Bain and BCG fit interviews

Hey there,

Correct, the interviewers may ask whatever they find interesting in theory.

Questions to expect

In practice, most of the time the questions are the same and are along the lines of (in decreasing order of importance and relevance):

• Tell me something about yourself / can you guide me through your resume / how did you end up applying at our firm
• Why do you want to work in consulting?
• Why do you want to work for us?
• Tell me about a time you failed and what have learned from it (very common at BCG)
• What are your strengths / weaknesses?
• What was your biggest achievement?
• Tell me about a time you led a team during a difficult situation
• Tell me about a time you influenced a senior leader or group of people
• How do your skills match the job description? How can your previous experience benefit us?
• What are you enjoying outside of work? What drives you?

Timing

• For rapid-fire questions (what is one of your weaknesses?), between 30 seconds and 1 minute
• For behavioral questions (tell me about a time you led a team), prepare 2-minute answers and then be prepared to deal with some follow-up questions

Repeated answers

Other than for McKinsey and its PEI, here you can repeat your answers when dealing with rapid-fire questions. It's rather important to show consistency and not tell 2 different interviewers 2 different stories or reasons why you want to join BCG for instance.

For behavioral questions, it makes sense to have different stories available for the same question.

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there,

It is totally possible that the interviewers will ask you exactly the same questions. I have a db with 700+ real questions asked in different offices and the fit ones are definitely asked over and over, even in the same round.

You definitely don’t need to have a different answer for some questions. If they ask you why BCG of why consulting for example, it would actually be quite strange if you provide different answers and they discuss it ;)

The questions for which it is better to have different answers are the stories (eg leadership, convincing others or drive in achieving something).

You can find a list of common questions asked here:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/bain-london-can-anyone-share-insightsexperienceadvise-on-behavioral-interview-pastforward-looking-9156

Best,

Francesco

Hi there,

It's not common for them to discuss beforehand and yes you could absolutely get the same question twice. My strong advice is to treat each interview independently - give the best answer you have for the question you've received, even if it's a repeat from the prior interview!

There is no guarantee that the interviewers discuss among themselves if they will be asking the same questions. You can, however, tweak your answer depending on the interviewer's framing of the question as well as their experience. You get a chance to learn a bit about your interviewer before the actual interview takes place and that helps you get a flavor for what kind of answer they might be expecting.