Hi experts,
In Bain and BCG style interviews (interviewee-led), what are the aspects that make a case challenging? Where do candidates fail the most during a case?
For me, the part that's most challenging is after the structure in an interviewee-led interview, when you are supposed to drive the case as I often get stuck. Any advice on how to overcome that?
Hello,
To answer the first part of your question, it really depends. Francesco has pointed out some of the more common pitfalls, but it will always depend on the candidate and the case. Understand where the biggest difficulties lie for you by doing some live cases, reflecting on your own performance, and getting feedback.
That being said - it seems like you have already identified an area you feel a little less comfortable with in the second part of your question. My advice for driving an interviewee-led interview would be as follows:
- Make sure you have a good and thorough understanding of the case question. The interviewer will often have a lot of extra information that they will only tell you if they ask for it, so take an opportunity before the structuring phase to get some additional details about the prompt. Not all of the information will be useful in the end, but you will only know what is helpful and what isn't once you're working through the case, you won't really know in advance. This might give you some hints on where to start.
- Start with what seems most logical. Sometimes this will be your strongest hypothesis. Perhaps the case prompt has given you a hint on where you think the answer might lie - state that as an assumption, and proceed down that branch first. If you are loosely using a common framework, it might be logical to start with its first step, or with the most general step (e.g. ask about the general market, then about the specific company; or ask about the company, then the customers, then the competition as in the 3 Cs framework). Sometimes there might not be a single natural place to start - e.g. in a profitability case you could start by looking at costs or by looking at revenues, either works.
- Practice, practice, practice. You can't get better at a step in a case just by learning rules - you will get better by practicing over and over again, and becoming more comfortable with jumping into the interviewee-led cases by doing more of them. Be sure to flag this as something you want to work on to your case partner/coach, and get their feedback at the end.
Hi there,
It depends on the case and candidate, but a common issue in interviewee-led cases is the inability to drive the case.
There may be several other possible issues as well common also to interviewer-led cases:
Not driving a case is a common mistake people do in BCG and Bain interviews, in particular when they trained with 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:
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:
It is pretty simple, but most candidates will simply fail to do that, thus failing to drive the case.
Best,
Francesco
Hi there,
Honestly it depends.
I have one case that kills people because the prompt is a two-parter, unconventional, and has a “gotcha” hint that you have to pick up on to properly solve the case.
I have another case that has 5 exhibits that brilliantly connect together, but take a lot of work (and the right questions) to “unlock”. A lot of people struggle with case leadership here.
I have another with tricky (but not over-the-top) math that, once done, just exhausts the canddiate and they're at a loss as to where to go next (it throws them off).
It well and truly depends on the case.
The best way to prepare? Kind of like staying fit…keep throwing new exercises and curveballs at yourself to train your ability to adapt and react to anything that comes your way!
