Simple bar charts are straightforward to read and interpret since they dont show that much information. Note: At McKinsey and BCG, this question is more likely to be asked during a networking or firm event than it is to be asked during the behavioral interview. exercises vlookup Even before the first step, the resume screener and others from the firm may have an impression of you from firm networking events. Not all the information will be needed to make the calculation one of the core functions of a consultant is to know how to separate the useful data from the rest. Sometimes not all data will be provided to you upfront, and you need to know to ask for it to complete your calculations. In addition, you can also take a look at our Free Case Interview Prep. Ability to lead, Problem solvers
There are four basic components to a chart: title, axis descriptions (units), legend, and values. Hence, I would like to share some best practices for tackling these charts during a case interview. However, the below is what a typical one looks like: 1-6 weeks following your application, if you have been selected, you will receive an interview invitation, 2-4 weeks from invitation, you will have your first round interview (typically with an Engagement Managers or Associate Principals), 2-48 hours following first round interview, you will be notified of the second round interview, 1-4 weeks following the notice, you will have your second round interview (typically with a Partners or Senior Partners), 2 hours to 4 weeks following the second round interview, there will be a call from a partner or senior partner extending you an offer. Extracting information from and charts and elaborating it is an essential skill for consultants. We can use trendlines to make predictions. Consulting is a very intellectually-stimulating environment.
Figure from our free PST practice test showing the productivity and the number of claims in an insurance company, All Business problems with detailed solutions, All Chart problems with detailed solutions. A stacked bar chart adds another dimension of data to a simple bar chart. All firms ask a mix of these two types of questions but some are more focused on one type than others. Perhaps our client is too focused on selling less profitable products or brands than the competition is The axes will tell you what dimensions of information are being shown. Each individual rectangle represents the percentage of the total $24,500 in sales. This is the approach we take in our Case Interview Prep Courseand the majority of people who use it end up being successful with their target firm. The stacked segments in each of the bars represents the type of product. Here are three realistic examples of case interviews you could come across in your consulting interviews. Weve covered the "Why McKinsey / BCG / Bain?"
The client wants to know if the vacuum sealer bag market is attractive to enter. A histogram may look like a simple bar chart, but it is quite different. The goal of this step is to orient you on how the chart or graph is structured.
And you could then tell brief stories around the three most relevant points on yourresume. Within our company, Id like to first understand our financials namely revenue and costs
How to create great, relevant frameworks is one of the many things we teach in our Free Case Interview Prep Program. This is the part of the interview where youll be asked to summarize what youve found out and what the client should do. If your case is about P&L, focus on finding about profits, costs, F & Var costs, etc. Additionally, McKinsey case interviews are generally more structured than other case interviews and the flow of questions you will get is usually quite standard. As a rule of thumb, we recommend putting about 20% of your preparation time aside to prepare good answers to common fit and PEI questions. In fact it closely follows the list that was previously laid out in the case question types part of this guide. Discovering your baseline is important so that you know what areas you need to focus on. The bars in light blue show drivers that increased profits. But here are our three favorite ones: You will learn a lot in little time: Changing to a new industry, project, and team, every few weeks or months makes the job provide so much learning. Youd then investigate the revenue side of your framework to identify if thats where the root-cause of the issue is. So what makes the great candidates (who land offers) different from all the other merely good candidates (who get rejected)?
We encourage you to use it to create five stories for your interview: Situation: start by giving the necessary context, Complication: outline the problem you and your team were facing, Action: explain the key actions you took to solve the problem, Result: if possible, quantify the impact you had in solving the problem, Future Lessons: conclude with any lessons learned in the process. The point of a case interview is to simulate conditions youll face in a real consulting project so your interviewer can see how youd perform on the job. First, you need to get selected for an interview after you pass the resume and cover letter screen.
Consistently follow the most efficient approach to carry out calculations state the formula upfront and number each segment (e.g. Economics How do I prepare for a BCG or Bain case interview? -Does the competition offer similar products and similar pricing as us? - What is our mix of dishwasher brands If the dropout rate for medium drops to 15%, is the drop proportional to the increase in claim handlers productivity. The objective of the chart is to help you drive the case forward by approving or disapproving your hypothesis of the business problem.
And if you would recommend entry. However, you should not blindly use either one. Behavioral interview questions include ones like Tell me about a time you had a difficult team experience.., or Tell me about a time where you had a significant impact on an organization..
In this example, instead of the y-axis being sales in dollars, the y-axis is now sales as a percentage of total sales for that company. Get insights on consulting, business, finance, and technology. And another bonus, these practice case examples allow you to actively practice along vs. just being a passive listener. In this example, you can see that Company B has the highest overall sales since the width of its bar is the widest.
Thats a whole lot of things you have to pass! - And have we seen any changes in our product mix : Tell me about a time you worked in a team and had to manage a conflict., E.g. Charts questions usually require extracting information from a chart, elaborating on it and getting useful insights from it, which is what consultants usually do. Another potential clarification you could ask may be the geography in which the company operates (i.e., are they national or regional). Assume 10 of those points go to Whirlpool and 10 of those points to a new store brand. Some interviewers will also want you to tell them something thats not on your resume. Weve summarized all the key things to know in this guide. How many claim handlers handling low complication claims should be let off at the current productivity? on How to Interpret Charts During Case Interviews, 5 Ways to Protect Yourself from Cyber Attacks, 5 Leadership Traits that You Must Cultivate. With the same principles applied, you should always try to be as MECE and structured as possible. However, there are occasions when these seven questions will not always get asked in the same order. Get insights on consulting, business, finance and technology. Consulting firms are all looking for similar skills. Base your calculations on the facts and do a sanity check if the numbers make sense. Consulting interviews are typically split into two parts - the fit / behavioral interview and the case interview. Not taking into account all the other data represented on the chart often candidates become complacent when they see a hint of evidence that supports their hypothesis when other available data may not. Here are the main five themes that will be covered in these personal experience interview questions: E.g. The category had sales of $1.2B last year. You are almost guaranteed to be given a few graphs and charts to analyze in your upcoming case interview.
This is what distinguishes outstanding case interview candidates from average candidates. Second, the fact that you are driving the case means youll often want to take a hypothesis-driven approach. There are some others but these are the biggest ones. You wouldnt believe how many materials from popular sites weve seen give misinformed and poor advice that can lead to you sabotaging your efforts. Now that you know the skills being tested during the consulting recruiting process, lets learn how interviewers make their offer or reject decisions. Heres why these case interview examples are going to be better than 99% of the stuff of the internet: You get to be an active participant instead of just a passive listener. From this histogram, we can conclude that the 81+ years age group has the fewest number of people. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); /*
Here are the top 5 most common Personal Experience Interview (PEI) questions: You worked in a team and had to manage conflict, You had a disagreement with a colleague / boss, You had to change someone's / a group's mind, You overcame a really difficult challenge. Revenue
: Tell me about a time when you had to overcome a big obstacle.. Interpreting what you read to draw insights is what matters. To receive these member-only resources, just register below for free instant access. The slight nuance is that BCG typically follow-ups with candidates faster than McKinsey in both rounds based on field reports we receive from our readers. But they are good places to find online practice partners if you dont have enough friends or peers to practice with. Price increase, quantity increase, and a decrease in variable costs all caused profits to increase. So if youre looking to get the most out of your consulting interview preparation this year, youll love this guide. Example #3: Southwire sees more competition entering. It could literally be anything: playing guitar, being part of volunteering group, writing a book, etc. Bain tends to put a little more focus on typicalfit questions such as Why Bain? or Walk me through your resume.. This is to check that your interest in their firm is genuine and not only based on their reputation.
You get to the right answer and put it in context, You are quick and accurate with your calculations. Your email address will not be published. : Tell me about a time you led a team through a difficult challenge., E.g. If youre interested in learning about the questions to ask when networking for consulting, check out our Definitive Guide. Think of potential hypothesis on what could be the root cause / what are the consequences, Prioritize the most important for your current analysis and move forward with the case, Study Say it with Charts book by Barbara Minto, Learn basic statistics (Any GMAT or MBA prep guides), Check all available MBB presentations and publications. Identify data points that are unexpected, unusual, or unique. Tell me about your greatest accomplishment. This chart is heavily used by Bain & Company and may be confusing to those who have never seen it before. *The customer is entitled to claim a full or partial refund within 30 days of purchase were they to find that the quality of the material provided was not satisfactory. Check out our privacy policy for details on how we protect and manage your submitted data. We are currently working on adding a section about this specific topic to this guide. Heres another common question we get: Whats harder? In this example, the x-axis represents different products, which includes desktops, laptops, and tablets. In this example, the pie chart represents 100% of sales by product line. The advantage of a 100% stacked bar is that you can easily compare the relative proportion of a segment in one bar with that same segment in another bar. The type of charts you will have to deal with can all be found on Excel. Second, depending on which region youre applying for, you may need to pass a math and logic test (e.g., McKinsey PST or BCG Potential Test). Previously, he was a Management Consultant at Novantas with a focus on the financial services sector, where he advised on pricing, marketing, channel distribution, digital transformation and due diligence. Whats more important is HOW you do it.
In this example, the x-axis represents annual growth in supply chain investments and the y-axis shows annual revenue growth. Consulting firms will therefore want to check that you have actually done your homework and that you have thought about why you want to be a consultant. Youll also learn what we case interviewers look for in each. Vendor Relationship Risk The proposed steps are obviously just guidelines and they should be adapted to every problem one has to solve. Jason Oh is a Senior Consultant, Strategy & Customer at EY with project experiences in commercial due diligence and corporate strategy planning. These questions are also consistent with the type of questions the candidates we work with are currently getting in interviews.
We can conclude that Company B has not only the highest sales, but also the highest sales in each of the three product categories. Ive done three things in my career so far that are relevant to consulting and motivated me to apply for this firm. Practice with other people: There are two popular platforms sites that let you to practice with other people.
Its this reason why many of our students have landed offers not just at McKinsey, not just at BCG, not just at Bain, but have landed offers from ALL three firms. Contact, Case Interview Examples - McKinsey / BCG / Bain (July 2022 Update), Case Interview Prep - McKinsey / BCG / Bain (July 2022 Update), questions to ask when networking for consulting, Review our Case Interview Tips and Techniques, Review my Case Interview Tips and Techniques.
They include live case interview videos which are structured so that you can listen to the interviewer's question, hit pause, and answer the question as if you were in a real interview.
In the meantime, we suggest reading this blog post onfrequent McKinsey PEI questions how to answer them (coming soon).
But even if you don't end up using this program, we still encourage you to take this five-step approach.
These are the: Victor Cheng business situation framework. However, Company B has the drug with the highest amount of sales. In this example, the entire area of the full rectangle represents $24,500 of sales, the sum of total sales across all three companies. A vast portion of a management consultants career is spent analyzing data, summarizing information, extracting insights, and helping to convert knowledge to action. If youre looking for REALISTIC McKinsey, BCG, or Bain case interview examples or even general business case interview examples, then this section is for you. Below is a general timeline of BCGs interview timeline from application to offer. A pie chart shows the same information as a 100% stacked bar chart. reads books
Let us look at all the steps in more details. Your job in that part of the interview will be to make sure you understand the situation by listening carefully and asking relevant follow-up questions. Therefore, the height of each of these bars represents the amount of sales for each product. We explored why dishwasher profitability was low and how to fix it This means youll be expected to play a much more proactive role in the case interviews at these firms than at McKinsey. This graph shows how annual revenue has changed over five years. While the category is profitable, its margin is below industry avg.
This type of question is very open-ended. The y-axis shows the frequency of these age groups. It can also be a doughnut. Your interviewer will be looking for signals that you are pursuing that activity with passion, drive, and intensity. In the instance where the lead is unnoted, you will be required to reverse the process and come up with the lead for the charts (e.g. One of the simplest charts is the bar chart. hellokpop
You will note that it is quite similar to the interview timeline of McKinsey. : Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a colleague., E.g. A scatterplot shows points to visualize the values of two different variables. For instance, answering that you create board games on the side or have applied to Shark Tank will get you noticed more than saying I like basketball., #5 Tell me about your greatest accomplishment. An increase in fixed costs decreased profits. Customer Read the title first and start with the axes and units of the data included in the chart. This is one of the top reasons people use our REALISTIC practice case interviews. Once you have your framework setup, the interviewer will sometimes ask you to explore the areas you identified to find the root-cause of the clients issue. Take note of the most obvious information first. Step 5: Connect the insights to the case objective. Thats a lot of people when you think about it! The y-axis represents sales in dollars. Additionally, the insights should help you identify the potential next steps you need to take to solve the case.
Collectively, all of these drivers resulted in a net increase in profits. The 21 - 40 years age group has the greatest number of people. Its more important to be able to connect the dots, including the title, axis descriptions, and legend. In the first round you will typically meet with 2 interviewers, In the second round (also called the Decision Round or Final Round you will typically meet with 3 interviewers. You sometimes mention considerations / trade-offs / implications, You often mention considerations / trade-offs / implications. Once youve written down your five stories, rehearse telling them out loud.
Taking into context the core objective, make a quick hypothesis based on the key metrics, Always take into consideration the question when delivering your answer, Make sure your answers are clear and logical, Take the time to explain the logic behind your answers, Seeing the whole graph with all the details and values can be intimidating, so break it down, When breaking it down, use only the data needed to calculate only the facts needed to draw your insights, Not all the data will be useful, take time to practice how to interpret and extract useful data from charts.