First round BCG

Question

Hello everyone,

I just finished my first round BCG interview, which was surprisingly short. I know that usually the interview lasts about 15-20min for the fit questions and around 20min for the case study. However, they only asked me to introduce myself and then we started the case straight up. It was a market sizing question and had to estimate the market size (in annual revenue in the UK) of artificial arms and legs. I estimated the number of people who would use these considering the UK population, then focusing on a portion of that population due to the age range, number of disabled individuals, accessibility to hospitals, number of ppl who can afford the devices and penetration rate. And estimated the price by dividing into simple, medium and complex (with motors, control system, etc) mechanism arms and legs. When I was going to finish my final step of calculation of computing price times volume, my interviewer asked me if this approach was good and asked me identify if there were any statistics that were difficult to obtain. I answered that the UK population, age range were certain because of the government and agencies doing national surveys, etc, accessibility to hospitals can be estimated from patient registry, people who can afford could also be by looking at the national average wage etc but penetration rate and number of disabled people were more challenging as many are reluctant to be registered as disabled since it is a sensitive matter and some other reasons.

Then he asked me if I could think of another way of estimating so I said that I can look into the number of companies, research labs, startups working in this domain, then those who actually commercialise products, then estimate the portion of the artifical arms and legs in their product portfolio then get the average number of orders, divide by the number of years the product is being used for as generally artificial arms and legs are durable so last for many years and then finally multiply by the price of the product (I've skipped a few steps for the sake of this post's length). And we finished the interview with some Q&A where I asked him some questions about his work at BCG, etc

I believe I was pretty clear in my answers and quickly changed my framework after my interviewer's feedback. But what are my chances of getting to the 2nd round based on the fact that I had to change my approach? Is it definitely a rejection?

Thanks for your answers in advance

Answer 1

Hi there,

Thanks for sharing your experience! I would definitely not support the conclusion that being asked to change your approach is necessarily a bad sign.

Try stepping into your interviewer's shoes: He/she primiarly wants to collect the necessary data points to fill in the evaluation sheet and acquire an educated assessment of your performance. In case an interviewer has seen enough to confidently assess a certain skill, they might just jump to the next. Some will not, but some follow that logic more than the interviewee's agenda.

You did well in moving along and allowing them to see what they wanted to test. If they have seen that you can calculate and rather want to test your creativity more by asking for another approach, that is what you should give (and you did)! Since you felt that you reacted clearly and flexibly, you managed the challenge well.

Important takeaway here: BCG interviews are not necessarily always candidate-led. You have to be prepared for everything.

All in all, what I summarized here means that there is not much to necessarily infer from how the interview went. So I wouldn't think too much about it and wait for the outcome.

Fingers crossed!

Best,

Gero

Answer 2

Hi there,

To anyone reading: Please get this word "USUALLY" out of your vocabulary.

There is no usually. The case could be 40 minutes or 5. The fit could be 5 or 40. There could be 0 charts/exhbits or 10. It could be pure candidate led and they give you no hints/clues or it could be mostly interviewer led.

It sounds like you did just fine and handled pressure well. But, also, learn from this - go in expecting the unexpected.

Fingers crossed for you :)

The Most Common Pitfalls in Case Interview Preparation

Dos and Don'ts in a Case Interview

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Answer 3

Hi there,

Q: What are my chances of getting to the 2nd round based on the fact that I had to change my approach? Is it definitely a rejection?

I don't think the fact that they asked you for another way to estimate is necessarily a bad thing. It might have been a question the interviewer asked every candidate.

In terms of the chances, it is always difficult to comment without having all the details, but it seems your approach was overall solid. Regarding the first approach, you did not mention the frequency of purchase, but I suspect you had it in your structure, as you mentioned it for the second approach.

Good luck!

Francesco

Answer 4

Hi there,

it sounds like you were able to provide different ways to tackle the problem during the interview which shows that you could think about it comprehensively and from different angles. Maybe that was the sort of skill the interviewer wanted to test. How quickly can you think on your feet? How do you deal with pressure if your initial approach doesn't seem to be the desired one?

Remember, testing a candidate who already knows all of the questions he/she is going to get during the interview upfront is somewhat meaningless and not very insightful. That's why firms and interviewers tend to mix it up a bit to actually be able to observe the candidate's behavior in such situations.

In terms of your chances to reaching the next round, no idea because I wasn't there. But it sounds like you didn't bomb the case so there should be reason to remain optimistic.

Best of luck

Answer 5

Hi there,

From the outside, it is always difficult to provide a clear insight into interviews because you might not have noticed a lot of things the interviewer picked up and how he used these observations to score you.

Some tend to see themselves as better than they were, while others do the opposite.

Still, I'll give it a try based on your information:

It sounds okay, no grave mistakes.
Having you think about a different approach to structure the approach could just be another test (happens a lot in market sizing as interviewers want to see how you can triangulate and verify your approach). This sounds normal. The best reaction is to provide what they ask for and you did

So, in short: Definitely not a rejection from what you have written but take it with a grain of salt as mentioned above.

Fingers crossed!

Cheers,

Florian

Answer 6

Absolutely not. It went quite well based on how you tell it.

You provided a convincing top-down approach starting from the population, you were able to answer follow-up questions and then provide a bottom-up approach building from the number of companies operating in this space.

Don't assume that the interview was ‘too short’. Sometimes they shorten the first round and then spend more time in the second round.

I hope you hear back from them soon. And in the meantime, keep on applying for other roles as well.

Best,
Cristian