BCG Technology Advantage Experienced Hire

Question

Hi All

I have been contacted by a BCG recruiter to interview for a role with BCG's Technology Advantage business line. I am an experienced hire with a non traditional background, approx 8 years in large bank back to middle office roles (Finance/Strategy/Ops) followed by 8 years of Digital Strategy and Transformation Consulting (this is a combination of large corporate strategy consulting and entrepreneurial endevours).

The recruiter said the interview will be via VC and will be a case study. Looking at backgrounds of people on LinkedIn I assume I will be going into an expert track. Does anyone have any insight into the case studies given to experienced hires in the expert track? Does BCG use the general case interviews (e.g. market entry, pricing, market sizing etc) or do they have specialised cases for a given expert track? While the BCG HR mentioned case interview, reading online it looks like there are experienced hire candidates who had no cases, just a general discussion around Digital and Transformation. I actually had a situation like this with another consultancy I interviewed with, HR said case interview but (I assume given my years of experience) the interview was more like business peers talking.

Also, do they also have a lot of the HR style fit questions for senior experienced hires or any of the estimation type questions or any challenging math questions?

Many thanks

Answer 1

Hi Daria,

in general experienced hires are tested on the following areas:

Fit with the company, leadership, communication – behavioural part
Structuring skills – case part
Skills in a specific practice – this will be included in the fit part but with specific questions on your past experience

In some interviews, you may be tested on part 1 and 3 only without cases, however there is no guarantee for that.

Compared to a new or recent hire, you would need (i) more leadership and communication skills (Part 1) and (ii) specific skills/knowledge from your previous experience (Part 3).

Cases are usually not related to your baseline of knowledge, in order to check if you can proper structure something you are not familiar with. The type of cases may be related to any of the typical ones, from profitability to operations. It is likely though that the case will require less time compared to the ones in a new graduate interview, in order to leave space to test your skills on your specific knowledge (Part 3 above).

You can receive both fit and math questions, and potentially estimation questions (most likely as part of a case), therefore you should prepare on them as well.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Answer 2

Hi,

Completely agree with the previous advice. Several points:

You will have cases both in your industry/function and other industries and functions
They will ask you about the trends in your field of expertise. Make sure to be up to date to have a great discussion. Quick tip: big 3 companies publish industry knowledge nuggets where you can find all necessary information.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Thanks Vlad and Francesco, very useful information and good to know.

Interesting to note that they give a general case even though the area I am going into is very specialised on only Digital and Technology Transformations. Best for me to practice the general cases - biggest challenges for me is thinking ahead about case structure and leading the interviewer through my line of thinking so there's no surprises. I'll have to work on that in the context of a case job interview.

Just a question regarding cases. I understand each of the consultancies have their preferred approach to unpacking and analysing a case. If you don't address a particular case in their preferred method is that immediately a negative against you? And do they account for your experience when assessing how you address a case?