ONLINE GAMES
You hear one candidate say they got “Casey.”
Another says BCG sent them an “online case.”
A third mentions an assessment that sounds completely different.
So you start searching:
Which one am I actually getting?
There is a catch.
BCG’s assessment process can vary by office, role and recruiting channel.
“Casey” and “online case” are not always two cleanly separate things...
BCG currently describes an Online Case Experience in some recruiting processes where candidates solve a business problem through an interactive chatbot called Casey.
In other recruiting channels, BCG simply describes an online case.
Some candidate groups may also encounter other assessments.
So trying to create one universal sequence for every Master’s applicant can send you in the wrong direction.
Your invitation beats the internet.
Read the instructions you receive from BCG first.
Then prepare for that format.
For a deeper look at the chatbot-style experience, see BCG Online Case (Casey Chatbot): Guide.
The delivery method changes... but the business thinking does not disappear
The chatbot can make the experience feel completely different from a live case.
Nobody is nodding.
Nobody is asking, “Why?”
Nobody is watching you draw the structure.
You interact with the system instead.
That can tempt Master’s students to treat the exercise as a multiple-choice exam.
But a business case is still sitting underneath the interface.
What is the client trying to decide?
Which information matters?
What does the number you just calculated actually imply?
What should happen next?
The interface can hide the case. Do not let it.
| What feels different | What still matters | The trap |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot prompts | Structured problem-solving | Treating questions as disconnected tasks |
| Timed digital format | Prioritisation | Spending too long perfecting one answer |
| No live interviewer | Clear synthesis | Forgetting the “so what?” |
| Fixed interaction flow | Commercial judgment | Hunting for a memorised framework |
Your Master’s coursework can create a surprisingly specific problem...
You are used to questions having boundaries.
The professor asks for an optimisation.
You optimise.
The assignment asks for five variables.
You analyse five variables.
A consulting case can ask something messier:
Should the client enter this market?
Now the maths is evidence, not the final answer.
A 15 percent growth rate does not tell the client what to do.
Neither does a $50 million market.
You need to interpret those numbers against competitors, economics, capabilities, risk and the client’s objective.
That is where digital case assessments start feeling much closer to consulting.
If you are wondering how difficult the underlying reasoning can become, How Hard Is the BCG Online Case? takes that question further.
So what should you practise before the invitation arrives?
Not a secret chatbot script.
Practise the transferable pieces:
- structuring unfamiliar business problems quickly
- interpreting charts without narrating every number
- doing clean quantitative reasoning
- connecting calculations to decisions
- making a concise recommendation from incomplete information
Then, once BCG tells you the actual assessment format, adapt.
Because a Master’s student can waste a lot of time becoming extremely good at an assessment someone else received last year in another office.
Format knowledge helps. Format obsession does not.
The real advantage is being able to recognise the consulting problem even when BCG changes the wrapper around it.