Difference in Interviews

Hi there,

There are 4 main differences you will find between McKinsey and BCG/Bain interviews.

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1) Fit

• McKinsey includes the PEI (Personal Experience Interview) as part of the fit part. They will usually ask for one story out of three possible dimensions (Inclusive Leadership, Personal Impact, and Entrepreneurial Drive) in each interview.
• BCG and Bain may or may not ask for similar stories on those dimensions. Consequently, there is more variety in the questions they may ask.
• At McKinsey they usually go deeper into the dimension with follow-up questions. At BCG and Bain, they won’t usually ask as many follow-up questions even in case they ask for a similar question.
• In a few countries, Bain is occasionally doing rounds with case-only, without fit.

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2) Interview style (interviewer vs candidate led)

• McKinsey usually follows an interviewer-led approach. This means that after presenting the answer to a question, the interviewer will ask you the following question planned, irrespectively of where you want to move the analysis.
• BCG and Bain usually follow a candidate-led approach. This means you have to propose a plan of action and the interviewer will leave to you to follow that approach, only occasionally directing you (meaning you have to lead the case).
• The interviewer-led approach is easier to follow for most candidates, meaning that if you know how to manage an interviewee-led case you should not have issues with it. 
• The opposite is not true - if you only know how to navigate interviewer-led cases you may have issues driving a case in a candidate-led case. So if you are interviewing with BCG and Bain you have to learn how to lead the case.

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3) Initial Structure

• Given the format is interviewer-led and you may not have an option to go deeper in your structure later on, at McKinsey your structure should have several levels and expand all the possible drivers to answer the question.
• In a candidate-led case you could theoretically expand the drivers later. However, if you know how to do it properly you can structure with multiple levels also in candidate-led cases. The method that I teach is based on that and allows you to define the full roadmap at the beginning without any possible downside.

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4) Conclusion

• McKinsey cases often don’t have conclusions. 
• If you prepare for BCG and Bain, you should expect to structure a conclusion at the end.

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BONUS: Case content

• The interviews at McKinsey tend to be more standardized. They almost always include a structuring question, a math/graph question and a creativity/brainstorming question. 
• BCG and Bain have a flow that could be quite different. For example, at Bain in some countries they will just ask a market sizing question as the whole interview question. And that’s it. Just a single estimation.

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If you are interested in the exact questions, I have a DB with 1500+ MBB questions for 60+ offices, you can check on my profile if I include them for the office you are interviewing with.

Best,

Francesco