Yes, experienced executives can land positions at consulting firms. Our article on Experienced Hire Consulting talks about this. You should look into expert consulting positions in the industry or functional area you’ve worked in rather than a generalist position.

Best of luck with your career transition!
MCO

Congrats on getting to the phone interview phase, Anthony!

In general, the consulting firms are pretty straightforward about what is coming up in a recruiting step. With that said, I think any time you are speaking with a recruiter or consultant, you should put your best foot forward. A bit of prep, like deepening your understanding of what a career in consulting is all about, and what consulting firms look for in candidates, and typical consulting behavioral interview questions can help you understand how to package your background in a way that puts it in the best light.

Good luck with the interview!
MCO

Do you mean that you have an online assessment?

If so, we have an article on how to prepare for consulting online assessments, with links to more specific articles.

If you need coaching help, you can find out more here:
https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/pti-training/

Thanks for the info, Josh! And good luck with your case prep!

Go to MyConsultingOffer.org and click on the orange “Apply to Work With Us” button. That will lead you to a form that asks for the info the team needs to understand how to best help you.

Thanks for your interest in My Consulting Offer!

MCO has a video on the McKinsey Solve game here. Check it out!

This can differ by firm. For MBB firms (McKinsey, Bain, & BCG), they ask you to force rank 3 office preferences. Your application will go to your top-choice office first, they won’t review simultaneously. But not every consulting firm has as organized a recruiting process. At some boutique firms, different offices might review your application simultaneously.

Where your application is reviewed varies depending on a few things: whether you’re a student vs. an experienced professional and whether or not the firm centralizes reviewing.

Most people who join consulting firms out of college don’t have a background in consulting. What helps them land the interview is writing a consulting resume that highlights their accomplishments in terms of the skills consulting firms look for: leadership, analytic/quantitative skills, problem-solving, and drive/”can do” attitude.

Take a look at the story of the chef who landed a consulting offer after working with My Consulting Offer to strengthen his application and practice case interviews. It’s in our Consulting Cover Letter article.

And good luck!

Social impact consulting work is not necessarily pro bono. Though many consulting firms do some pro bono work, they need to pay the bills. Many clients of social impact consulting firms have grants or other sources of funding.

With that said, your idea of getting some social impact experience part-time is a great one, and I’m sure your software development skills would make your help highly valuable. Look for opportunities where you can take on a discrete project and quantify the impact of your work. That would allow you to get the most out of the experience when you write your Consulting Resume. See this guide for more details:
https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/cover-letter/consulting-resume/

Hey, Lisa, the work plan template is up. Hope it helps!

Hi, Aanchal,

Congratulations on making it so far through the Deloitte recruiting process!

To the best way to get clarity on the timing of decisions for a specific position would be to reach out to your recruiter. But our experience is that consulting firms generally get back quickly after on-campus interviews.

Good luck!

Our sources say that you’re covered by health insurance in the country in which you work and you’re covered in other countries for health issues during work-related travel.

Different consulting companies have different policies. What I’ve seen happen is that if you are not close to an office, the consulting firm may do an online interview for the first round.

They will want to interview you in the office for the second round so that you can meet people and get a feel for the office culture. But if you need to travel, the consulting firm will pick up the travel costs.

It’s best to confirm the process with your recruiter.

I’m not sure. We’ll try to find out.

Hey, Aanchal,

This is an interesting question. We tried replying to you via email but the message didn’t go through. Can you contact us at writing @ myconsultingoffer.org to follow up on your question?

Thanks!

Hey, Monica,

The opportunity to re-record is for each question. If you re-record, your first answer is deleted. You need to stick with the second recording.

Good luck on your EY video interview!

Hi, Yusufu!

Great question! I’d start by asking what the goal of the restructuring is. For instance, if the goal was increased profitability because profits have been falling gradually over time, I might structure my issue tree around the profitability formula.

Profitability = revenues – costs = (price x quantity) – (fixed costs + variable costs)

Then I’d start digging down into each.

This would be a good direction if the problem was firm-wide, across products and business units. The company’s fixed costs might be getting bloated.

But if there’s a new competitor, a new product, or some big change in the market that’s hurting performance, I might break the issue tree down by product lines or business units, or even just focus on the one or two areas where the insurance company is having the biggest problem.

For instance, if the insurance company is facing rising costs due the change in climate/claims due to severity of storms, I’d focus in increased costs from storm-related damage in each product line or business unit.

I hope that helps! Good luck with your issue tree!

At MCO, we mostly hand draw issue trees because when you’re in a case interview (or coaching people for case interviews), “quick and dirty” is the only option.

When I was at McKinsey, we used PowerPoint, but to be fair, we had help with creating the slides. When I was editing slides myself, I’d pull a page from an old deck with an issue tree that had a similar scale. That way, I wouldn’t need to mess a lot with the number/size of boxes.

Do other readers have software they like better for issue trees? Let us know!

Powerpoint’s hierarchy “smart chart” is a drag.

Ideally you’d have expand/collapse functionality.

Curious as to what you prefer

We have articles on writing your consulting resume and consulting cover letter that go deep into those topics.

Best of luck with your applications!

We’re glad this was helpful! Thanks for the suggestion of more examples of strong answers to common questions!

Good luck in your interviews,
MCO

Yes, good catch! We’ll make the change. Sorry for the confusion.

I suggest you look on the Deloitte Careers website for deadlines.

You’ll want to show that you have the skills required for consulting: problem-solving, teamwork, quantitative skills, and communication. You can show these through work experience, but you could also show them through your courses at school, extracurricular activities, and even hobbies.

Good luck!

The original tourist/shopper revenue is $42,000
Under the alternative pricing model, (10,000 spots) * ($5 per spot) = $50,000, an $8,000 increase

The original store owner revenue is $8,000
Under the alternative pricing model, (750 permits) * ($240 per permit/30 days per month) = $6,000, a $2000 decrease.

The new total daily revenue = $56,000
Original daily revenue = $50,000

Shouldn’t the change in total daily revenue be = $56,000 – $50,000 = $6,000, a 12% increase?

I’m confused about the change in total daily revenue $2,000 and 4% numbers.

I’m glad you found it helpful! You can follow My Consulting Offer’s founder Davis Nguyen on LinkedIn for insight into landing your dream consulting job. Here’s the link!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davis2/

Hey, Michael,

Here are a couple publically available cases that might help you:
Steel Co. from the NYU Stern 2019 casebook. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AImB14ysaUoYBNw-ArtoCtzZA5cADUhy
S.A. Shipping from the McCombs Texas MBA Casebook 2017-2018.

Best of luck on your supply chain case prep!

Hey, Mark, great question!

This is how I’d think about that. Most pharma companies are in the process of developing a lot of drugs as well as selling the drugs they have already developed and that have been approved. So, you could think about this vaccine as being one of a hundred that are currently under development. Of course, the company wants all their drugs to be successful, but they know that’s not going to be the case. But they do the work anyway because if 5% of their drugs are successful, they are so profitable that they will pay for the costs of the failed drugs and still leave them quite profitable.

Now, say that the drug company is a small entrepreneurial company. In this case, they would develop the vaccine and take it through the first stage of approval. Then, they might sell their intellectual property to a major pharma company who would fund the next 2 stages of research and own the final drug. The reason that the expected profitability calculations are still important, is because these are the same calculations that the pharma company will do when they are considering buying the company (though at this point the phase 1 costs will be sunk and they will be focused on the cost of buying the entrepreneurial company and the expected revenue and costs through stage 2 and 3 trials). But the approach to the problem would be the same: expected revenue – expected cost.

Another consideration is that in a case, you have 15-20 minutes to understand the problem, structure your approach, do the analysis, and make your recommendation. So looking at this from the perspective of expected value is the most straightforward way of showing that you know how to do the calculations in this case. Of course you can say, “Of course, this assumes the company has the financial strength to take this risk. If not, they’ll need to team up with a major pharma company.”

On your point about being second to market, sure there is value in that. If you complete the first set of calculations and have time remaining, go for it! But the point is that your interviewer already knows what happened in the real-world version of this case. What they are looking for is your ability to structure your thinking, do the calculations, and pull together your answer. The expected value of being first to market will show you can handle case study analysis.

Hope this helps!

Best of luck with your case interview prep!

Thanks so much! We’re glad the article was helpful!

Here are some thoughts on your questions.

1. Is an issue tree always about identifying root causes of a problem (as some call the Why Tree), or does it generally also include possible solutions (the How Tree)?

McKinsey thinks of Issue Trees as the breakdown of the root causes of a problem and Decision Trees as the possible solutions that should be examined to solve the problem. These are separate, but we didn’t want to write a book on it fearing we’d lose people, so we went with the term Issue Trees as an umbrella term for both.

The key issue is ensuring the mutually exclusive, collectively exhausting categorization in each.

2. If an Issue Tree is a combination of the Why and How trees, is there a one-to-one and MECE discipline between the root cause and solution options.

Another good question!

I’d say the Issue Tree covers the root causes and the Decision Tree the solutions if you want to be perfectly clear with your terms. There could be a one-to-one, MECE correspondence between the branches on your Issue Tree and Decision Tree, but there doesn’t have to be.

Example 1 – no correspondence:

Let’s consider our Issue Tree Example of the Plant Closure Case. Our high-level branches were:
• Will the company be better of financially if they close the plant?
• Could the company produce tools elsewhere?
• Will the brand suffer if manufacturing is moved to another country?

Imagine a team was tasked with answering these questions in order to determine if the plant should close, and then following up with a recommendation on the new location for tool production and creating a plan for the move.

You would not need a Decision Tree branch for the first bullet. Once you’ve done the financial calculation and determined that the company would be better off closing the plant, that branch of analysis is finished.

Your Decision Tree could have 2 branches corresponding to the remaining Issue Tree 2 branches:
• Where should the company relocate the productions from the closed plant. This might have sub-branches such as Plant A, Plant B, and Greenfield.
• How could the company minimize the negative impact of shutting the plant. This might include sub-branches such as severance packages for displaced employees, clear communication of the reasons behind the plant closure decision, and a new brand awareness campaign.

Example 2 – one-to-one correspondence:

Let’s try a different example. Imagine there was a need to reduce costs at a corporate level for NextGen Games, a software company, by 10%. Your Issue Tree could breakdown the cost reduction ideas by allocating the savings goal down to the business units and the corporate overhead.

• How can the PC gaming division save 10% or more in costs?
• How can the console gaming division save 10% or more in costs?
• How can the mobile phone gaming division save 10% or more in costs?
• How can the cloud gaming division save 10% or more in costs?
• How can 10% or more be saved in corporate overhead?

The Issue Tree diving into NextGen’s cost problem would have further detail on the cost reduction options that would allow each group to meet the target with the least disruption to its business. These could include a travel freeze, putting off capital expenditures, or even a headcount reduction.

The Decision Tree for implementing NextGen’s cost problem could have the same 1st level branches, a one-to-one correspondence. But the lower-level branches would focus on the savings ideas that were applicable to each part of the business.

I hope this helps!

Best of luck with your problem-solving!

As applied to your Bud-19 case study: Isn’t it a little over-simplistic to take variable probabilities for revenue only in your recommendation? For example, the prompt said that if they are not successful, the company will go under. As demonstrated by the FDA approval data example, they only have a 5% chance of success. Furthermore, for the 200B payout they only have a 10% chance of being first. Therefore, you are recommending they proceed on something that is only 0.5% likely to occur, and is 99.5% likely to sink the company. I see variable chance as a downplay to this recommendation more likely than not ruining the company.

Shouldn’t we be factoring in other data? What are revenues if the vaccine gets to market second, could they have a market share there?

Thanks

Mark

I’m not sure. I’d reach out directly to Deloitte recruiting with that question.

But you might like to check out this article:
https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/list-top-management-firms/h1b-visa-sponsorship/

Good luck!

Can I apply as an immigrant?

Eager to attend the training program and match my current skillset as Consultant. Thanks

In general, consulting firms get back to applicants within a month of their application deadlines, either with next steps in the process or a “ding.” Good luck with your application!

Thanks a Lot for the valuable information

EY says: “Video or ‘virtual’ interviews are increasingly part of our video process.”

Based on this, I would highly suggest being prepared for them at the experienced hire level as well. Preparing answers for these types of questions in advance will improve your shot at landing an offer whether your interviews are video or one-on-one.

George, thanks for pointing this out! The formula was incorrect, and should be Profit/cost of investment. The correct answer is 25%.

All the best,
MCO

Can you please explain the ROI formula? I do not understand why (2m-8m)/8m = 25%. That calculation gets a result of -75%

Shouldn’t the formula just be (net profit)/(cost of investment)?

thanks!

Hey, Esther,
We’re so glad the tips we discussed about writing your consulting cover letter were helpful! Good luck in your job search!

Ali,

Taking these online assessments can be quite stressful. You can book a free call with us for more information on how we can help you prepare.

Warm Regards,
Ali Chaudhry, ACCA

Hey, Christopher,
Summer is the most popular time for internship programs, so I can see why you might be concerned about finding a winter one. I think you’ll need to do a bit of digging to find one for the winter located in London. My suggestion is that you start with the consulting firms that interest you the most and check their “Careers” pages for internships. You can also network to get more information about the firms and programs they have to help you learn about careers in management consulting and with their firm in particular. Here’s a link to our article on Networking Your Way into the Consulting Industry.
Best of luck in your search!

You could ask your recruiter, but my experience is that McKinsey, Bain, and BCG have good medical benefits. Unless the answer would change your decision about taking a job with the firm, benefits are best discussed after you have an offer in hand.

Our Guide to Case Interview Prep or our article on the McKinsey Case Interview will help you.

We’re glad you liked the article!

And thanks for the head’s up on that duplication. Fixed now!

Thanks for your interest in the MCO program, and good luck with your case interview prep!

Check section:
“What McKinsey Case Coaching Is NOT: Preparation for the Personal Experience Interview”
It has no new content of its own; rather, it has the same content as of the previous section.

Wonderful! Thanks for sharing the article!

Hey, Ella!

You’re typically allowed a pen and paper in a virtual case interview but NOT a calculator. Part of what your interviewer is testing for is your quantitative skills, so they want to see that you can do calculations in your head or on paper. See our article on virtual case interviews, for more info. Also, we have an article on practicing your case interview math.

Best of luck!

I would also look into understanding the consulting industry by reading articles like this:
What Is Consulting & What Do Consultants Do?

Lastly, we have a resources page with a ton of information on the consulting industry. It’s here:
Management Consulting Resources

Best of luck!

Supply chain cases are challenging.

If you’d like an overview of how to approach answering a consulting case interview, our Ultimate Guide to Case Interview Prep is your best source. If you’d like a one-on-one coach for case interviews, including learning how to case in as short as a week, you can apply here.

Good luck!

When applying to a consulting firm (or a firm in another industry), it’s important to know what the company’s values are and what they are looking for in employees. You can get a snapshot of what BCG is looking for here, in this video by their managing director and partner for global recruiting:
https://careers.bcg.com/bcg-culture
She discusses solving complex problems and working with smart people. These are key characteristics BCG looks for in their consultants.

Based on that, I’d say you want to show strength in learning, effort, decision-making, and emotional intelligence. This is not to say that the other skills are not important. But assessments like this compare you to successful employees in the role. These are skills successful consultants tend to have.

This might differ slightly since you are applying for a supervisor position which sounds like it is not a consulting role. My suggestion is to look at the skills that BCG is looking for in that role as well. But remember, if your strengths lie in different areas, BCG might not be the right place for you.

Best of luck with your job search!

This list has been updated. Good luck with your consulting internship search!
https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/list-of-consulting-internships/

We’re so glad the article helped! Best of luck!

My 3 labeled unique where, Fairness, focus, and attention where my unique.
Followed by Emotion, Risk Tolerance, Effort, Learning, Decision making, Generosity

I apologize for the horrible grammar but my talk to text and I need to fight constantly giving the parents that I’m dumb as hell

What does it mean when I had
9 categories aggregated Across Your results from all pymetric‘s games?

1 Unique pymetrics Per person used To apply to any role Add any company using pymetrics

Feedback would be highly appreciated thank you

Hi, Akshaiya!

I’m sorry, we don’t have insight into that specific position. But my suggestion would be to check our article on Consulting Networking. It has a step-by-step approach for reaching out to people at the consulting firms you are interested in so you can better understand the requirements of the position, the day-to-day work and the culture.

Best of luck!

Hi, Hilary!

MCO offers an installment payment plan. We also use a success-based pricing model where clients pay 1/3 of the full upfront cost and only pay the remaining 2/3 when they get a consulting offer. You can find out more about these options by clicking on “Apply to our full training program” and filling out the application form.

Hi, Hilary!

I’m sorry you are having trouble watching the “Get the Interview” video series. I just tested it and it’s working fine on my computer, so it might be the browser you’re using. I tested it using Google Chrome and Firefox and those browsers work. Try using a different browser and see if that solves the problem. I hope it does!

All the best,
Rebecca

Hi, Diego!

My Consulting Offer has a team of former Bain, BCG, and McKinsey recruiters who keep in touch with consulting industry professionals. They also keep in touch with their MCO clients as they receive consulting offers.

All the best,
Rebecca

Please I am making this passionate and special appeals to you to assist me with job offers, once this milestone is achieved, percentage of my first salary will be used to settled the initial cost of the program. Please assist and let me known what you think.

I could not watched the interview video training series, not responding.

Thank you.

Regards,

Hilary O, PMP

Exactly Rebecca,
Because when they send me the email to do the pymetrics games, they Also told me that they reviewed my information, what really make me motivated.

Rakshitha,

We’ve heard of Accenture and other consulting firms getting back quite soon after candidates take their digital assessment, but sometimes they take a couple weeks. While it’s hard to wait for feedback, you can put the time to good use by practicing for case interviews and preparing your behavioral interview stories. Best of luck!

MCO

We’re sorry to hear about the rejection. They always hurt, especially when you feel your qualifications were not given careful examination. But you sound determined, which is a quality you need to be to get an offer from a top consulting firm. Plenty of people who end up working in consulting do not get offers the first time they apply. Take what you’ve learned about the industry, the assessments, case interviews, and behavioral interviews and use it to make yourself a stronger candidate for other firms or in the future.

We wish you the best,
My Consulting Offer

Ted,

Sorry, we don’t have that level of detail. But your question shows that you are very targeted in your search for the right consulting firm for you, which is a great strategy. Best of luck!

My Consulting Offer

How long Accenture takes to reply(feedback) after completing your digital assessment?

Hey, Giulia! We’re glad you’ve found MCO’s resources helpful!

We created a list of consulting firms that sponsor H1B visas last year. It’s here:
https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/list-top-management-firms/h1b-visa-sponsorship/

The firms’ policies are constantly updated, so use that as a starting point and check with their recruiting departments. In general, larger firms are more likely to have the resources to support helping employees with visas.

If you apply for a position and do not get an interview, you can apply again. Most firms ask you to wait 6 months to a year before reapplying.

We hope this helps! Good luck with the recruiting process.

My Consulting Offer

Hi, Soe! Thanks for your interest in MCO’s programs!

We provide lots of resources for free. You can find our Resource Library with links to all our written articles here: https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/resources/
And our YouTube videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbMX6drxyPWM_ZxGH1Hkdww

We’re creating more content every day to help the consulting community, so check back regularly!

MCO also runs various paid programs if you would like more help with your consulting application or interview prep. You can find out about these programs here:
https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/consulting-bootcamp-enroll/
https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/case-study-interview-prep/coaching/

Best of luck with your consulting interviews!

Thank you very much for your time.
Sincerely,
Giulia

Hey, Kate!

Good question. Having 2 connections in a certain consulting office is great! To answer the question on whether you should continue or not, I’d consider these 3 things.

1) Are your connections deep? Always prioritize deep and authentic connections over quantity of connections. It would be better to have a couple people who would provide you with advice and support along your recruiting process rather than a dozen with who you just exchanged superficial emails.

2) Are you interested in other offices/firms. It’s best to put the most effort into networking in your top-choice firm/office. But you’ll be interviewing with several consulting firms and may be considering more than one office/firm. If you’ve got a couple connections in one office, your time may be better spent on developing connections with another firm or office.

3) How much time do you have to devote to networking? Networking is important, but it doesn’t take the place of doing well in your classes and preparing for case and behavioral interviews. Make sure you are taking care of your top priorities before doing more networking in an office where you already have contacts.

2 connections at an office is probably fine, especially if they are strong connections. When it comes to networking, you just want to be thoughtful and sometimes doing too much or coming off as desperate/spam-like by sending too many emails out can hurt you, so focus on quality and not quantity.

Good luck with recruiting!

You might be right about Accenture’s interest in candidates who are tech advocates. I talked to some of our Accenture experts and they mentioned that in the past, the firm has provided new hires with 2 weeks of coding training as part of their onboarding process. This might be a blow if Accenture was one of your top picks, but you might take the opportunity to think about what type of consulting firm is the best fit for you. Reading the different firms’ “values” pages can tell you a lot about their culture and what they look for in recruits. Another consulting firm with less tech focus might be the right one for you.

Good luck with the recruiting process!

We have this article on the Accenture digital assessment. I hope it helps you and good luck!
https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/case-study-interview-prep/accenture-digital-assessment/

In the application processes for companies I’m familiar with, it means your resume and/or cover letter have passed their initial screen. This is a second pre-interview screen. I wouldn’t call it a short list, but it’s a good first step in the process. Congrats!

When companies take pymetrics test? Does it mean the candidate is short listed or its just a initial stage of process?

I also received the “gut-instinct” comment under the category Decision Making. This is not true because I am usually meticulous when taking further steps and putting my thoughts together.

The game imposes a time limit, which means I need to respond as quick as possible before the game expires. I cannot believe the game “judges” that I did not learn from past mistakes after playing the game which required me to pick cards from four decks that may result in random gains and losses. Forcing someone to pick cards that result in gain or loss is simply gambling. How does the result from a gamble lead to the conclusion that I make decisions based on gut-instinct? Are we required to know any scientific or “non gut-instinct” method in picking cards from decks or guessing the lottery number?

I was also “judged” as completing tasks using a familiar way as opposed to experimenting with new approaches. As a winner of several nationwide Maths competitions, I have been recognised for my ability to think critically and creatively, and to develop the most efficient plan when solving problems. During my experience with the Pymetrics test, I didn’t identify any game that was worth trying out a range of different strategies. By the time you decided on a new strategy, you would have run out of time and left stunned in front of the screen, regretting for not acting spontaneously. I aI also received the “gut-instinct” comment under the category Decision Making. This is not true because I am usually meticulous when taking further steps and putting my thoughts together.

The game imposes a time limit, which means I need to respond as quick as possible before the game expires. I cannot believe the game “judges” that I did not learn from past mistakes after playing the game which required me to pick cards from four decks that may result in random gains and losses. Forcing someone to pick cards that result in gain or loss is simply gambling. How does the result from a gamble lead to the conclusion that I make decisions based on gut-instinct? Are we required to know any scientific or “non gut-instinct” method in picking cards from decks or guessing the lottery number?

I was also “judged” as completing tasks using a familiar way as opposed to experimenting with new approaches. As a winner of several nationwide Maths competitions, I have been recognised for my ability to think critically and creatively, and to develop the most efficient plan when solving problems. During my experience with the Pymetrics test, I didn’t identify any game that was worth trying out a range of different strategies. By the time you decided on a new strategy, you would have run out of time and left stunned in front of the screen, regretting for not acting spontaneously.

I am very confused to say the least. m very confused to say the least.

I’m sorry to hear that there are bugs in the program. That must be extremely stressful.

If you have trouble with the BCG Pymetrics test or any of the consulting firms’ pre-screening tests, you should contact the company that published the test directly.

Christina,

We’re sorry to hear that you didn’t think the results of your Pymetrics test matched closely with your personality and approach to problem-solving.

Leah Frank, a former Bain & McKinsey recruiter who works for MCO, said that the first thing to remember is that for BCG, Pymetrics is used as another data point on your application but there are no specific answers they are looking for or a ‘score’ you need to get to pass it. It’s looked at just to know more about you in addition to your resume and cover letter (since it’s still under the application stage).

With that said, you may want to think back through the test and reflect on which games/questions may have been used to make this determination that you have a “gut-feeling” approach rather than a “rational” approach. On these games/questions, did you let the data guide you in your answer?

For example, did you have the “Towers” mini-game with the 3 towers of stacked colored discs? The objective of this game is to rearrange the discs between the towers, moving one at a time until your towers match the ones on the top of the screen. You are asked to do this with the fewest possible moves. Did you map out the moves in advance to ensure you used the least possible moves? Or just start moving discs.
Mapping your approach out ensures you can test a couple alternative approaches and minimize your moves. This will make your problem-solving look structured or rational to the game’s algorithm. Structure problem-solving is also valued by consulting firms, which is why the games test for this.

Of course, you need to do this within the time limit of the test.

Another game which may have may have an impact on your decision-making score is the game with the card decks.

If you apply to another consulting company or apply to BCG again in the future, this reflection can help ensure your rational problem-solving approach shines through.

Hey, Tonia! Thanks for your question.

In the case, we’re given that the size of the market for US sports drinks is 8 billion gallons. Electrolyte drinks are 5% of this total or .4 billion gallons which equals 400 million gallons.

We’re also given that the product size for drinks in this market are 16 ounces. And in our breakeven analysis, we find out we need to sell 400 million bottles (or cans) to break even. We need to do a conversion to compare our breakeven point of 400 million bottles to the 400 million gallon market size to see what market share we would have to achieve to break even.

Conversion: 1 US gallon = 128 ounces. 128 ounces/ gallon divided by 16 ounces/ bottle = 8. We can fill 8 bottles for each gallon of electrolyte drink we produce. So 1 gallon is 8 bottles (or cans) manufactured by our client.

We divide the 400 million bottle (or can) breakeven point by 8 to get to 50 million gallons. We compare the 50 million gallon breakeven point to the 400 million gallon market size to see that we need to capture 12.5% market share.

Note: In answering this question, I noticed that a UK gallon = 160 ounces, so if you are using UK gallons you will get a different answer!

I hope that helps! Sorry about the confusion between US ounces/gallon and UK ounces/gallon!

Hi Atul,

Davis jumping in here.

Great question and a common one for this case.

The short answer is that in most cases you will be able to do the calculation you proposed so it is great you already see this pattern; for this particular case, it is testing conditional probability since it is like flipping 3 coins (with different probabilities of say getting heads and each time you play you have to bet a fee but if you lose you don’t need to continue) so you aren’t guaranteed to “always” take on the cost of all three phases so you have to add the probability into place for each coin flip.

Let me know if that clears it up for you for this particular case which involved 3 stages of costs vs a single pay once and you know what the result is which is the tricky part of this case)

In Lesson 1, where we are trying to decide whether or not the CEO must dive into developing BUD-19 vaccine, the approach to calculate profit seems inappropriate. The way it should be;

Expected profit = (200B-400MM)*P(successfully develop vaccine) + (-400MM)*[1-P(successfully develop vaccine)]
=200B*P(successfully develop vaccine) – 400MM
=200B*0.005 – 400MM
=600MM

How about this?

Basically what I think is using the probability to clear each phase of FDA should not be considered in calculating expected cost.

Let me know if I’m thinking correctly.

My Consulting Offer’s head recruiting coach says it can vary by applicant, but on average it takes 1-3 weeks to hear back from a firm after the Pymetrics test. She believes the firms automatically send the Pymetrics test once an application is fully submitted. There aren’t any steps to take once the Pymetrics test has been completed. You just need to wait until they can review your application.

Best of luck!