I had my first round last week and didn’t pass. they told me I was very structured and analytical but I lacked on business judgment and especially on case leadership.
any advice on how to practice this skill?
I had my first round last week and didn’t pass. they told me I was very structured and analytical but I lacked on business judgment and especially on case leadership.
any advice on how to practice this skill?
Hi there,
Sorry to hear about the rejection.
Do you know the parts of the case they are referring to? It would be easier to help you to improve on “I could not assess properly if Market XYZ was attractive” rather than on “I did not have business judgment”.
In case you don’t know, the following are some possible ways to improve.
Business judgment
I assume you were lacking knowledge of specific concepts/industries/topics (if the problem was on finding creative solutions or structuring, the answer would be different).
You could improve with the following.
Case leadership
I assume the problem was you were not driving the case. This is a common mistake candidates do in BCG and Bain interviews, in particular when they prepared for 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 complete an analysis/structuring part. This should be related to the goal of the analysis. Example:
2. Ask a question to get information/data related to the approach you want to follow, so that you can proceed with the next steps. Example:
Hope this helps,
Francesco
Hi there,
Sorry to hear about the results.
I will say that if you didn't pass the 1st round there is still a significant amount of work ahead of you. My guess is that the case leadership really killed you (this skill is critical).
Business Judgement
Case Leadership
Some helpful Q&As on case leadership:
Hi there,
First of all, I am sorry to hear about the rejection!
This is indeed an interesting question which is probably relevant for quite a lot of users, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:
In case you want a more detailed discussion on how to best work on the feedback provided, please feel free to contact me directly.
I hope this helps,
Hagen
Hello!
Sorry to hear about this.
I don´t love this feedback, since it can for sure be real, but I have seen plenty of occasions in which it´s given as a generic feedback to get the conversation out of the way.
If we operate under the assumption that is true (again, with a pinch of salt), I would say practice is the only thing that would give you that “business acumen in casing”. It doesn´t seem like this at the beggining, but casing is extremely repetitive when you have done it long enaugh, and then you anticipate, create stronger hypothesis from the beginning, etc. That is the point you need to reach.
Hope it helps!
Cheers,
Clara
Couldn't agree more with Francesco's answer.
Business judgement means that you need to either know more about business or improve your ability to bring real-life knowledge to your cases.
This means that instead of giving theoretical examples, you give real practical examples on the specific situations / hypothesis (for example, for the “brainstorming” part.
You should on the one hand read about business (and even read the business articles that MBB often have on their websites). You should also read frequently business articles - but focusing on those that discuss problems being faced by companies.
Finally, doing (and reading) a lot of cases can help as well. The issue there is having good materials and good case partners.
Of course, it would be much easier to give you actionable and spot-on advice by having a session with you. The feedback you received was generic, and you'll only get generic feedback here, as none of us really understands the problem in-depth.
Regarding driving the case… you probably didn't practice many cases with peers, did you?