Case interview

A case interview is a job interview in which the applicant is presented with a challenging business scenario that he/she must investigate and propose a solution to. Case interviews are designed to test the candidate's analytical skills and "soft" skills within a realistic business context. The case is often a business situation or a business case that the interviewer has worked on in real life.

Case interviews are mostly used in hiring for management consulting jobs. Consulting firms use case interviews to evaluate candidate's analytical ability and problem-solving skills; they are looking not for a "correct" answer but for an understanding of how the applicant thinks and how the applicant approaches problems.

Method

During case interviews, interviewers are generally looking for the following skills:

• Numerical and verbal reasoning skills
• Communication and presentation skills
• Business skills and commercial awareness

Candidates are often asked to estimate a specific number, often a commercial figure (such as market size or profitability) or determine action plans to remedy a business problem (such as low profitability or decreasing market share). Questions are generally ambiguous and require interviewees to ask questions or make assumptions to make a reasonable, supported argument to their solutions. Candidates are expected to demonstrate reasoning rather than to produce the exact answer.

A case interview can also be conducted as a group exercise. Here several candidates are given some briefing materials on a business problem and asked to discuss and agree upon a solution. The interviewers normally sit around the exterior of the room as silent observers. They assess candidates' communication and interaction as well as analytical thinking and commercial awareness. Interviewers "red flag" candidates who try to dominate the conversation; consultants work in teams so it's important to be a team player.

Frameworks used by business analysts

An example of a framework used by business analysts is:

1. Benchmarking: Comparison of metrics to competitors
2. Balanced scorecard: Tracking key objectives as a prevention method
3. Porter’s five forces: Industry analysis to assess potential company profitability
4. The General Electric-McKinsey nine-box matrix: Used to help assess opportunities
5. The BCG growth-share matrix: Used to assess relative product line strength
6. Core Competencies: Define proficiencies in areas unique to the company

Case Interview Prep

Interviewing for a consulting position requires vast preparation before stepping into the room. While the interview does include behavioral questions that candidates must prep for, the largest and most important piece of these interviews are the case interview sections. It is common for candidates to spend roughly 60-80 hours across a few months prepping for these interviews. Follow the links cited under each paragraph to practice/develop these skills, as well as learn more about them.

Outline

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is one of the largest managerial consulting firms.

There are several different ways to prepare for these interviews in order to learn the methods and frameworks above. An example of steps candidates take to prepare are:

1. Learn what to expect
2. Discover different frameworks
3. Go through practice cases
4. Work with peers to conduct mock interviews
5. Do research on what different companies like to see in interviews (BCG, Mckinsey)

Skills to Practice and Study

Problem Solving, Creativity, and Business Acumen

While going through frameworks and practicing with actual cases is important in preparation, it is equally important to practice the skills necessary to succeed in the interview.

First, you need to ensure that your problem solving skills are good enough to be able to construct arguments from evidence and data. Practicing with a variety of types of cases will expose you to different problems and allow you to learn new problem solving skills. It is also important to work on your creativity and business acumen. You must be able to understand all of the business cases presented to you, as well as use business skills like knowing what makes up revenue and costs to solve the problem at hand.

Not only is it important to know this information, but it is equally as important to use your business knowledge to find creative solutions to the problem at hand. For example, if your case is about declining profits of an airline company, having knowledge about COGS is important. However, it will not impress an interviewer if you can not use your creativity to formulate questions and conclusions specific to the airline industry.

Structure and Presentation

Even if you can use the skills above to craft impressive questions and responses to the interviewer, none of it will matter if you are unorganized in your presentation. Most importantly, learning how to maintain structure throughout your interview is vital to your success. Not only so you are organized and can stay on track, but if you are unorganized it will be a bad look in your interview. Ensuring that you understand how to use frameworks is important for this skill and practicing using many different frameworks will help to keep you on track to succeed and impress your interviewer.

Combining a proper structure with strong presentations skills is the key to success as you solve your case. Just like other job interviews, the interviewer will continuously be evaluating your communication skills and how you present yourself throughout the interview.

Like preparing for any job interview, it is important to practice with mock interviews and work on your soft skills before you sit across from a partner.

Math and Analytical Skills

The image above is a stacked bar chart showing EV annual sales by country. This is an example of a chart that may be given to you for interpretation.

Lastly, one of the easiest skills to practice is math and analytical skills. It is common for interviewers to ask the candidate to do some simple math that involves addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, and more. Practicing finding percentages with fractions and doing simple multiplication is an important step before stepping into a case interview.

Another analytical skill that is necessary for interviews is learning how to interpret different types of graphs. It is extremely common to be shown and asked to interpret a graph in interviews and knowing how to analyze different types of graphs will allow you to connect them with your case. So, be sure to familiarize yourself with several types of graphs and learn how to read them.

See also

• Case method
• Management consulting

Further reading

• Chapter 5, "Mastering the Case Interview", in Management Consulting: A Complete Guide to the Industry, Sugata Biswas and Daryl Twitchell, John Wiley & Sons (January 1999), ISBN 978-0-471-29352-1
• Nina Munk and Suzanne Oliver, "Think Fast", Forbes, March 24, 1997, pp. 146–51.
• Tim Darling, How to Get Into the Top Consulting Firms: A Surefire Case Interview Method - 2nd Edition, 2011, page 21, ISBN 978-0-615-27989-3
• Tom Rochtus, Case Interview Success - 2nd Edition, 2011, page 27, ISBN 978-1-4564-5018-2
• David Ohrvall, Crack the Case System: Complete Case Interview Prep, 2011, page 97, ISBN 978-0-9744428-4-6
• Mark P. Cosentino, Case in Point: Complete Case Interview Preparation, 8th Edition, 2013, page 12, ISBN 978-0971015883

External links

• "Management Consulting Case Interview Sample Questions", by Northwestern University Consulting Club
• "The Case Interview", University of Maryland Student Career Center, retrieved January 1, 2008, via archive.org
• "Case Interview Resources" (pdf), MIT Careers Office
• "Case Interview Preparation Plan", by ConsultingCasePro