McKinsey plans to trial an AI-simulated client in recruitment

McKinsey plans to incorporate a 10-minute conversation with an AI-simulated client into recruitment for some entry-level candidates, The Verge reports, drawing on the Wall Street Journal. The tool is due to be trialed this fall with undergraduates seeking analyst positions in certain North American offices. The article does not establish that this experiment has already begun.

Under the announced arrangement, AI will play the client, while people present in the room will assess candidates and how they respond to the simulated situations. The system will not assign them a score itself. According to the goal reported by the Wall Street Journal, the simulation aims to represent 80% of the scenarios McKinsey consultants might encounter in their daily work.

This proportion describes an ambition to cover professional situations. It measures neither the simulation’s fidelity nor its ability to predict a successful hire. The article provides no evaluation results for the tool.

The potential benefit would be to observe candidates’ reactions in a simulated interaction with a client. The value of the trial will depend in particular on the realism of the exchanges and how evaluators interpret them. The available information does not support a conclusion that candidate selection will improve.