MBB 1st round from nontarget - how to prepare

I have managed to land a 1st round interview at BCG from a complete non-target by submitting the online application. It will be in-person, 2 45-min case interviews. I'm planning to study using Case in Point.. but does anyone have any specific suggestions on what to expect for BCG?

I have never had or studied for a case interview before and nobody in my career services has been helpful either. Thanks!

 

Use Case in Point, but don't just read it - try to test yourself by reading it chunks, covering the answers and trying it live.

The majority of the interview will probably be case, but be ready to talk about your experiences - will likely ask about leadership, problem-solving, resilience - so have examples ready.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of Starwood Points
 
exceptionruled:
xxix - I have pretty strong stats (4.0 / 770 GMAT) and just applied to see what would happen. petergibbons - Sounds good, yeah I definitely need to refresh the behaviorals.

Any tips from someone who has been through the process?

Our case interview guide actually preps someone else to give you a case interview...so it's more realistic. Also, out behavioral guide is awesome.

Good luck!

 

Assuming you're undergrad, BCG always asks one broad industry question. Mine was: "What will be a booming industry in 10 years?" A friend was asked: "What's the most important factor in reuniting Korea?"

And yes, they're actually looking for a good answer.

 
FreedayFF:
Assuming you're undergrad, BCG always asks one broad industry question. Mine was: "What will be a booming industry in 10 years?" A friend was asked: "What's the most important factor in reuniting Korea?"

And yes, they're actually looking for a good answer.

In my experience, this was more the norm in the Decision/Second Round. That's when a partner, for instance, will really drill into the details of your behavioral stuff or ask a question that just tests your conversational ability and general knowledge like "what's something that is historically unique about your generation as compared to Gen X or the Boomers?"

The first round will be ~15 minutes of standard behavioral as described above (problem-solving, leadership) and ~30 minutes of a case. Case in Point is good, but I'm a visual and auditory learner, so I actually preferred watching Victor Cheng's pretty comprehensive lecture on the case interview (part 1/12 here:

), and then just practicing a lot. If you're smart (which your stats indicate is the case), you should eventually develop a comfort level with the case process where you're not just robotically splitting the problem into 3 parts and asking to segment, but really just thinking about the business problem like an HBS case as the protagonist and figuring out what's wrong with intuitive, analytically driven questions and comments.

Good luck, man, what office (or region, I guess, if you'd rather not say)?

"The disdain of profit is due to ignorance." - F.A. Hayek
 
Best Response

10 minutes behavioral (have 2-3 good stories that demonstrate leadership, attention to detail, and ability to deal with difficult situations) 30 minutes case 5 minutes for you to ask questions

As far as the case, I'd definitely second Victor Cheng's lecture being a good starting point and resource. That being said, I'd try to move on as quickly as possible from Victor Chang's/Case in Point/etc. to live cases. I find that people who spend a demonstrable amount of time in the weeds with those resources tend to struggle when asked to make a bespoke structure to solve the problem for an interesting case.

In line with that comment, BCG cases are interviewee led, as opposed to the McKinsey style. Basically, they will give you a 30 second or so overview of the problem and then you're in the driver's seat from there. So you will need to structure the case, ask for requisite information, make conclusions, and push the case forward on your own. I found McKinsey's style to be more akin to a bunch of mini-cases (i.e. how would you structure, ok brainstorm this, now solve this math problem...).

I'm an incoming 1st year at BCG in the southeast, so feel free to PM me if you have any more questions.

 

I thought the Wharton Case Book was pretty helpful. Just google Wharton case book 2011 or something and you should find it. Practice cases with a buddy, market sizing. The biggest thing is to deliver insight from the information you gather. Running through the case interview is expected, your differentiation will come from the unique connections you make and insight you deliver. Good luck.

 

Congrats on getting past that first barrier. I'm also from a non-target school and wound up getting a few offers. Case in Point was great. I'm not sure if all versions of the book have the "type of case" matrix in them but this is what I used and found it to be a fail safe. Try and memorize a few universal points you will be able to apply to different cases and go nuts. I also saw that someone had mentioned Wharton's materials. Huge asset. I used Wharton and Kellogg's PDFs from a simple Google search and applied the frame works from CIP. Show that Ivy League director what non-target schools can do.

 

FreedayFF - Yes I'm an undergrad. I've got the industry part down since I actively follow the markets, but the Korea might be tough. I guess I'll look over current events.

Aattikus - I applied with Houston, Dallas, and DC as my choices (actually I don't remember exactly) but I'm interviewing in DC since it's closest to my school.

JackDevlin - I'll definitely take a look those materials. How did you get in as a nontarget?

All - thanks for the help and encouragement!

 

I am assuming you mean an offer. As you are already in the door, I'll focus on behavioral points. In all of my non case interviews I really hammered home past experiences. I spent time in the working world for about a year before making the switch. I basically had to convey that a non-target school with summa cum laude grades and acutal know-how allowed me to have a horse in their race. I'm not sure how comfortable/confident person you are but that was also a huge benefit for me. I was able to relate to my interviewers on a few different levels and convey to them that I not only will bust my a** and produce a great work-product, but also reminded them that I'm someone who they'll want to solve problems with. Ask awesome questions and show an interest towards a particular sector or group within the firm. Confidence is everything as they are trying to see if you'll be able to politely explain to a senior level manager of an F50 co. why s/he should adopt your plan. You're already past the biggest hurdle - bring it on home.

 

Thanks for all your help everyone. I just wanted to update that my 1st round went well and I got selected to decision rounds (interviewing in 2 days). I ended up watching Victor Cheng's video and read couple chapters in Case in Point. I only did like half of a live practice case, but somehow got lucky I guess.

For the 1st round: 2 interviews, 15-min behavioral, 20-min case, 10-min questions. Easy case questions, I had to figure out what is the issue and what data I needed, then they gave you the data and I had to do some simple mental math. They then asked me some follow-up questions testing the assumptions I used with the data. I made some "typos" on the math but they were willing to let it pass. I interviewed on Friday and heard back the good news on the following Tuesday.

I would really appreciate it if you had any specific tips for BCG decision rounds. the "what is a booming industry" has been mentioned (thanks FreedayFF), is there anything else? Should I expect cases that are more involved?

 

Congratulations! I'm glad to hear everything is going well for you.

I don't remember any specific questions that were different (even the booming industry thing) from decision rounds. The main difference was the cases were a little trickier (not likely to be an obvious profitability case) and the interviewers were partners. I remember in one he suggested I put my notepad away, sat almost next to me, and ran the case by drawing graphs from scratch on printer paper. Basically, it's more one-on-one with a partner. 1 ended up being a short case with a lot of behavioral chit-chat. Another was almost all case.

 

Thanks pfitzy!

My 1st round cases were on improving an plant design (basically engineering) and a HR case to determine if the client was understaffed. I interviewed with a partner with an engineering degree and a principal with a PhD so maybe my experience was not the usual lol.

How much note-taking do you do and where? While I write down the specifics of the case, writing out "Profit = Revenue - Cost" seems silly to me. I also ended up taking most of my notes on the handouts they gave me to do the number calculations.

 

Honestly, when I went through the interview process I would write down my structure(if the case lent itself to it) in chart form (think ppt slide), key facts, tough math, and interim results. My biggest tactical tip on what to write down is underline specific calculations or points you discover that either confirm or change your hypothesis. This process will make it easy to skim over what is boxed and underlined when synthesizing your results in the end.

 

Sorry for hacking this thread. Exceptionruled and JackDevlin I have very similar backgrounds to you in that I have a 3.8 gpa and a 770 gmat and I have been working in corporate development for a year at an o & g firm in Canada. I am wondering how do I go about getting interviews at MBB frims when two of them arent even located in my city and the third one has an office of only 40 people most of which are senior folks at the director and principal level of the firm. I am glad that atleast some non targets are getting into MBB. I did however go a US semi target school that does not get much love from MBB. Exceptionruled did you get an offer from one of MBB ?

 

I just had my decision round interviews with BCG today. The cases were very similar to 1st round and more quantitative than strategic; pretty straightforward overall. I made couple of small math errors and honestly didn't feel like I was particularly impressive, but I guess we'll see. I'll update once I hear back... thanks for the help everyone.

State of Trance: just apply on their website, they actually do take a look at the applications. Another suggestion is to reach out to the recruiters listed on the websites directly and mention an interest in working at a particular office. This will make sure your resume actually gets seen. Works best if it's an office that is not as popular but they take a lot of pride in. For example, I did this with McKinsey in Houston, but wouldn't work in NYC or SF.

 

Thanks exceptionruled the last time I reached out to recruiters all she said was " we generally recruit people out of campuses only but you are always welcome to apply online" whats the best way to respond to that type of comment by the recruiter ? Any recommendations.

 

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