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Difference between Roland Berger interviews vs. McKinsey or Bain?

Bain BCG Interview McKinsey RolandBerger
New answer on Dec 10, 2019
4 Answers
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Anonymous A asked on Dec 10, 2019

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Luca
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Dec 10, 2019
BCG |NASA | SDA Bocconi & Cattolica partner | GMAT expert 780/800 score | 200+ students coached

The business cases are quite similar in all consulting companies. Just be aware that during Mckinsey interview you could face an "Interviewer Led" case, where the interviewer drives the candidate to the solution asking a lot of questions that have to be answered in a short time.

Another thing to take into consideration is that McKinsey is focused on financial services so it's more likely that your case will be about banking or similar. It would be good to have a base knowledge in order to better understand the case.

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Antonello
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Content Creator
replied on Dec 10, 2019
McKinsey | NASA | top 10 FT MBA professor for consulting interviews | 6+ years of coaching

Hi,
I confirm they maintain the same structure of MBB interviews and will be structured in 3 parts:
- Personal Experience Interview: fit and CV questions to assess your personal impact, leadership skills, and entrepreneurial spirit
- Case Interview: typical business case to evaluate your structure in approaching problems, problem-solving skills, and business sense. The type will be 90% of times candidate-led
- Your final questions to the interviewers

Hope it helps,
Antonello

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Nathaniel
Expert
replied on Dec 10, 2019
McKinsey | BCG | CERN| University of Cambridge

Hello there,

There are 3 primary differences on the interviews among the 3 firms:

  1. Interview style: Typically, Roland Berger and Bain would utilize "interviewee-led" case across all their interviews. McKinsey would commonly use "interviewer-led" case for their first rounds and "interviewee-led" case for the subsequent rounds.
  2. Case format: Roland Berger and McKinsey use 1-on-1 "oral" case interview throughout all sessions. Bain uses 1-on-1 "oral" case interview for their early rounds and a "written" case for their final round.
  3. Industry / function topics: Roland Berger is very strong in operations sector (e.g. manufacturing, production, energy & power generation, automotive, capital goods). Bain is a leading entity in financial sector, particularly Private Equity / Investment Banking (a lot of due diligence project). McKinsey is typically stronger across the board with strong proficiency across social sector (govenrment projects), infrastucture, energy, basic materials, TMT & digital, and financial sector.

Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
Nathan

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Deniz
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Dec 10, 2019
5+ Years at BCG & Kearney Dubai & Istanbul | 400+ Trainees | Free 15-min Consultation Call

Hi,

All in all, the difference is very minimal. In fact, the style of interviews is more interviewer dependent, than consulting company dependent.

Having said that, there are some differences, which are as follows:

  • McK does 80% of the cases interviewer-led, meaning that you will encounter 4-5 questions asked by the interviewer during a case, as opposed you leading the entire case on your own
  • Bain has more emphasis on market sizing and PE related cases

Best,

Deniz

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