Hi everyone,
I just finished my last interview at BCG and look an for opinion of the more experienced folks that know how evaluating interview performance works.
First 3 interviews went extremely good - I've managed to solve every case, made no mistakes and led the cases very good. The fit part was good as well and in the last part I've managed to ask good questions and connect with the interviewers, so that we often had a longer meeting than planned.
After the first round the feedback was to just keep doing the same and there shouldn't be problems. 3rd interview with the partner also went really well, solved the case before time and checked all the boxes.
However, today in the last case I ran into some difficulties. After the prompt, which was ;"how many/how big factories should a pet company open?", I asked does the client have a certain measure for measuring success of newly opened factories (what purpose should they serve)? The partner liked the question, but asked back what do I think… After 3,4 guesses (revenues, ROI etc.) I got into budget/total costs, which was main KPI, I somehow didn't think of the costs firstly.
Then in the exhibit, we looked at many countries that had different current and projected demand, suggesting that current capacity won't be sufficient.
I started by suggesting expanding capacity, and after some back and forth landed at consolidating factories in the country with cheapest production costs.
Next question was what would you do if you can consolidate everything but one factory? I said to keep it if the profits are still good, but look at some risks such as price inconsistency between 2 factories, which might affect negotiations and image to supermarkets we supply. He replied that that is one approach, but that he would close the factory and accept the lower margin, because management of the 2nd factory requires certain efforts ( don't know if this is a bad thing that I didn't say it)
In the last part, I got some numbers regarding variable costs and how they increase in the next 5 years. I communicated my approach firstly before calculating, but needed 2 or 3 re-adjustment to come up with the final formula because partner wanted the fastest approach, after I calculated everything correctly.
Lastly, the interviewer asked how come is the 2nd overall cost of production cost lower if the labor costs are higher % of the costs. I have said that the factory might be more automated, and therefore require different types of labour, where 2nd is more expensive but there are less of them. I haven't mentioned productivity difference if the employees are the of the same type.
Recommendation was good, although I wasn't allowed any time and he said I want an immediate 20 second elevator pitch :).
I know it is impossible to say, but just curious if these are no go mistakes for a VA role, considering ¾ interviews were really good.
p.s. it might be important to say that I kept positive attitude towards the case and re-adjusted every time the interviewer gave some new data or tried to point me in the other direction.
(editiert)
