Who You'll Work With
You are someone who thrives in a high-performance environment, bringing a growth mindset and entrepreneurial spirit to tackle meaningful challenges that have a real impact.
In return for your drive, determination, and curiosity, we’ll provide the resources, mentorship, and opportunities to help you quickly broaden your expertise, grow into a well-rounded professional, and contribute to work that truly makes a difference.
When you join us, you will have
- Continuous learning Our learning and apprenticeship culture, backed by structured programs, is all about helping you grow while creating an environment where feedback is clear, actionable, and focused on your development. The real magic happens when you take the input from others to heart and embrace the fast-paced learning experience, owning your journey.
- A voice that matters From day one, we value your ideas and contributions. You’ll make a tangible impact by offering innovative ideas and practical solutions. We not only encourage diverse perspectives, but they are critical in driving us toward the best possible outcomes.
- Global community With colleagues across 65+ countries and over 100 different nationalities, our firm’s diversity fuels creativity and helps us come up with the best solutions. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from exceptional colleagues with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
- Exceptional benefits In addition to a competitive salary (based on your location, experience, and skills), we offer a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, mental health, and vision coverage for you, your spouse/partner, and children.
Your Impact
You will join our Tokyo office as part of the Translation & Interpretation team, which arranges and delivers interpretation, document translation, and editing services for McKinsey’s consultants in Japan. We are a multicultural group of high performers who value collaboration, problem-solving, and innovation.
As a translator-interpreter working between Japanese and English, your role will entail delivering accurate and lucid simultaneous interpretation at speed, enabling seamless communication between McKinsey consultants and clients across all sectors. This includes in-person, hybrid, and remote meeting formats, covering settings such as boardroom discussions, expert interviews, workshops, plant walkthroughs, and large-scale events.
You will be translating documents through our translation management platform, checking translation accuracy, and conducting related document work outside of interpreting assignments.
You will support colleagues, both as a translator-interpreter and as a firm member, which may entail contributing to or leading team initiatives; sharing glossaries and reference materials, and other information with fellow linguists as part of your daily preparation; and directly contacting consultants for briefings and meeting materials ahead of assignments as well as gathering developmental post-meeting feedback.
Your Qualifications and Skills
- A completion certificate, degree or equivalent in simultaneous interpretation from a recognized institution is required, along with a bachelor’s degree.
- At least three years’ experience in a full-time interpretation role in a corporate environment, or commensurate freelance experience.
- Proficient at interpreting simultaneously in both Japanese and English at speed and using complete sentences, with good enunciation and grammar; able to interpret with precision across topics, especially when dealing with numbers, and skilled at reflecting audience analysis and cultural nuances.
- Relentlessly positive and solution-oriented, even when assignments are less-than-ideal (e.g., no prep material, last-minute requests, unfamiliar topics).
- Strong interpersonal skills, including an enthusiasm for teamwork and an eagerness to build collaborative, friendly, non-hierarchical relationships, both with consultants and team members.
- Driven to improve technical skills, eager to ask for and act on feedback, and committed to building a strong personal reputation for reliability, quality, and professionalism.