The BCG Pymetrics Test. It sounds a little scary and it's pretty
intelligent, so you should be a little scared of it but
our goal in this video is to walk through what the BCG Pymetrics Test is,
why BCG as a firm uses a test like this, and if you get it what you should expect.
I'm Jenny Rae Le Roux, the managing director of Management Consulted and I'm
excited to walk you through this because it's a great learning
experience for all of us as the firms come up with new ideas and new
ways to train and test their people, and it's a great way for us
to be able to share that information with you.
First of all, just a little bit about BCG. BCG is known as a thought leader
in the consulting space. They're always pushing the envelope on the use of
AI. They've been some of the most advanced in terms of their adoption of
digital recommendations and technology and in-house digital strategies, and
they've acquired firms in the digital space. In addition, BCG has been really really prolific
at the use of additional AI tools inside their own organization, so
as a pioneer of innovation and a pioneer of innovative digital
frameworks and a pioneer of frameworks in general
and as a thought leader in the innovation space, BCG is a natural fit
for a test like the BCG Pymetrics Test. Now here's one of the key questions: "What
is the BCG Pymetrics Test?" First of all, I'm going to begin with a
spoiler. This is currently in beta, it's not currently being used,
so if you're worried about getting this test as a part of the recruiting process
it's unlikely. That doesn't mean you won't, beta means that you could still
get it, but it's unlikely. So, deep breath on this.
Now, what is it? The BCG Pymetrics Test is an assessment that uses the power
of games to measure and develop skills on a consistent basis.
That's kind of a mouthful but let me say it again. The BCG Pymetrics test is an
assessment that uses the power of games to measure and develop skills on a
consistent and cost-effective basis. Games. That is not what I expected when I
heard about this Pymetrics test. Here are some of the reasons that games
are effective tests for BCG. Games have conditional logic and they
adapt to answers given, so it's not just play a game, get an
answer, it's play a game, make a choice, get different options. So these games
give you a level of proficiency that they're able
to measure based on certain things and decisions that you have to make as
you go. Now this was developed, the BCG Pymetrics
test was developed with a professor from the Indian School
of Business and the BCG Henderson Institute created
a game that was backed by data science, neuroscience and artificial intelligence
that tests for this very wide range of skills and
competencies. So it's a game but it's backed by a lot of academic research
and academic insight as well. At the end it provides a report that suggests the
person's best career options, and I don't know if you guys took one of
those, but when I was in school it recommended that I would be a firefighter, which
was definitely not a good career for me. In addition, some least suited
career options are provided based on the player's weaknesses. Now the focus of
using this test inside the BCG ecosphere is that
they want to measure your strategy skills
and emotional and cognitive traits and hopefully, gosh, if you take it, it tells
you that you'd be an amazing consultant, but if you're already at BCG, who knows
whether maybe that matters and maybe it doesn't.
But the first part of this BCG Pymetrics test is a strategy game in which
a player operates a lemonade stand and a lemonade stand has to operate in one of
five business environments. A classical
business environment, an adaptive business environment, a
visionary business environment, a shaping business environment, and
finally, a renewal business environment, and when this happens for predictable
markets they're able to analyze drivers, plan actions, and execute
on those actions. For the adaptive markets those are more
unpredictable, so the person has to do adaptive things such as varying
different bets, selecting promising bets, and scaling bets
to identify potential opportunities that are popping up.
For visionary, if markets can be predicted and shaped,
can the person anticipate the future? It's one of the questions that it's
testing. For shaping, for markets that can be
shaped but not predicted, can they engage a broader ecosystem of
partners and co-evolve together. And then finally
in renewal, if it's harsh as a market, can they react promptly,
economize resources, and pivot really quickly?
In a second game that was developed by this same group, Pymetrics,
players are judged based on 91 cognitive neuroscience measures
and it's a series of mini games, so not one big game in different environments,
but a series of mini games. Now you're probably asking, how will this
BCG Pymetrics test be used? First of all, the test is designed to
help clients and consultants understand the range of strategic environments,
and the approach that's required to succeed in them. So, for example,
it might help if a client is assessed to see where they adapt best. Perhaps
they're best suited to adapt in a market that is
a shaping market but they're in a renewal market.
BCG is going to help walk them through some of the gaps or the skills that will
be required, to to bridge in order to effectively
work into that market. In addition, some people and again a
limited number but still some, have encountered this test during the
interview with no consequence to their score as
far as they've reported. So it could show up as a way for BCG to
begin testing right now whether it's a good metric of
potential future success as a BCG consultant. They'll have to track it for
a little while. They'd have to see that you got an offer, they'd have to
see that you succeeded at coming on to the job, and then also that
when you're on the job that you got good performance ratings to be able to
track how the test could measure some of those
things. Ultimately what does this mean for you
and how you should approach the test? Well right now, they say it's not
evaluative so there are some things that the firms are
a little evaluative on but I would take it
seriously, but not stress about it. You don't want to
blow it off if it's important to them and they're spending their time having
you do it, then it's important to you. But at the same time it's really, really
valuable to make sure that if the candidate is approaching the
test this way, they're taking it seriously but having fun and really demonstrating
the truth of your experience inside the test. If you've got questions
about the BCG Pymetrics test, BCG interviews, or preparing for a BCG
case interview, we would love to help you. Please reach
out to us at managementconsulted.com or on social!
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