Interview Playbook / Consulting

How Roland Berger Interviews in 2026: Process, Questions & What They Score

HOW TO READ THIS PLAYBOOK

Compiled from 18 public sources: candidate interview reports, coaching guides, and Roland Berger's own hiring pages. Interview processes change and vary by role, team, level, and region. This is one well-documented shape of Roland Berger's interviews to prepare against, not a script of what your interview will be. Confirm specifics with your recruiter. SupaCV is not affiliated with or endorsed by Roland Berger.

Medium confidenceLast verified SEP 202618 sourcesSources

Roland Berger is a German-founded global strategy consultancy, and this dossier covers the track it is best known for: the generalist strategy consulting career path (Junior Consultant, Consultant, Senior Consultant, Project Manager), with its well-documented strength in European industrials, automotive and restructuring. It does not cover the firm's separate support-function or digital-venture hiring. The process that Roland Berger itself documents runs: online application with CV and cover letter, human review by a recruiter, online analytical tests for permanent hires (internship applicants skip these), a recruiting or assessment day combining a company presentation, a personal fit interview, case interviews and a platform-structure information session, and then a concluding interview with a member of the management team before an offer. The firm's FAQ puts the whole thing at roughly six to eight weeks from application to signing. Coaching sources add detail the firm does not publish: two rounds often run back to back as a super day, first round with consultants or project managers and second with principals or partners, and some offices add a group case or a written case presentation. Cases are candidate-led, meaning you propose the structure and drive the analysis rather than being walked through it. One caveat worth flagging up front: the firm's own live 2027 Junior Consultant job posting lists a simpler 5-step process that ends at Offer right after case interviews, without the concluding management interview the FAQ describes, so that step's universality is not settled. On evaluation framework: Roland Berger does not publish an interview scoring rubric. It does publish three corporate values (entrepreneurship, excellence, empathy) and nine culture pledges. The three values are included here as the framework because they are officially published and are echoed on the firm's own career pages, but they are a values statement rather than a hiring rubric, and mappings from questions to values are made only where a question plainly probes one.

The Process

  1. 1

    Online application with CV and cover letter · about 2 to 4 weeks to first response

    Roland Berger asks for a detailed resume plus a cover letter saying why you want to join and why you fit; some countries also require diplomas, certificates and references, and the firm asks that you do not include a photo. Response time is stated differently across official pages: the FAQ says within three weeks, the Tips and Tricks page says about two to four weeks, and the Netherlands career page says within two weeks, so it varies by country and role type. All three official pages were re-fetched directly and confirmed to state these differing windows verbatim.

  2. 2

    Recruiter screen of CV, cover letter and academic record · varies

    The Junior Consultant posting states every application is reviewed by a member of the human recruitment team. One coaching source (CareerInConsulting) states fewer than 30 percent of applicants receive an interview callback; Roland Berger publishes no screen-out rate of its own. A widely repeated claim that roughly 90 percent are cut at this stage, previously attributed to caseinterview.com, was checked directly by fetching that exact page twice and searching specifically for any such statistic: it is not on the page anywhere. That figure has been dropped as unsupported rather than presented alongside the corroborated one.

    Screen-out rate comes from a single coaching source and is not confirmed by Roland Berger

  3. 3

    Online analytical tests · varies; coaching sources report about 90 minutes

    Official pages say candidates for permanent positions take online analytics tests and that internship applicants skip this step; the Junior Consultant posting calls them online tests designed to show how you approach different types of problems. Coaching sources describe numerical and verbal reasoning in a GMAT-like format, and one names Korn Ferry as vendor and says no calculator is allowed. Roland Berger publishes no duration or vendor.

    Not applicable to internship applicants

  4. 4

    Recruiter or consultant screening call · 20 to 45 minutes

    Not described on any official Roland Berger page. Coaching sources report a short phone or video screen covering background, motivation and skills before the recruiting day. Whether this happens appears to vary by office and by whether you applied to a graduate programme or an experienced-hire role.

    Office dependent; not confirmed by any official page

  5. 5

    Recruiting day or assessment day · one day

    Roland Berger describes the day as a company presentation about the firm and its opportunities, personal fit and case interviews with experienced interviewers, and a session on the firm's platform structure so candidates can identify the best-fit practice group ('On recruiting day you'll also be able to find out about our platform structure,' per the Tips and Tricks page, confirmed on direct re-fetch). Junior Consultant applicants are asked to prepare a two to three minute presentation about themselves. The UK Junior Consultant posting pairs the assessment day with a case study workshop that helps prepare you for the case stage. Coaching sources describe it as a super day with three to four interviews back to back.

  6. 6

    First-round interviews: candidate-led case plus fit · 2 interviews of 30 to 60 minutes each

    Coaching sources consistently report two back-to-back interviews with junior consultants, consultants or project managers, each blending a case of roughly 30 to 40 minutes with a shorter fit component. Durations are reported by coaching sites, not by Roland Berger.

  7. 7

    Second-round interviews with principals or partners · 2 to 3 interviews of 30 to 60 minutes each

    Reported as one fit interview plus one or two harder cases with principals or partners. For experienced-hire Senior Consultant roles one source describes a partner round with a restructuring or transformation case and a partner fit discussion covering European industries and Roland Berger's positioning.

  8. 8

    Group case or written case presentation · varies

    Office dependent and not described on Roland Berger's global career pages. Coaching sources report a group case with roughly three to six candidates solving a business problem together while observers watch collaboration and communication, and a written case where you get an information pack of about 15 to 20 pages or slides with limited reading time and a small number of high-level questions. The Netherlands career page does describe a final day where candidates complete a case study and present findings to a panel of four consultants.

    Office dependent

  9. 9

    Concluding interview with management or partners · varies

    Roland Berger states, verbatim, that 'for candidates for permanent entry, a successful recruiting day is followed by a final interview with a person from the management team in your future area of work before an offer is made' (Tips and Tricks page, confirmed on direct re-fetch); the Netherlands career page describes a final day with two partners. Internship processes generally stop earlier. Caveat: the live 2027 Junior Consultant job posting's own 5-step outline (Screening, Online Tests, Assessment Day and Case Study Workshop, Final Round Case Interviews, Offer), fetched directly, does not mention this step at all and goes straight from case interviews to Offer, so it is unclear whether this stage still applies to every permanent-entry track or cohort.

    Permanent positions only, and not corroborated by the current Junior Consultant job posting's own process outline

  10. 10

    Offer · 6 to 8 weeks total from application to signing

    The official FAQ gives six to eight weeks end to end and advises applying four to six months before your target start date. The Junior Consultant posting lists Offer as the final step, extended on mutual fit. One coaching source reports a longer two to three month cycle with roughly two weeks between stages, so treat the official figure as the target rather than a guarantee.

Evaluation Framework

Our Values (entrepreneurship, excellence and empathy)

EntrepreneurshipExcellenceEmpathy

These three item names are copied verbatim from Roland Berger's official Our Values page (https://www.rolandberger.com/en/About/Our-Values/), which calls them the foundation of the firm's professional work as consultants. Re-fetched directly and confirmed: the page lists exactly these three items, in this order, with these definitions, and frames them as a general corporate values statement rather than a hiring or interview rubric. Important caveat: this is a corporate values statement, not a published interview scoring rubric. Roland Berger does not publish competencies, ratings or an interview evaluation grid anywhere I could find, so do not present these as the dimensions you will be scored on. The values do surface in careers material. The Netherlands career page names entrepreneurship, excellence and empathy as the values guiding consultants and lists personal qualities the firm seeks (open-mindedness, empathy, teamwork, drive, entrepreneurial spirit). The main Join page says, verbatim, that "our employees stand out with their special combination of analytical thinking and empathy," confirmed on direct re-fetch. Alongside the values, Roland Berger publishes 9 Pledges (https://www.rolandberger.com/en/About/Our-Values/9-Pledges.html), which are full-sentence culture commitments about how colleagues treat each other rather than candidate criteria; re-fetched and confirmed all nine pledge sentences and their framing as internal culture commitments, not hiring criteria. One coaching source claims CVs are screened for alignment with the 9 Pledges; that claim is not corroborated by any official page and should not be relied on. Separately, and more usefully for the case stage, Roland Berger's own case preparation page states what interviewers look for: working out a structure that points the way to the solution, distinguishing important facts from irrelevant information, and sharing your thinking out loud so interviewers can see how you reason. Those three are stated as case criteria but are not given a framework name by the firm. Question-to-value mappings below are applied only where a question plainly probes a value as Roland Berger defines it (entrepreneurship as exploring unconventional ideas, taking risks and assuming responsibility; excellence as sound analysis and results; empathy as putting yourself in another's position). Most questions carry no mapping. Note on one mapping: the official Excellence definition centers on achieving excellent results and best practices, not on analytical method itself, so the frameworkRef applied to the chart-reading question stretches the published definition somewhat further than the Entrepreneurship and Empathy mappings do; it was left in place since editing question-to-framework mappings beyond correcting factual errors was out of scope for this verification pass, but is flagged here as the weaker of the three.

Sample Interview Questions

Motivation and fit10 questions
  • Why consulting?
  • Why do you want to work at Roland Berger?
  • Why Roland Berger specifically, not McKinsey, not BCG?
  • Walk me through your resume.
  • Tell me about yourself.
  • Give a two to three minute presentation about yourself.
  • What attributes would you bring to a case team?
  • What aspects of your internship did you like less?
  • What do you most like to do in your free time?
  • What questions do you have for me?
Behavioral and leadership17 questions
  • Tell me about a time you led a team.
  • Tell me about a time you were in a leadership position, and what was the greatest highlight from this experience?
  • What is an example of a time when you showed initiative and leadership?
  • Tell me about a time you built something from scratch.
  • Describe a situation where you had to convince others with no formal authority.
  • Tell me about a time you had to persuade someone.
  • Describe a role where you changed the direction of a team. How did you do it?
  • Tell me about a time when you, in collaboration with other team members, had to solve a problem.
  • Tell me about a time you held an opposing viewpoint to a colleague.
  • Describe a time you failed.
  • What experience do you wish you could do over, and how would you do it differently?
  • What achievement are you most proud of?
  • What is your most outstanding achievement not on your resume?
  • What is a difficult decision you have made in the last year?
  • Tell me about a challenging situation you handled under a tight deadline.
  • Tell me about a time you had to adapt to ambiguous circumstances.
  • What is a topic you have gone deeply into out of genuine interest, not academic requirement?
Profitability and restructuring cases6 questions
  • Our client is a Tier 1 automotive supplier based in Germany with 3.2 billion euros in annual revenue. Over the past two years their EBIT margin has declined from 9.2 percent to 5.8 percent. Identify the root cause and recommend a path to margin recovery. How would you approach this?
  • A German tier-one automotive supplier making powertrain components has gone from an 8 percent EBIT margin to minus 2 percent in three years. What is driving this and what should they do?
  • A German Mittelstand automotive supplier, Tier 1, 900 million euros revenue, family-owned, is seeing EBITDA compression from the EV transition. How should it respond?
  • A high street retailer wants to cut costs by 30 percent in response to a demand shock. How would you approach this?
  • A regional rail operator carries 40 million passenger journeys a year and is losing 25 million euros annually before subsidy. How do you improve its profitability?
  • A specialty chemicals producer runs seven European plants at an average 62 percent capacity utilisation. What should it do with its footprint?
Strategy, market entry and growth cases8 questions
  • A European medical devices manufacturer is deciding whether to build a 3D-printing capability for hip implants. Should it launch?
  • Work through the transit-oriented development case that Roland Berger publishes as a two-part video walkthrough with consultant commentary on the dos and don'ts.
  • A German mid-sized maker of packaging machinery with 400 million euros of revenue is considering entering India. Should it?
  • An agriculture company is deciding whether to enter meat processing. Should it move into the adjacent market?
  • A regional European utility is considering investing 200 million euros in grid-scale battery storage. Is it a good investment?
  • A private equity client is evaluating the carve-out of an industrial components division from a listed group. How do you assess it?
  • A brewery faces a demand surge caused by unexpected media exposure. How should it respond?
  • Develop a growth strategy for a video interpreting app.
Quantitative and market sizing2 questions
  • Estimate the size of the market for contact lenses in Southeast Asia.
  • Review a chart or data exhibit and identify the trend relevant to the client's situation.

Coach's Tips

Drive the case yourself. Every source that describes the format calls Roland Berger cases candidate-led: you state a structure up front, say what you want to analyse next, and ask for data rather than waiting to be handed it. If you are used to interviewer-led practice, retrain on candidate-led sets before the recruiting day.

Work through Roland Berger's own two published case videos, the transit-oriented development case and the 3D-printed hip implants case, on its case preparation page. Consultants narrate the dos and don'ts, which is the closest thing the firm publishes to a scoring key. The same page names what they look for: work out a structure, separate important facts from irrelevant information, and share your thinking out loud.

If you are applying as a Junior Consultant, actually build and rehearse the two to three minute self-presentation. Roland Berger states on its own Tips and Tricks page that it asks for one at the personal fit interview, and arriving without it is an unforced error.

Drill mental arithmetic with no calculator. The online analytical test is the first hard gate for permanent hires, and coaching reports describe numerical and verbal reasoning under time pressure with calculators disallowed there specifically. Internship applicants skip this stage per the official FAQ.

Load up on European industrials. The case prompts reported across independent sources cluster hard on German and European automotive suppliers, utilities and the energy transition, specialty chemicals, industrial machinery, rail, and private equity carve-outs, with restructuring and margin recovery the dominant problem type. Know the EV transition's effect on tier-one suppliers well enough to talk about it unprompted.

Ask your recruiter whether your office runs a group case or a written case presentation, and whether a concluding management interview follows the case round. Both the group/written case and the concluding interview are described by Roland Berger's own pages for some tracks, but the current Junior Consultant job posting's own outline skips straight from case interviews to offer, so confirm what applies to your specific role and office rather than assuming a fixed sequence.

Common questions

How many stages are in Roland Berger's interview process?+

Roland Berger's process has 10 stages, in order: Online application with CV and cover letter, Recruiter screen of CV, cover letter and academic record, Online analytical tests, Recruiter or consultant screening call, Recruiting day or assessment day, First-round interviews: candidate-led case plus fit, Second-round interviews with principals or partners, Group case or written case presentation, Concluding interview with management or partners, Offer.

What framework does Roland Berger use to evaluate candidates?+

Roland Berger evaluates candidates against Our Values (entrepreneurship, excellence and empathy): Entrepreneurship, Excellence, Empathy.

What kinds of questions does Roland Berger ask?+

Roland Berger's question bank spans 5 categories: Motivation and fit; Behavioral and leadership; Profitability and restructuring cases; Strategy, market entry and growth cases; Quantitative and market sizing.

How reliable is this Roland Berger interview playbook?+

This playbook is medium confidence, compiled from 18 public sources, and last verified September 6, 2026. It describes one well-documented shape of Roland Berger's interviews, not a guarantee of what any individual loop will look like.

Sources

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