Hi I'm Jenny Rae the managing director of Management Consulted. And I'm here today – we're
getting close to the end of our case interview section – but it is important that you know,
before we get to the end what some insider secrets are. These are some things that we
share at our bootcamps when we travel around the world and work with people to train them
for FIT and case interviews. And these are some very specific things on case interviews
that we think are helpful. The first thing I am going to talk about is note taking. It's
important that you note that there is no right or wrong way to take notes, but there are
some good guidelines. First of all, you need a consistent strategy for note taking, that
you develop throughout your case practice. So that when you walk into the interview,
you know that your notes will be aids to you and not working against you. Some key tips
and suggestions here are that there are options that you can select between. So, at the beginning
of your case process, try out a couple of them, and see which one might work better
for you. For example, you can choose between a couple of types of note taking. The first
is top to bottom note-taking. This is when you essentially make lists and sub-bulleted
lists as you go through the interview, you keep it focussed. Usually you would use a
left-hand column and a right-hand column, so that you actually, on your two pages of
paper, have a total of four areas. The second type are issue trees. Often times you'll turn
your paper over sideways if you're going to draw issue-trees, and some people find this
helpful because it helps them break up the problem into different segments, work down
each one and isolate key issues, or cross other issues off. Issue-trees don't happen
to be my favorite way of working through it, but if it is yours, I totally recommend them.
The third way to think about it are "right and left columns. If you want to walk through
your paper in a matrix, you can actually get four sections on each piece of paper. You
can break them down and make sure that you keep yourself organized. You'll have eight
total sections of the case, if you break up your paper into your left and right column.
So the three types of note taking, the most common types are top to bottom, issue-trees,
and left and right column. It is good for you to try each one of these out and pick
your favorite.In addition, you've got some other options. You can turn your paper sideways,
or you can hold it up and down – letter or landscape. Doesn't matter, no right or
wrong way, but it is important for you to pick one, so that you feel more comfortable
when you are going into the case. And finally, as a guideline, it is important, and I mentioned
before, is to keep your notes to two total pages. The last thing that you want is to
be shuffling through a ream of eight pages at the end of the process. So make sure that
those two pages are containing everything that you need to know. That way, if you need
to reference something from an earlier section of the case, it's really easy to go back and
find it. That concludes the section on not taking. Now, lets talk about the second thing
– which is deconstructing. When you are going through the case a lot of times you
start with the big problems. And good, advanced case performers go through the process of
deconstructing the problem, and really getting to the heart of the matter. They do not just
glance over key issues blindly, but they quickly and thoroughly go through each one of the
sections. One way to think about deconstruction is like peeling an onion. You start with the
outside of the onion, and if there is nothing of material there, then you take it away and
you get to the next layer. If there is something that is material there, then you'll focus
on that area until you've totally exhausted it. So, your case is like an onion that you
are unwrapping, and making sure that you aren't neglecting something or leaving something
behind as you go through the process. Finally, asking why is a really important strategy
when you're deconstructing. It's not just whats happening, but it is why that issue
is happening. A lot of times people are easily satisfies in the cases. i'll give them data,
and then I myself will ask them a follow up question – "well why does that matter to
the client, or what do you think about that data?" There is a constant balance inside
cases between identifying an issue, and interpreting the meaning of that issue. If you can successfully
go back and forth between the two of them, you will go through the deconstruction process,
get to the heart of the matter, and be able ot solve the case. The next thing that is
important to talk about is smiling and stalling. This is an advanced tactic when you are going
through cases. A lot of times you may have no idea what to do, but the person who is
doing a case, who is enjoying themselves, who's smiling at the interviewer and making
it fun for them – even when they are stalling – is a lot more fun to interview than a
person who is panicking, stressing, and totally silent. So, make sure that as you go through
the case, you're talking constantly, you're smiling at the interviewer, and you are exuding
confidence. And then finally, there is one key thing that all great interviewers do.
This is that they ask excellent questions. Note here that I am not just talking about
asking questions. This is a huge difference between "okay" case interviewers and great
case interviewer. "Okay" case interviewers ask open ended questions that can be simply
answered, and don't drive at the heart of a problem. Great case interviewers ask advanced
questions that have multiple meanings to them – sometimes they include a hypothesis, and
an answer that they are really trying to drive at in the same question. So, make sure that
ask you are practicing case interviews, you are driving towards advanced question asking.
There is, at the end of the day, however, one questions that you cannot ask in an interview
– because it will immediately disqualify you from moving on. The question, and there
may be many that fall into this category, but one here that is MC specific, is "Does
profit matter." You never ask this question – never at the introduction to the case,
never in the middle of the case, never at the end of the case. Profit always matters.
And if you cannot demonstrate that in the course of your case interview process, you
will not be able to convince the interviewer that you are top consulting material. So make
sure that you cover great questions, but stay away from those questions that would show
that you really have no idea what is going on. Finally, there are some common hangups
when you're practicing for case interviews that you need to keep in mind so you can avoid
them in your case interview practice, and ultimately in your performance. The first
one is trying to do too much. In consulting we call this boiling the ocean. Boiling the
ocean is something that would take millions of years to do, and that's how you make the
case interviewer feel when they are sitting on the other side of the table from you. If
you are trying to ask every possible question, you are trying to do too much, and you are
completely infuriating the person who is interviewing you. So, do not do that. Focus on they key
issues, make sure that you stay focused on those, and drive to solutions for those key
areas. The second thing that is really important to do is go on a data hunt, but don't go on
an unlimited treasure hunt for data. What I mean by this is that you want to identify,
before you look for data, what data you're looking for. Think about it, when you are
on the job as a consultant, if you just said, I am going to go look at every piece of client
data that they have, and try to make sense of it, that would be a terrible plan. But,
if you said at the beginning, I am interested in understanding product level information,
or customer level information – from this year to this year, from this segment of customers.
You are going to get miuch better data, and you are going to be able to use it much more
effectively, so make sure that in the case, when you're going through the process of looking
for data, you're not just asking for random data, you're not asking questions that are
too open ended, you're being very specific about the data that you would like. Finally,
one of the most important things to remember when you are practicing for case interviews,
and mentally preparing is not to quit. It is really important that you recognize that
you may come across things in the case that you do not understand, or problems that you
can't solve, but the case isn't over at that point. Your ability to work through those
moments may actually make or break the ultimate performance, so it is incredibly critical
that you re-group, re-fresh, and re-start. So, go through the process, get stuck, its
totally fine – but just make sure that you've got a plan for when you do – don't quit.
At the end of the day, if you want more information about case interviews, we've got great resources
– our consulting interview bible, our case bank, and tons of article – at managementconsulted.com