How much time should I spend preparing for the BCG chat bot, and how to best prepare?

Hi there,

All the skills and tasks you have to work on in the chat bot are the same as you would work on in a real case interview.

If you are starting from scratch, you would need quite some time to get back to the basics, e.g., learning how to derive formulas and equations for business problems. 

If you are already preparing for cases for a while, you don't need to spend that much time there.

Generally, I would say that 10-20 hours should be fine and you can work on it most effectively by 

• working on sample tests
• working on old McKinsey PSTs an BCG Online Case samples
• working with structure, chart, and math drills

10-20 hours seems a lot but the time you spent is 100% transferable to the case skills, which you will later need to demonstrate during the live interviews.

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there,

I would be happy to share my thoughts on it:

• From my own experience and the experiences of my coachees, I would assume that as long as you have made sure to practice the underlying skills, such as exhibit analysis and written arithmetic, and have practiced one or two sets of the BCG Casey, you should be fine. I don't know about Francesco's simulation and whether it is realistic, but that's something you can assess after you've taken the actual test.
• Moreover, please feel free to reach out to me directly for further, realistic preparation materials.

Best,

Hagen

Hello,

In my experience, the best way to prepare for Casey is as follows:

1) Do your usual case prep. Once you have done about 15-20 cases, you will start getting comfortable handling new business problems quickly.

2) Practice a ton of math/charts/graphs/data analysis problems from rocket blocks. Make sure you time yourself too. This will keep you sharp and allow you to thrive under the time pressure of Casey.

3) If the above is not enough, then feel free to practice some probability, arithmetic, graphs questions from GMAT materials too.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Rushabh

Hi there,

Thanks for purchasing my product! In terms of your questions:

1) How much time should you allocate to ensure a successful outcome?

If you bought the Combo version you will have 6 mocks there (4 live chatbots and 2 pdfs) – that should require 3h to complete all if you allocate 30min to each.

After that, I would spend ~1h to go through the pdf guide and 30min to familiarize with the one-way video interviews (you will have 4 simulations included in the Combo software simulation).

With the guide you can also find included 6 PSTs and Potential Tests, which can be useful to train on some parts of the test (eg math).

2) I’m also looking for something else to round out the training. Any strong recommendations?

If you need anything else please PM me, I can check if I can direct you to other resources and I will reply within 12 hours. 

Best,

Francesco

Hi there,

You should allocate the amount of time required to get good!

You're overcomplicating here…

Get good at taking the test. Take practice tests until you feel comfortable with them…

For some people it will take 5 hours. Some 10. Some 100. You need to gauge your readiness.

If you're looking for more examples, I have 4 live recorded videos from my candidates who took the test (videos of the real test)

================================

Honestly, all of these online tests are very similar

Format? Somewhat. Content and what's required from you ability-wise? Not at all.

The best way is to really find online tests / questions and practice. Regardless as to whether is a new or old test, the principles are mostly the same:

• Time management (need to think quick)
• Business knowledge/context (incl key formulas)
• Critical thinking (answers that are very similar to each other...clues "hidden" in the text)
• Ability to interpret data/charts

Think of it as a merge of a case and the GMAT/GRE.

You need to be clear on some key case-related and account formulas (margin, growth, breakeven, etc) as well as be good at critically understanding the question (including nuance to questions) and parsing through complicated text with a fair amount of distraction.

You'll also need to be good at chart/graph reading.

The (old) McKinsey PST, BCG Online Test, Bain SOVA test, etc. are all quite similar so leverage resources across all of them.

Hello A,

I haven't tried Francesco's training, but I am sure it is good.

Having said that, I truly believe that if you have done any kind of good training and you practice cases frequently, there are not many more things to do. 

The online chatbot tests your ability to crack a case focusing on your time management skills. People are getting stressed about it because it is the first step of the process and is not prepared to solve a case. 

My advice is to train for it as if it was a real case and you will do great.

Best of luck.

Victoria

PS. Why it is easier than a real-time case: 

1. Pretty easy cases

2. Uses preset frameworks

3. Multiple choice answers mostly (those that are not, are simple to answer)

Hi,

You've already done what most candidates would do, which is to use one of the great products out there created by coaches. 

But I would encourage you to ask yourself the following:

1. What are consulting firms looking for in candidates?
2. Which of these will be tested (more so than others) in the chat bot scenario?
3. How do I develop the fundamental skills that firms are looking for?

End of the day, the same skills are being looked for in candidates through the chat bot case. It's just a different format from a one-on-one interview. 

If you don't know the answer to point #3 above, there are plenty of forum posts on it, otherwise I am also happy to chat more and give more detail. 

Hope this helps!