BCG Assessment Practice
The online screening stage before the case interviews, what the evidence supports about it, and the honest limits of what anyone can tell you in advance
Why this page is more hedged than most
BCG is unusual among the firms we write about, and not in a way that helps candidates. Most large employers pick an assessment vendor and stay with it for years, which makes a guide like this one useful for a long time. BCG's online screening has changed repeatedly, differs between offices, and is not documented anywhere by BCG itself.
What we can evidence is candidate reporting from 2026 describing SHL-style reasoning as the current online screen, with the explicit caveat that the provider varies by office and cycle. We record that at medium confidence. What we will not do is tell you with certainty which test you will sit, because nobody outside BCG's recruiting teams is in a position to know that.
The stages, and which one actually decides things
What to prepare, given that you do not know the format
There is a genuinely rational answer to this, and it is not “practise everything”. Every version of a consulting online screen, whether it is a reasoning test, a chatbot case or a set of games, has rewarded the same underlying thing: handling quantitative information quickly and correctly without a calculator crutch, and making a defensible decision from incomplete data.
Numerical fluency under a clock
Percentages, growth rates, market sizing arithmetic, ratios, breakeven. Not hard mathematics, but at a speed that a spreadsheet habit destroys. This transfers to every version of the screen and to the case interviews, which makes it the highest-return preparation available.
Reading a chart for the one number that matters
Reasoning tests and case interviews both hand you exhibits containing more information than the question needs. The skill is locating the relevant figure and ignoring the rest, and it is trainable in a way that general intelligence is not.
Committing to an answer
Consulting screens punish dithering in every format. On a timed reasoning test that is literal, because time runs out. In a chatbot case or a case interview it is social, because a structured wrong answer that you defend well beats an unstructured hedge.
The formats BCG has been associated with
- Reasoning tests in the SHL mould. Numerical, verbal and logical items against a fixed clock, no penalty for a wrong answer, so nothing should ever be left blank. This is what current candidate reporting describes.
- A chatbot-style case interview. BCG has run an online conversational case where you work through a business problem with a text interface rather than a person. It rewards structure and arithmetic, not typing speed.
- Game-based screening. Consulting firms including BCG have used neuroscience-style games at various points. If your invitation mentions games rather than questions, that is a different preparation problem and our game-based assessment practice is the closer match.
Read that list as a history rather than as a menu you get to choose from. The point is that BCG has used all three, so a source describing one of them is not wrong, it is just possibly out of date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does BCG use the SHL test?
Candidate reporting from 2026 describes SHL-style reasoning as BCG's current online screening in at least some offices, and the same source is explicit that the provider varies by office and cycle. We hold that at medium confidence and would not tell you to bet a week of preparation on it without confirming with your recruiter.
Is the BCG online test harder than McKinsey Solve?
They are different instruments rather than harder and easier versions of one. McKinsey Solve is a bespoke, scenario-driven assessment that McKinsey uses everywhere and publishes about; BCG's screening is shorter, more conventional and less consistent between offices. If you are preparing for both, treat them as separate pieces of work. Our McKinsey Solve practice covers the Solve side.
How much does the online stage count towards the decision?
BCG does not publish this. The structural logic of consulting recruitment is that the online stage is a sift and the case interviews are the assessment, so clearing the bar generally matters more than clearing it impressively.
Should I prepare cases before the online stage?
Yes, and this is the most useful thing on this page. Case preparation takes weeks and the gap between an online screen and a first-round interview is often days. Candidates who start casing after they pass the screen are already behind the ones who started before they applied.
Where to practise
For the reasoning route, the SHL practice hub covers numerical, verbal, inductive and deductive under real timings. For the quantitative speed that every version of the screen rewards, the numerical reasoning drills are the highest-return place to spend an hour.