What the McDonald's HireVue looks like
McDonald's uses HireVue for corporate programs and some management hiring. Restaurant crew hiring is run by franchisees and varies by location. If you got a HireVue link, candidates report 3 to 5 questions with 30 seconds to think and up to 2 minutes to answer. No retakes on the scored questions.
McDonald's publishes its values as serve, inclusion, integrity, community, and family, and the questions follow them. This page has the reported questions, what each tests, and a worked answer.
| Questions | 3 to 5 |
|---|---|
| Time to think | 30 seconds |
| Time to answer | up to 2 minutes |
| Retakes | none on the scored questions |
| When it comes | after the online application, before a call or in-person interview |
| Who gets it | corporate early-career programs and some restaurant management roles; crew hiring varies by franchise |
What candidates report for early-career screens. McDonald's can change the bank by role and by year.
The clock and the format are the same HireVue product every employer uses. The timing guide covers what happens when the timer runs out, and how HireVue scoring works covers what the recording is scored on.
What McDonald's is screening for
McDonald's values are serve, inclusion, integrity, community, and family. The reported questions test service and teamwork under pressure most often.
- Service. A customer taken care of in a specific way.
- Teamwork under pressure. A rush handled with a crew.
- Inclusion. Working well with people unlike you.
- Integrity. The honest call, especially with money or food safety.
- Community. Something you did for people beyond the job.
Build one story for each line above. Every question below is asking for one of them.
McDonald's HireVue questions candidates report
These are the questions candidates report from recent McDonald's screens, with the competency each one is built to test. Your set will be a mix of these and close variants.
- Tell me about a time you worked as part of a team during a very busy period. (Teamwork under pressure)
- Why McDonald's, and why this role? (Motivation)
- Describe a time you turned around a bad experience for a customer. (Service)
- Tell me about a time you worked with someone very different from you. (Inclusion)
- Describe a time you had to be honest about a mistake. (Integrity)
- Tell me about a time you did something for your community. (Community)
For the shape of each answer type, see HireVue interview questions by format. For the answer structure itself, the STAR method guide has worked examples.
A worked answer, timed to the clock
Question: "Tell me about a time you worked as part of a team during a very busy period."
"I worked at a coffee shop during a summer when the shop next to a stadium doubled its morning line on game days. The first game day, orders were coming out wrong and the line went out the door. Before the next one, the four of us on the shift agreed on one change: one person took orders and payments only, one made drinks only, one handled food and handoff, and one floated to whichever station was backing up. I was the floater. On the second game day we served about 40 percent more people in the same hour with almost no remakes. The manager made it the standard for busy shifts. The fix was that everyone knew their one job and one person watched the whole line."
Why it scores: A real rush, one clear change, the person's role in it, and a result. About 55 seconds spoken.
How to prepare for the McDonald's HireVue in three days
Specific to McDonald's:
- Have a rush story. Any job with a line counts.
- Prepare an honesty story about money or food safety if you have one. Integrity questions at restaurants usually mean those two.
- For corporate roles, know one thing McDonald's is doing right now in the market and have a view on it.
For any HireVue:
- Day 1. Write one story per competency in the list above. Two or three sentences each: the situation, what you decided, what happened.
- Day 2. Say each story out loud on a two-minute timer. Most people run long the first time. Cut until each one ends on the result with time to spare.
- Day 3. Run the reported questions cold, in one sitting, no notes. Then set up the room: quiet, camera at eye level, light on your face, wired internet if you have it.
The full setup checklist and a five-day version of this plan are in the main HireVue guide.
Other companies that use HireVue
Company guides in this series, each with the reported questions and a worked answer:
- Goldman Sachs HireVue (investment banking)
- JPMorgan Chase HireVue (investment banking)
- Morgan Stanley HireVue (investment banking)
- Citi HireVue (banking)
- Bank of America HireVue (banking)
- Barclays HireVue (banking)
- Deutsche Bank HireVue (banking)
- Bain & Company HireVue (consulting)
- Boston Consulting Group HireVue (consulting)
- Deloitte HireVue (consulting and professional services)
- EY HireVue (professional services)
- Unilever HireVue (consumer goods)
- PepsiCo HireVue (consumer goods)
- Amazon HireVue (technology and operations)
- IBM HireVue (technology)
- Boeing HireVue (aerospace and engineering)
- Hilton HireVue (hospitality)
- Delta Air Lines HireVue (airlines)
- Shell HireVue (energy)