Big Four Consulting Interviews: Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG

How do Big Four consulting interviews work?

Big Four consulting interviews run in three layers: an online screen, then behavioral and case interviews, and in many European offices an assessment day with a group exercise. The details depend on three things: the firm, the country and whether you apply to core consulting or to the strategy arm.

Every claim below carries a label. Official means the firm's own careers, vacancy or press page; reported means a named prep provider or careers publisher. All sources were checked on 19 October 2026. Official pages for Deloitte and PwC are US pages, so we add European official pages (Deloitte Belgium, Strategy& Netherlands, KPMG UK, EY Netherlands) where they exist.

Strategy arm or core consulting: why it changes the interview

Each network runs a strategy arm next to a much larger consulting business, and they hire separately.

The networks also differ in size. All four figures below are official fiscal-2025 results.

Firm-by-firm process

Three details deserve attention. EY lets you take its assessment only once per cycle and bans generative AI during it. KPMG UK's two online stages each have a five-day window, and the second includes webcam video answers. KPMG UK makes offers within two working days of Launch Pad, though its page still listed 2024-25 event dates when we checked.

Official practice material from each firm

Deloitte offers an online case prep tool for consulting candidates and a separate scenario tool for audit. It recommends five steps: clarify the issue, identify assumptions, summarize key issues and findings, recommend, then set out next steps and expected impact. PwC publishes two sample scenarios (a large bank's digital program and a healthcare provider weighing a telemedicine acquisition) with sample answers. It judges structure, comfort with ambiguity, communication, business intuition, basic numeracy, curiosity and coachability, and asks candidates to think about people, process and technology together.

Strategy& Netherlands gives every candidate a practice case with a consultant before round one. EY and KPMG publish no case material on the pages we checked; EY offers practice questions inside its assessment platform.

How Big Four cases differ from MBB cases

Core consulting cases are shorter and closer to the work: a system roll-out, a cost program, a risk question. PwC says no advanced math is needed, while MBB cases routinely include multi-step calculations. Coachability is an explicit criterion at PwC, so taking a hint well scores points.

Strategy-arm cases look like MBB cases: market sizing, growth and deals, often candidate-led. The general method in our complete case interview guide applies to both, and the online tests are compared in our consulting assessment guide.

Worked example: a technology implementation case

This original case is the type core consulting interviewers give, and it comes from the field I work in today: product data.

Prompt: A Dutch DIY retailer adds 40,000 products to its webshop. Six months later, online sales of the new range lag the plan, and many product pages lack specifications and images. The CEO asks you to diagnose the problem and recommend a fix.

Structure with people, process and technology.

• People: Who owns product data? Category managers, a central content team or suppliers?
• Process: Is there a quality check before a product goes live, and do suppliers have to deliver data in a set format?
• Technology: Do the ERP system and the webshop share one source of product data, such as a product information management (PIM) system, and can it block incomplete records?

Size the problem. The interviewer reveals that a complete product page sells about EUR 500 a year online, that 30% of the new range (12,000 products) is incomplete, and that incomplete pages sell 40% less. Lost revenue: 12,000 x 500 x 40% = EUR 2.4 million a year.

Size the fix. Completing one product takes about 15 minutes, so 12,000 products need 3,000 hours, about two full-time editors for a year. At EUR 50,000 each, that costs EUR 100,000 against EUR 2.4 million of lost revenue.

Recommend a phased roll-out.

1. Weeks 1-8: enrich the top-selling 20% of incomplete products first and add a completeness check that blocks new pages without core data.
2. Months 3-6: make data delivery a contract term for suppliers and set up a supplier portal.
3. Months 6-12: connect ERP and webshop to one product data source, then clean the remaining long tail.

Close: "The retailer loses about EUR 2.4 million a year to incomplete product data, and fixing it costs about EUR 100,000 in editing time. I would start with the bestsellers and a quality gate this quarter. The main risks are suppliers who do not deliver data and delays in the ERP integration, so I would tie supplier compliance to contracts and keep the integration out of the first phase."

Assessment centres and group exercises in Europe

European graduate hiring at the Big Four relies more on assessment days than US hiring does. Deloitte Belgium's Business Case Day puts small groups on one case in English and has them present to a "client." KPMG UK's Launch Pad combines an assessed interview with a group assessment. EY UK runs a virtual experience day with work scenarios, according to TargetJobs. Observers score how you build on others' ideas as much as the answer itself, as our group case interview guide explains. For strategy-arm final rounds with a data pack, use the written case interview guide.

A three-week preparation plan

1. Week 1: map and screen. Confirm the arm, the country and each stage with the recruiter. Practice the online test type daily (SHL-style reasoning for EY and Strategy&, scenario judgment for KPMG).
2. Week 2: cases. Run six to eight live cases with a partner, at least two of them implementation cases structured by people, process and technology. Use Deloitte's and PwC's official material.
3. Week 3: assessment day and fit. Rehearse one group case with friends, prepare five behavioral stories, and research the office's sectors. Dutch candidates should check language rules in our Netherlands consulting guide.

Stephan's note: Cracking the Case covers the fit interview, three business-case frameworks and three fully worked candidate cases, which is the core you need for both a Big Four consulting interview and a strategy-arm final round.