Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: September 22, 2026

 

The Strategy& first round interview is two back-to-back interviews of about 45 minutes each, and each one pairs 10 to 15 minutes of behavioral questions with a candidate-led case that is often a market sizing or slide-packet exercise. This guide covers the exact format, who sits across from you, the questions candidates actually get asked, how the round changes by office, and a two-week prep plan.

 

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Key Takeaways

 

Passing the Strategy& first round comes down to driving a candidate-led case cleanly and giving reasons for wanting Strategy& that no other firm could satisfy.

 

• Expect two back-to-back interviews of roughly 45 minutes, usually with a senior associate and a manager

 

• Each interview splits into fit questions, a case, and about 5 minutes for your own questions

 

• Market sizing appears here far more often than at other strategy firms, sometimes as the entire case

 

• Some offices use a slide packet of 7 to 10 pages with about 10 minutes of reading time

 

• The format varies by geography: Amsterdam runs three 60-minute interviews instead of two 45-minute ones

 

• Glassdoor puts the full process at about 38 days across 571 reported interviews

 

What Is the Strategy& First Round Interview?

 

The Strategy& first round interview is the first live interview stage, sitting after the online assessment and before the final round. It consists of two back-to-back interviews of about 45 minutes each, run by senior associates or managers. Each one combines behavioral fit questions with a candidate-led case, and both interviewers score you independently.

 

That last point matters more than candidates expect. You are not being averaged across the two conversations so much as being checked twice, and one weak performance is usually enough to end the process. Candidates regularly report advancing after a strong second interview only to be cut because the first one went flat.

 

Strategy& is PwC's strategy consulting arm, and the firm reports more than 5,000 strategy partners, consultants, and staff worldwide on its global about page. Its interview process is closer to a tier 2 strategy firm than to the rest of PwC, which is why generic Big 4 interview advice tends to mislead people preparing for this round.

 

How Is the Strategy& First Round Structured?

 

Each of the two interviews follows the same three-part shape. Knowing the segment boundaries lets you manage your own clock instead of getting surprised when the interviewer pivots.

 

Segment	Time	What the interviewer is testing
Introduction and fit questions	10 to 15 minutes	Motivation, communication, and whether your reasons for Strategy& are specific rather than recycled
Case discussion	25 to 30 minutes	Structure, arithmetic under pressure, business judgment, and whether you drive without being prompted
Your questions	About 5 minutes	Genuine interest, and whether you have researched the office and the interviewer's work

 

Strategy& itself describes the case as taking up roughly half the interview and reserving the last 5 to 10 minutes for your questions, which matches what candidates report. The two interviews are rarely identical in feel. One interviewer typically leans on your background and motivations, while the other spends almost the whole slot on quantitative work.

 

How Does the Strategy& First Round Change by Office?

 

This is the part most guides get wrong. Strategy& runs its recruiting at the country level, so the first round in Amsterdam looks materially different from the first round in New York or Dubai.

 

Location	First round format	What is different
United States	Two interviews of 45 to 60 minutes	Some offices compress both rounds into a single super day with a same-day decision
United Kingdom	Two 45-minute interviews back-to-back	Slide-packet case studies and standalone market sizing are both common
Netherlands	Three interviews of 60 minutes each	The firm assigns you a buddy and runs a practice case with a consultant beforehand
Middle East	Three to four 45-minute interviews across the process	Cases skew heavily toward market estimation and sizing rather than classic profitability

 

The Amsterdam office publishes its full nine-step recruitment process, including the practice case and the buddy assignment. The Middle East careers site states the process runs three to four 45-minute interviews in total. Check with your recruiter rather than assuming the US format applies to you, because that single question can change how you allocate your prep.

 

Who Conducts the Strategy& First Round Interview?

 

Senior associates and managers run most first rounds, with directors and partners saved for the final round. In smaller offices you may meet a principal or director in round one simply because the office is thin on staff, and in London some candidates report senior managers and directors at this stage.

 

The seniority matters for how the case feels. A manager who cases you at 9am has probably run the same case ten times and will hold you to a tight standard on the math. A director is more likely to turn the conversation toward industry judgment and push back on your recommendation to see whether you fold.

 

In my experience interviewing at Bain, the junior interviewer is the one who catches sloppy arithmetic and the senior one is the one who catches shallow thinking. Prepare for both, because in a two-interview round you will almost certainly get one of each.

 

What Types of Cases Come Up in the Strategy& First Round?

 

First round cases at Strategy& are candidate-led and quantitative. The most common types are market sizing, market entry, growth strategy, and profitability, and the Strategy& case interview format asks you to propose the next analysis rather than wait to be told what to do.

 

Here are case prompts candidates have reported from Strategy& and PwC first rounds:

 

• Estimate the size of the milk market in the UK

 

• A sustainability case: assess whether a client should invest in a new low-carbon line

 

• How many people leave Waterloo station on a given day

 

• A tourism authority wants to grow visitor numbers. Where should it focus

 

• Value a company and decide the best way to sell it: public listing, partial sale, or auction

 

• A company's sales are declining. Diagnose the cause using the data provided

 

If you are interviewing with the Deals practice, the mix shifts. Strategy& Deals case interviews center on commercial due diligence and acquisition screening, which means more explicit finance and more pressure on your assumptions.

 

Why Does Market Sizing Show Up So Often at Strategy&?

 

Strategy& does a large volume of commercial due diligence and market assessment work, so sizing a market is not an artificial screening exercise here. It is a scaled-down version of the first week of a real engagement.

 

That changes how you should answer. A generic candidate builds a population tree and reports a number. A strong candidate states the assumption they are least confident in, sanity-checks the result against something known, and says what the number would need to be for the client's decision to flip.

 

Example: asked to size the UK milk market, you might assume 65 million people, 60% of whom drink milk regularly, at roughly 2 liters per week. That gives about 4 billion liters per year, and at an illustrative 1 pound per liter you land near 4 billion pounds. Then say the part that earns the point: the 60% penetration figure is the assumption doing the most work, and halving it would change the answer more than any other input.

 

Practicing market sizing out loud until the arithmetic is automatic is the highest-return thing you can do in the week before this round. Clean numbers do not win the case on their own, but slow numbers lose it.

 

What Is the Strategy& Slide-Packet Case Study?

 

Several offices, London especially, use a format that catches unprepared candidates completely off guard. Instead of a spoken prompt, you are handed a packet of roughly 7 to 10 slides drawn from real client material, given about 10 minutes to read, and then asked three or four questions about it.

 

Candidates consistently report that 10 minutes is not enough to read the packet properly. That is deliberate. You are being tested on triage, not on comprehension, and the interviewer expects you to keep flipping pages while you talk.

 

Four things to do when the packet lands:

 

1. Read the questions first: if the questions are printed, they tell you which exhibits matter and which you can ignore
   
   
2. Skim titles and axes: spend your first two minutes on chart titles, units, and time periods rather than reading body text
   
   
3. Answer the quantitative one first: one question usually has a single findable answer buried in an exhibit, and getting it right buys you credibility
   
   
4. Narrate your page numbers: saying "this comes from the revenue split on page 4" shows the interviewer you are working from evidence rather than guessing

 

The qualitative questions are far easier to answer while still scanning, so do not panic if you finish the packet mid-sentence. Tailored case interview frameworks matter less in this format than the ability to point at a number and explain what it implies.

 

Case performance decides most of this round. If you want to build case skills fast, my case interview course walks you through proven strategies in as little as 7 days.

 

What Behavioral Questions Does the Strategy& First Round Ask?

 

The first 10 to 15 minutes of each interview is fit, and Strategy& weights it more heavily than most firms do. The questions themselves are standard, so the differentiation comes entirely from specificity.

 

The questions candidates report most often in round one are motivational and resume-based:

 

• Why Strategy&: the single most common reason strong case performers get cut at this stage

 

• Why consulting: have three reasons that connect to things you have actually done

 

• Why this office: asked far more often than at MBB, and a generic answer reads as flight risk

 

• Walk me through your resume: 90 seconds, most recent first, ending on why consulting

 

• Tell me about a time you led a team: one clear story with a result you can quantify

 

• Tell me about a time you used a large data set: a Strategy& favorite, and a chance to signal comfort with analysis

 

A Riyadh candidate reported the opener arriving as one compound question: why Strategy&, why consulting, why the Riyadh office. A Stockholm candidate got a sharper variant: why is Strategy& a fit for you personally. Answer each thread separately and concretely, because blending them into one enthusiasm speech is the fastest way to sound like every other candidate.

 

Strategy& sits inside PwC, which means your recommendations can be carried through to implementation rather than ending at a deck. That is a real, specific reason to prefer this firm, and it is the kind of answer that survives a follow-up question. Preparing your why PwC answer separately is worth the extra hour, since interviewers sometimes probe the parent firm and the strategy arm on their own terms.

 

For past-behavior questions, the STAR method keeps you from rambling through a two-minute story with no result at the end. Five flexible stories will cover almost every phrasing you get.

 

If you want to be ready for 98% of fit questions in a few hours, my fit interview course covers every question type with answer templates.

 

How Do You Get Invited to a Strategy& First Round Interview?

 

Three routes account for most first round invitations. According to Glassdoor data updated in July 2026, 57% of Strategy& candidates applied online, 26% came through campus recruiting, and 8% came through an employee referral.

 

Between the application and the first round sits an online assessment, typically a cognitive and behavioral test that takes about an hour. The Amsterdam office points candidates to SHL practice tests before they sit it, which is a useful signal about the question style you will face.

 

Referrals matter more here than the 8% figure suggests, because referred candidates convert at a much higher rate than online applicants. A Strategy& referral also tends to shorten the wait between stages.

 

The resume screen remains the most brutal filter in the entire process, cutting the large majority of applicants before anyone sees a case. Your consulting resume needs quantified results in every bullet before you apply, not after the rejection arrives.

 

How Is the First Round Different from the Final Round?

 

The structure barely changes between rounds, which surprises candidates who expect an escalation. What changes is who is in the room and how hard they push.

 

Factor	First round	Final round
Interviewers	Senior associates and managers	Directors and partners
Number of interviews	Two, occasionally three	Two to three
Case difficulty	Single-thread problems and sizing	Multi-layered problems with more ambiguity
Fit emphasis	Motivation and resume	Often one interview devoted entirely to fit
Extra formats	Rare	Written case, group case, or an Excel test in some offices
Setting	Usually video	Increasingly in person at a PwC office

 

Some offices collapse both rounds into one assessment day, running four interviews and delivering a decision before you leave. Candidates in London have described exactly that, and it means your first round performance may be judged within an hour of your final round. If your recruiter uses the phrase super day or assessment centre, plan for a full day of consulting first round interviews and a final round stacked on top.

 

How Should You Prepare for the Strategy& First Round?

 

Two weeks is enough if you use it well. This plan assumes you already know the basic case structure and need to make it Strategy& specific.

 

1. Days 1 to 3: drill estimation. Do two market sizing questions per day out loud, timed, and force yourself to name your weakest assumption at the end of each one
   
   
2. Days 4 to 6: run five full candidate-led cases with a partner, weighted toward market entry and growth strategy rather than pure profitability
   
   
3. Days 7 to 8: write your fit answers. Draft why Strategy&, why consulting, and why this office as three separate answers, then read them aloud until they stop sounding written
   
   
4. Days 9 to 10: practice with exhibits. Work through cases built around charts and tables so the slide-packet format is not new to you
   
   
5. Days 11 to 12: research the office. Read two recent Strategy& publications relevant to that office's sectors and prepare three questions for your interviewers
   
   
6. Days 13 to 14: taper. One case per day under real conditions, camera on, then stop. Cramming the night before makes people slower, not sharper

 

Do the arithmetic drills every single day rather than in one block. Case interview mental math decays fast, and a quant-heavy first round is exactly where that decay shows up.

 

If you want feedback from someone who has sat on the other side of the table, my case interview coaching helps you improve roughly 5x faster than practicing alone.

 

What Mistakes Get Candidates Cut in the First Round?

 

Having coached hundreds of candidates, I see the same handful of errors end Strategy& first rounds over and over. None of them are about intelligence.

 

• Waiting to be led: the case is candidate-led, so silence after an exhibit reads as a failure to drive rather than as careful thinking

 

• A recycled why Strategy& answer: if your answer would work for BCG with the name swapped, it will not survive a follow-up

 

• Treating sizing as a warm-up: at many firms it is, but here the estimation question is often the whole case and is scored as such

 

• Running out of time before a recommendation: save the last three minutes no matter where you are in the analysis

 

• Coasting through the second interview: both interviewers score you separately, and a good first conversation does not carry a weak second one

 

• Skipping your own questions: the final 5 minutes is scored, and having no questions signals you are not serious about this office

 

What Are the Best Tips for the Strategy& First Round Interview?

 

Tip #1: Ask your recruiter what format your office uses

 

This is free information that most candidates never request. Ask whether your round is two interviews or three, whether either uses a slide packet, and whether it runs as a super day.

 

Recruiters answer this readily because they want you to perform. Knowing you have a packet case coming changes your entire final week of prep.

 

Tip #2: Name your assumptions before you are asked

 

Strategy& interviewers care about the reasoning path more than the final figure. On its own case prep page, the firm says there is no single right way to answer a case and that showing your thought process is what counts.

 

Saying "I am assuming a 30% margin, and I would want to pressure-test that first" costs you four seconds and reframes you as a consultant rather than a test taker.

 

Tip #3: Give a recommendation even when the analysis is unfinished

 

Candidates who run long often trail off without a recommendation, which reads far worse than an imperfect answer delivered confidently. Watch your own clock and cut to the recommendation with three minutes left.

 

Lead with the decision, give two or three supporting reasons, then name the one risk you would investigate next. That last piece is what separates a passing case from a memorable one.

 

Tip #4: Prepare a different question for each interviewer

 

Asking both interviewers the same question is a small miss that gets noticed, because they compare notes afterward. Prepare four questions and pick two per conversation based on the person's seniority.

 

The best questions to ask at the end of a consulting interview get the interviewer talking about their own work, which builds rapport in the five minutes that most candidates waste.

 

Tip #5: Practice on video, not across a table

 

Most first rounds are still conducted over video, and the medium changes your performance in ways practicing in person will not surface. You cannot read the interviewer as easily, silences feel longer, and your notes are off camera.

 

Run at least three practice cases with your camera on and your notes arranged exactly the way they will be on the day. Small logistical friction costs real points when the clock is running.

 

How Long Does It Take to Hear Back After the First Round?

 

Most candidates hear within a few days to two weeks. Super day offices decide the same afternoon, while offices running separated rounds usually come back inside a week. Glassdoor puts the average full Strategy& hiring process at 38 days across 571 reported interviews, so silence at day five means nothing.

 

Follow up with your recruiter if you have heard nothing after ten business days. Keep it to three sentences: thank them, restate your interest in the specific office, and ask about timing.

 

The Strategy& first round interview rewards candidates who drive the case without prompting and who can explain, in one specific sentence, why this firm and not the one down the street. Start today by drilling market sizing out loud and writing your why Strategy& answer, because those two things decide more first round outcomes than anything else you could practice.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

How long is the Strategy& first round interview?

 

Most Strategy& first rounds run about 90 minutes total, split into two back-to-back interviews of roughly 45 minutes each. Some offices run longer sessions. The Amsterdam office schedules three first round interviews of 60 minutes each, and candidates in Chicago have reported two back-to-back interviews closer to an hour apiece.

 

Is the Strategy& first round interview candidate-led or interviewer-led?

 

Strategy& uses a candidate-led format, so you decide what to analyze and propose the next step yourself. The interviewer supplies data when you ask for it rather than steering you through a fixed sequence of questions. This is closer to a BCG or Bain case than a McKinsey case.

 

Does the Strategy& first round include a market sizing question?

 

Very often. Market sizing appears in Strategy& first rounds more than at almost any comparable strategy firm, either as a standalone question or as the opening step of a larger case. Candidates report estimation prompts such as sizing the milk market in the UK, and candidates in Middle East offices report rounds weighted heavily toward market estimation.

 

What is the slide-packet case in the Strategy& first round?

 

Some offices hand you a packet of roughly 7 to 10 slides drawn from real client material, give you about 10 minutes to read it, then ask three or four questions about it. You are not expected to absorb every page. Answer from the exhibits while you keep reading, and state where in the packet your number came from.

 

How long does it take to hear back after a Strategy& first round interview?

 

Most candidates hear back within a few days to two weeks. Offices running a super day often give a decision the same day, while separated rounds usually take about a week. Glassdoor puts the full Strategy& hiring process at an average of 38 days across 571 reported interviews, so a week of silence is normal rather than a bad sign.

 

Is the Strategy& first round harder than the final round?

 

The cases get harder in the final round, but the first round eliminates more people because more candidates are in it. Strategy& states that both rounds carry the same structure, and candidates consistently describe the difficulty as similar. What changes is seniority: first round interviewers are senior associates and managers, while final round interviewers are directors and partners.

 

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