Bain second round - different than first round? How to improve on weaknesses?

Hi there,

I would recommend sharing the office or country, as it may change the answer. In Bain Milan for example market sizing questions in finals are extremely common, but that may not be the case in other offices. That may also be one of the reasons you found conflicting advice.

In terms of your questions on driving the case and the so-what, it is difficult to judge your particular performance without seeing you in action but in general:

DRIVING THE CASE

Not driving a case is a common mistake people do in BCG and Bain interviews, in particular when they trained on an interviewer-led approach. You should do 2 main things to drive a case:

1) Explain your hypothesis/findings on what you should do next after you completed an analysis/structuring part. You may refer to your initial structure if need. Example:

• “My hypothesis is the problem is related to the cost of raw material”

2) Ask a question to get information/data related to the approach you want to follow, so that you can proceed with that particular approach. Example:

• “To check if that’s correct, do we have any information on how costs changed in the last year?”

CONCLUSION

I would recommend the following

1) Repeat the objective. This will ensure you are answering what is relevant for the case. If you don’t repeat the objective, you may answer the wrong question. As an example:

• “Our goal was to understand (i) why profits are declining and (ii) how we could increase profits by XYZ”

2) Provide an answer-first solution. You don’t have to present everything you found in the case, only the answer to the question you just repeated and its supporting factors.

• “After our initial analysis, we found out that profits are declining due a decrease in revenues in division 1 and that, in order to increase profits, with the information we have so far it seems a good idea to enter Market A. This is based on the following reasons:
  • [SPECIFIC FINDINGS 1]
  • [SPECIFIC FINDINGS 2]
  • [SPECIFIC FINDINGS 3]”

3) Provide risks / next steps suggestions. You can always include next steps/ risks in your conclusion. You can refer to the elements present in your structure that you did not have time to cover or to risks that emerged during the case:

• “As additional elements, we would like also to consider the following…[RISKS/NEXT STEPS]”

If you need help with the preparation please PM me, I have a list of 30+ real questions asked at Bain final rounds.

Best,

Francesco

Hi A, 

first of all - congrats on making it to the second round! 

Second, the feedback you got seems to be very case-focused, which is GOOD! It means you were a great fit personally, which is harder to improve because it is somehow more "natural" than improving your case performance.

To secure your offer, it will be imperative to work on the feedback they gave you after round 1 - it is about the question mark they still have if you would make a great "Bainie" ;-). 

1. Drive the case more

• Use structure proactively and go back and forth in it during the case
• Be honest about that you need help when you don't know what to do next (top firms hate it when you waste time on a case because you don't tell them you don't know how to progress)
• Take your interviewer along the way and explain what you do and why you do it every step

2. Close less mechanical and focus on so what

• Use the "pyramid principle" - answer first, then top reasons why that is the answer
• Give out next steps you would take if this was a real case (to show you think ahead)
• BONUS: Show the interviewer a final recommendation slide (see the attached template)

Good luck with the second round and all the best!

Jonas

My understanding of Bain final round having coached a few recent offerees (there could be some nuances by office and role) is that there are three types of interviews:
+ market sizing
+ strategy case
+ behavioural interview with a series of hypothetical questions (e.g., if you were managing a team and a deadline was brought forward what would you do, rather than a classic "tell me about a time you did xyz")

In terms of your specific feedback, it's hard to comment without knowing your approach and performance but a few general thoughts:

+ Driving the case: this is typically related to being more interviewee-led around how you want to progress the case and/or being more proactive with providing more details, rationale and implications

+ Less mechanical: be more natural with your communication and avoid a Victor Cheng script like communication when you explain your approach, etc. The second part is not about how you "close cases" but more about your ability to draw insights, prioritise and relate those to the problem statement - always continue to ask yourself "so what?"

Good luck!

Hi A!

Second round cases are often a bit more high-level conversations rather than rigid cases with exhibits,etc. However, that doesn't mean you should approach them any differently. Just like any other cases, you'll need to put together a structure (either in your mind or on paper), and use it to go through the case. 

Regarding your feedback:

• Try to drive the case by using your framework very systematically. Go through the framework, branch by branch and communicate about it. e.g. "I've now covered the market size, let's now move over to the competitive situation...". Make sure to stay on course and not get distracted by questions that are not in your framework. If it turns out that you need to cover ground not originally covered, state so explicitly.
• After every branch of your framework, tie the insights back to your initial hypothesis. Is it confirmed or challenged by the insight you found. Adjust your hypothesis explicitly if necessary. At the end, make sure to roll up all the insights you found into one high-level recommendation supported by the facts you covered. Then give a more high-level outlook on what this might mean for the client.

Hope this helps! 

Hi there,

In general, the process is the same, but it can be tougher; you are interviewing with Partners who will likely press further/deeper and move from the table stakes of can you do a case, to are you clever, curious, and a good cultural fit for the firm. Furthermore, extensive notes were taken, including marks on various categories. The Partners see this and will specifically look to test anything you appeared shaky on.

Two Points:

• More focus on fit
• More focus on any weaknesses you may have exhibited in the first round​

Your Response

• Make sure you have your story down, a strong set of responses to questions, and you know what personality traits to highligh
• If they gave you feedback from the first round, focus hard on improvement areas. If they didn't, try to reflect on where you weren't as strong, and practice that

Hi,

2nd rounds at Bain are harder with even more pressure.

If the feedback says that you are not driving the case, it means a number of things:

• You are not constantly structuring throughout the case
• You are not asking the questions
• You are not keeping the tempo of the case (E.g. staying in silence instead of structuring the problem further)

My best advice - never stop using the structures. Make an initial structure, present the structure (literally, rotate your paper and show your structure) and then dig deeper using the new structures. If you get stuck - make a structure. If you need to isolate the problem - make a structure. And go through the structure as fast as possible, trying to narrow down to the root cause of the problem. 

Example:

Let's say one of the operations (moving across the warehouse) requires 2 more FTE than your competitor:

Structure 1: Frequency of moving * Number of people * time per move

- Let's say you find out that only the time per move is different. You follow up with the next structure 

Structure 2: Speed of moving * distance

- Let's say you find out that the distance is bigger 

Structure 3: size of the warehouse / layout of the warehouse 

- You find out that the size of the warehouse is the same but the layout is different - Bum! You found the root cause!

The whole thought process should take just a couple of minutes and should be very dynamic - you are constantly driving with the new structures and asking the right questions

Recommendation part

First of all, here are the general ways to provide the recommendation:

1. Always take 30 seconds to structure your recommendation. Never give a recommendation without taking time for preparation
2. After taking the time - check the objective. The worst thing you can do is answering the wrong question
3. Spend 30 seconds on structuring the recommendation and collecting the numbers supporting your arguments from your case notes

The typical structure is the following:

1. What was the objective
2. Your recommendation
3. Arguments why the recommendation is valid (2-4 arguments) with the supporting numbers
4. Additional things you would like to explore. In the order of priority:

• Things you still need to explore / data you need to get in order to provide a valid recommendation (Very typical for McKinsey cases where the interviewer guides you and interrupts in the middle of the case to provide a conclusion
• Things you've slightly covered during the case but have not come to a particular measurable solution or were not the part of the original objective (e.g. alternative growth options or some questions on creativity)
• Risks
• Next steps

For example:

1. Our objectives were to understand why the profit is declining by X and how to bring the profit back within one year (Don't forget that your objective should be measurable in terms of money / other metric and time)
2. According to the analysis we've done so far, my recommendation is to shut down the division A and to concentrate on the divisions b/c if we want to increase the profit, and there is a number of reasons for that.. (Remember that your arguments should include numbers).
3. You provide the arguments a) First of all, problems in Division A are the major driver of the decline in profits - 90% of the decline in profits refer to Division A. b) Secondly, the decline is driven by the contracting market size that is shrinking at xx percent and is not expected to improve in the near future. c) Finally....
4. Additionally, I would like to check the following... (In the last bullet, you simply provide a list of other things you have discussed, but they were not the part of the original objective / the things you slightly discussed but haven't come to any conclusion, like the questions on creativity)

The problem is that In many cases, you can't provide a definite answer since you don't have enough information

Consultants may be testing several things:

• Are you comfortable enough with providing preliminary recommendations based on limited data? (Imagine a CEO whom you met in the elevator and who wants to know the preliminary findings)
• Will you make a mistake of providing a recommendation with a high level of certainty without having a proper supporting data?

Imagine a case when you have to make a decision whether a PE fund should acquire a company. You make a proper structure (Market, Competitors, Company, Feasibility of Exit) and in 25 min of a case, you've managed only to go through the Market and Competitors branches of the analysis. What will be your recommendation?

In this case, you have to provide a Soft Recommendation:

1. You start with an objective ("Our objective was to understand whether we should buy this company")
2. You provide a preliminary recommendation highlighting the uncertainty("According to the limited data we have so far, our preliminary recommendation is to buy this company and there are three reasons for that..." or "Purely based on the data we have about the market it looks like it's a good idea for a number of reasons..")
3. You provide the reasons ("First of all the market is big at X and growing at Y, Secondly the competition is fragmented with the target company having x% of the market. Thirdly...")
4. You Mention the pieces of data that you need to provide a full recommendation ("But to come up with a final recommendation I would like to look at the company financials, key capabilities and..." or "But to be 100% sure in our recommendation we need to check...)

Best,

Vlad

Hi there, 

I've recently coached somebody to get an offer from Copenhagen and Oslo office of Bain and here are some of the things I've observed about the second round:

1. The cases predominantly focus on marketing and especially market sizing and one exhibit-based kind of analysis.
2. Compared to the first round, the case discussion was much shorter in terms of the time and the fit part was larger.

On the other note, I'd like to point out that as you progress from 1st to the 2nd round (sometimes also 3rd round in some companies), the interviews decrease in breadth and increase in depth: i.e. the number of analysis that you would do in the case would be lesser but the probing and the depth at which the interviewer will take your analysis will be much higher.

All of the coaches gave you very good advices, so i'd just like to add one thing about leading the case. It is important that your leading occurs naturally. One thing that you can do is to put your hypothesis / selected branch forward when finishing your analysis or your structure. 

• E.g. you drew an issue tree and it's three branches - 1. market atractiveness, 2. company financials, 3. investments. You want to start off with market sizing. So after you've communicated the issue tree, you go on by saying "unless you suggest otherwise, I would like to start off with the market sizing". By stating that, you take your hypothesis forward. 

Once the analysis has been done, you can comment on it:

• specifying how this analysis relates to the main question.
• take the case on another level - broaden it up and do some competitive analysis - you can ask the interviewer whether they have any data on the competition.

This is another example of how you lead the case.

The conclusion - I agree with all the recommendation of the other coaches and would like to add that since the 2nd round is usually led by Partners, Principals etc. - it's not enough to just conclude the analysis: always have a recommendation mindset. 

Hope it helps!

Cheers, 

GB

Awesome - congrats to that!

Here some thoughts:

Driving the case: do not overfocus on the frameworks to use - make sure you absolutely understand the problem at hand and what success looks like for the client. Make sure you do not waste time on things that do not "move the needle". Go above and beyond - e.g. do not stop at identifying the symptoms of the actual problem and the underlying root causes (the actual issue in the case). Keep thinking on terms of solutions (long-list > reduction criteria > short-list). Be able to tell what initiative you d implement first and why. Give some golden nuggets on how an implementation could look like (scope, duration, risks in ops / finance / strategy). Pay attention to the time. If you know if you still need to do X things in the case and have Y minutes left, speed up and let the interviewer know you are short-cutting somewhere or de-prioritizing certain issues.

Less mechanical: Again, do not overfocus on frameworks - many candidates randomly start with certain buckets in cases (i.e. Victor Cheng experts go with the "Customer" bucket followed by the "Competition" bucket whenever doing qualitative analyses - Why? There needs to be a reason). Do not forget this is a people's business. Imaging this is a real project with a real client in front of you - think of the so whats, the implications for the client in ops / finance / strategy, think of next steps.

Best,
Denis

+ Less mechanical: 

Hello!

Congrats on moving on with 2nd round!

One key aspect that differenciates both rounds is the importance FIT gains in the 2nd interview, hold usually by partners and junior partners. 

To deep dive, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB" has been recently published in PrepLounge´s shop (https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/integrated-fit-guide-for-mbb-34)

It provides an end-to-end preparation for all three MBB interviews, tackling each firms particularities and combining key concepts review and a hands-on methodology. Following the book, the candidate will prepare his/her stories by practicing with over 50 real questions and leveraging special frameworks and worksheets that guide step-by-step, developed by the author and her experience as a Master in Management professor and coach. Finally, as further guidance, the guide encompasses over 20 examples from real candidates.

Furthermore, you can find 3 free cases in the PrepL case regarding FIT preparation:

Intro and CV questions > https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/introduction-and-cv-questions-fit-interview-preparation-200

Motivational questions > https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/motivational-questions-fit-interview-preparation-201

Behavioural questions (ENTREPRENEURIAL DRIVE) >https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/behavioral-questions-entrepreneurial-drive-fit-interview-preparation-211

Feel free to PM me for disccount codes for the Integrated FIT Guide, since we still have some left from the launch!