Hi I'm Jenny Rae the Managing Director of Management Consulted, and I'm here
today to walk through specifically why consulting firms use case interviews
From the consulting firms perspective. We're going to walk through some of the
nuances behind how they've constructed case interviews and what they're trying
to test. And in particular the first thing that I want to lay out is that
consulting interviews are not about the answer, the case interview doesn't test
your ability just to get to the answer, it's about the process that you go
through. So that just will couch what we're going to talk about in three
different areas today. The first thing that consulting firms are testing is can
you do the work of a consultant. Because you're going through the process of
actually solving a real business case that the person that you are
interviewing with solved at one point in their career – they are testing you on
your ability to actually go through the steps that they went through. So they're
going to test you in a couple of different areas. First they're going to
look at whether or not you can use structure to solve the problem. You'll
start out with a big question – can you break it down into smaller pieces. Second
they'll test whether you can use, create your own frameworks. They want to see are
you just the type of person who applies what's in a book, or can you actually
personalize it and make it appropriate for each specific instance, when we go
through the case interview process. Third they're going to want to see can you
utilize segmentation. Do you understand that every customer is not the same, that
every geography is a little bit different, and that different parts of
the business will function differently. Can you utilize segmentation to get at
the real insights without losing focus on the big picture. And fourth are you
able to back up your qualitative assumptions with data. Are you able to
identify a few key options as you're going through the process, and then once
you've identified those options, select between them with numbers and data.
So, the first thing that they're looking at overall is can you do the work of a
consultant. That's what the case interview is testing by pulling a big
picture question into a twenty to forty minute format. The second thing that
they're testing is do you understand the role play of a consultant,
do you understand what a consultants job is to do, and how they're meant to act.
In the case interview you are serving two different roles. First of all you are
working with your manager, so you are the analyst or associate who's working with
the manager internally. Second you're serving the role as a representative of
the consulting firm to the client. So can you play both of those roles well, can
you work internally with people, and can you also always have solutions that are
ready to be prepared to the client themselves. Also as a part of
understanding the role play, it's really critical to make sure that you are
leading, but collaborative. Consulting firms are interested in seeing that
you're the type of person who can take a lot of ownership in the roleplay, that
even if you're inferior to somebody, or even if you're serving a client, that
you're making sure that you are the type of person who's taking initiative – but
they don't want you to take too much initiative where you're bullheaded you,
want to make sure that you are collaborating as you're going through
the process. So with both of these things together, you're trying to demonstrate
that you understand what a consultant does in their everyday life and you can
play the role. Next and finally, it's really important that you understand
that they are evaluating whether or not you would be fun to manage. And fun to
manage means a couple of different things. I'm gonna lay them out. The first
thing is that they might want to make sure that you understand how to simplify
your analysis. They don't want somebody 1-month onto the job coming to them with
70,000 questions and with a whole bunch of different slides. They want to make
sure that you're the type of person who can really get at the key issues quickly.
So simplifying your analysis is incredibly important. Second they want to
make sure that you can explain your pre-existing assumptions. They want to
know that they can trust the data down to multiple levels. So if you come to
them and you say there are 27 areas in this specific thing that we're looking at.
They will immediately ask you afterwards, well what are those 27 areas.
They want to know do you have data to back it up, do you have insight to back
it up. So are you the type of person who knows when you're making an assumption,
and can back it up with some reasonability and some pre-existing.
The third thing that they want to understand is that you can think of the
implications of your answer. It's always important to know that, when you're
recommending something, especially to a fortune 100 or 500 client, what you're
recommending will make huge changes inside their organization. People can
get fired, they may need to hire new people, they may roll out products and
customers, there could be communication plans – there will be long lasting and
huge, potentially global ramifications to what you recommend. So not taking them
lightly, but understanding that there are key things that you will understand as a
part of the process will help them make sure that they can
digest the information and implement it successfully. And finally it's really
important to make sure that you are managing your own time allowance.
Because, when you're inside a consulting firm, in real life, no manager wants to be the
type of person that's to check on you on a daily basis to make sure that your
work is getting done. They want you to come to them let them know that you are
getting your work done, and that you have a plan for each next step as you're
going through the process. You know before you walk into the case interview
how long it's going to be, 20, 30, or 40 minutes, so make sure that you are the
one who makes sure that you get to the answer by the end of the case – not that
you're relying on the interviewer to give you that. So, pulling all of this
together, the case interview is really testing your ability to do the job as a
consultant, to understand the role play, and also to make sure that you're fun to
manage. Which will really help you hopefully understand what you're trying
to communicate – not just in answering the question, but also going through the
process. So if you have questions about more information surrounding case
interviews make sure that you visit us at our website at managementconsulted.com