Case Interview 101. It's really fun to think
back over the last 10 years where we've gone
deeper and deeper into insights about firms,
about consulting case interview processes, about the ways that different
schools think about and prepare their students
for consulting case interviews, but ultimately a lot of this comes back
to the basics and if you don't know the basics, it's
really difficult to know how to get started in your prep plan for
consulting. So today we're laying out seven major areas that you can make sure
you check off in terms of your preparation and your knowledge before
jumping into the case interview process. The case interview process
is a huge investment. It takes time and many people who are successful also
spend money on books and digital resources and coaching
to help them be successful, so you want to make sure that you're ready
to go before we dig in. What firms do case interviews? You are
likely to get a case interview if you were interviewing with
almost any consulting firm, that's where case interviews
generally started and it's where they've stayed
and it's gotten more pervasive the more consulting firms have
added themselves to the mix. So consulting firms you can generally
expect you're gonna do at least two case interviews in your
first round, maybe a mini case interview in round
zero, and then two to three case interviews in your
final round. In addition, internal strategy groups are filled with
former consultants and once a consultant has gone through
an interview process, probably from their own bias and
self-selection, they identify that it's a good way to
figure out who is likely to be successful on the job,
so you're likely to find them in internal strategy groups as well.
We are starting to see case interviews pop up in government
hiring, in engineering firms, in product management roles, in marketing
roles, and in many other places across the
business world. Those will generally specify that you'll
have a case interview. You won't be blindsided by it, and it won't be a
surprise and they also won't downplay it. They'll
explain that it's going to be the hardest part of your interview.
But you're going to find case interviews across all of these different sectors
so be prepared. Point number two, what are case interviews? Case interviews are
different from standard behavioral or fit
interviews. They don't just ask you how you did
react in a previous situation, they give you a
hypothetical situation, a hypothetical client, a
hypothetical business problem, even a hypothetical presentation that
you have to give, and they ask you to do what you would do
on the job. They're able to watch how you perform in
real time, and this is incredibly insightful
because somebody might say "I did an amazing job in the past," but
you're actually able to see whether they can do an amazing job when given a new
task in the future. Point number three, how long are case
interviews? Case interviews can be as short as ten
minutes and as long as one hour. The ten-minute
interviews skew towards simple math problems. When I say simple, I
don't mean simple to solve, but I mean the problem itself is not
complex, it only has one layer or one element to the question such as
what is the market size of, for example, cd covers
in the United States. So, something that's just a single product,
a single market, and it's your job to come up with a number.
Those would take about 10 minutes to solve. The most advanced ones are written
case interviews and those will usually take
one hour, maybe up to one hour even to prepare and then a little bit longer,
eight to ten minutes, to present, so those interviews are going to be the longest
ones that you'll have. The standard interviews are 20 to 30
minutes in the first round, and 30 to 40 minutes in the final round
so you'll have a little bit longer in the final round, which isn't always
better, that usually just means they have more
questions, deeper questions, and harder questions
to ask you. So anywhere from 10 minutes to one hour
is how long your case interview can last and it will depend on the complexity
of the question that you're being asked, as well as the task and the deliverable
that you're being asked for. Number four. What forms do case interviews take? In
our experience, there have been three main forms that most case
interviews take. The first one is verbal and that's when
you're given a pretty open-ended scenario and you
have to work through it verbally. The second one is a written format and
this will usually be in your final interview and you'll have to go through
a timed process in the office where you'll get all of
the information and then you'll have to present it.
And the third one is a overnight or a longer term
written proposal, which is where they'll ask you to present something
either a piece of work that you've done or something that's a response to a
specific question, but you'll be given the prompt before you come into the
office, and you'll be given a certain amount of
time to work on it in advance. All three of these are really
challenging and you have a slightly different
approach for how you handle it, but our recommendation if you're preparing
for multiple ones of those is that you actually start with the
verbal preparation. It's usually the hardest and the most
unfamiliar for most of us based on our work and our educational background.
If you have a handle on that piece then pulling together
the written and also the written overnight case will be a lot easier for
you. Number five. What can you bring to a case
interview? Probably most important is what you
cannot bring. You cannot bring a calculator.
Most case interviews are going to involve math,
and without a calculator, how are you gonna do it?
Well, you're going to need the other things that will be handy. First of all
you can bring your brain, definitely try to do that, not everybody does into the
case interview, but in terms of actual practical things
you can bring paper, you can bring something to write
on like a folder so that you have something if you're not
sitting at a table, you can bring a pen or a pencil,
whichever one is more comfortable for you to use.
Usually you're not going to end up erasing things, you're going to scratch
them out, so pen or pencil are totally fine and then you can bring
something to drink, like water. Usually you'll be offered coffee or
water in the interview, and you won't have much time to engage with
that. You won't have a lot of time to sit back and
take sips of water as you go but it can still be helpful both before the
interview, especially if you're going to do a lot
of verbal work, and also right after the interview.
In addition, we recommend that in a small pocket or in a bag, you keep your phone
on airplane mode or totally off inside the
interview, and some mints or some gum, something to
refresh your breath in between your interviews.
Number six. Do you have to do math? Yes, you have to do math, yes you have to
do math out loud, yes you actually even have to
do math in your head, and this is often one of the scariest
parts of case interviews. The term for the math you have to do in
case interviews is mental math which doesn't mean that you have to be
a human computer it just means that you have to simplify math and do it without
the aid of a calculator, and even in Deloitte Consulting
interviews for human capital, you're going to have to do math. So you
will have to do math, be prepared for the math part
and don't be blindsided by it. Finally, number seven.
Do I have to practice? I'm generally a pretty smart person,
I interview very well, do I have to practice for the case interview? This is
a common question that we get, and our answer is absolutely, yes.
In fact from, my own experience I thought that I didn't need to practice.
Well, I thought I needed to practice a little bit so I did one mock case
interview. That was all I planned to do. In that mock case
interview, the interviewer told me that I was the
worst that she had ever seen, that there was absolutely no way
that I would get a job if I only did that one interview and I
really needed that kick in the pants. Doing case interviews is really different than
doing other kinds of interviews. They aren't the backward looking fit or
behavioral interviews, and you can't rely just on charm and personality.
You have to be ready for the specific tactics, the business problems,
and the structure of a case interview. If you're interested in more information
about how to succeed in the case interview, we
would love to help. If you have questions about case
interviews, please reach out to us at Management Consulted
or on social.
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