn that their real thinking is welcome, they stop reaching for the script. Early-career confidence is already fragile, as I wrote in Confidence Is Leaving Through the Entry Level, and a script is often what people reach for when that confidence runs out.

For leaders who hire, look honestly at whether your own process rewards rehearsal. If the most polished candidate keeps winning, you may be selecting for performance rather than judgment.

McKinsey's pilot may or may not last. The question behind it will. As AI makes polish universal, the people who stand out will be the ones who can stay fully themselves when the conversation takes a turn nobody prepared them for.

The best preparation for an unscripted moment is knowing who you are well enough that you never needed the script.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.