BCG Knowledge Analyst Roles

Question

Can anyone shed light on the BCG Knowledge Analyst (industry specific) roles? Specifically:

- What are the day to day tasks involved in these roles?

- Is there an opportunity to work on project teams and interact directly with clients? Or is this very limited and a purely back office role?

- Is the interview process as difficult as consulting roles? E.g. estimation questions and verbal case interviews? Or are they focused more more on being able to demonstrate your relevant technical / industry expertise / behavioural / personal fit?

- What are the exit opportunities for these roles?

I am currently working within industry (5 years of experience) and have seen a role advertised which is of interest. But I am not sure whether this type of role will be a good fit for me.

Answer 1

Hi,

1,2) The knowledge analyst is a supporting (non-consulting) role. Here are the implications:

You are specialized in a particular industry sector
You may or may not be assigned to a project. In most of the cases, you will have limited client-facing activities.
Lower salary
No international staffing, though lots of remote work with other offices

3) You will have standard consulting cases (although maybe less than 6). You will have the industry-specific questions. In general, these interviews are not that hard. You should know:

Latest trends in your field
Key analytics instruments and examples of how you applied these tool in your past
Applicability to different industries

I think the best way to prepare is to find the relevant technical articles and knowledge nuggets on McKinsey, BCG official site - they have plenty of them.

4) Mainly the roles in the industry you were specialized at (Functions - Research, strategy, etc)

Good luck!

Answer 2

In asnwer to your questions:

1) Primary and Secondary research for consulting teams; creation of internal "white papers" on industry trends; organization of practice area events

2) You will work a lot with project teams (they will assign the work) but in my experience there is no interaction with client. This is mostly a back office role

3) No, you are correct on the focus

4) Can go in cmpetitive intelligence teams of industry's players

Hope this helps,

Andrea

Answer 3

I would skip casing and focus both on industry knowledge and on how you would go about looking for and collecting data and translate that into insights.

Hope it helps,

Andrea

Answer 4

Hi,

Sharing a perspective on this:

Day to day tasks
- Support consulting teams research and data gathering
- Create and manage internal knowledge
Client interaction
- Typically very minimal
- Sometimes knowledge team is embedded in the client facing team, but they will not have the same level of client interaction as the consulting team
Interview process
- Practice Area specific - but mostly focused on industry knowledge and research skills rather than case interview
Exit opportunities
- Some switch to consulting teams in T2
- Some switch to corporate strategy in MNCs as well