Case interviews are often the cause of a lot of stress and anxiety. As one of the hardest job application processes out there, this should come as no surprise. However, need they be so nerve-breaking and infamous?
It’s understandable to be somewhat nervous about it, as it will present a big step to the job of your dreams, especially in the case of applying at one of the MBB group consultancies. At McKinsey, it’s well known that about 1% of the applicants make it through all the steps of the application and actually manage to land a job offer.
However, as long as you start early, give yourself enough time to go through everything you need, and put your mind to it completely – you can dare to approach this interview with the knowledge and confidence that will maximize your chances of impressing the interviewer. You can also prepare by using resources found on sites like https://big4interviews.com/ and similar others. Familiarizing yourself with the process can help make this type of interview a bit less daunting.
What Is The Case Interview Like?
At any top-level consultancy, a case interview will be used as the main stage of the selection process for hiring new employees. It’s objective is to test your problem-solving skills, but it is much more than just that. During your problem-solving test, the interviewer is there to evaluate your communication skills and your logical thinking.
You will need to guide the interviewer through the whole process, making it clear how you are tackling the problem and what you would do to solve it. While doing so, it’s important to communicate your answers clearly and in an organized manner.
For a closer look at some case interview examples created by top-level consultancies, have a look at this: myconsultingcoach.com/news/caseinterviewexamples.
Getting Started
You know the saying – practice makes perfect. If you want to ace your interview, you will need to go through lots of case interview examples as practice. No matter what consulting company you’re aiming for, pay a visit to the website of any consultancy you can think of. Consultancy websites are full of their own case interview examples.
Case Interview Example Formats
Some companies like having their case interview examples in a simple textual format. Some will go for a video or even a game, or a similar interactive experience. The core is always the same – you will go through a case interview example as a whole, however, we recommend trying as many formats as you can put your finger on.
Videos can be very useful as they often give you a clear picture of what the interview itself feels like. You can see how the interviewer will present the problem to the applicant, how the applicant approaches it, the way they communicate, the whole lot.
Text and interactive formats can be more useful for putting your own problem-solving skills to the test. The answers will always be hidden until you reveal them, giving you the chance of creating your own approach, or the whole solution, before comparing it with the one from the case interview example.
Keep It Diverse
Try not to limit yourself too much where case interview example sources are concerned. If you are aiming for a specific company, it’s natural to focus on their case interview examples. However, there are plenty of other examples provided by other consultancies, and other sources on the web. Go through all of them to get a taste of all formats and all case types. Practice makes perfect, and there are never too many examples to practice.
Case Interview Examples
Let’s go through a few examples here just to get you started. We’ve got a couple of different formats from different consultancies, to clarify what we’ve been saying earlier on in this article.
BCG Case Example
The textual format of the BCG case interview example focuses on a medical company merger.
The case involves the process of acquiring a company. Both, the parent and the acquired company are involved in the medical business, although not the identical kind. The objective is to work out how to increase revenues after the acquisition.
As we mentioned before concerning textual formats, the answers to all questions are hidden until you choose to reveal them. This gives you the opportunity to work on your own structure before comparing it to that of the applicants. This is highly recommended, as it will give you a clear picture of what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong, once you compare it to the candidate’s answers.
In the answers section, the candidate will ask additional questions to establish a full understanding of the case and collect all the necessary data. After this is done, he is moving on to structure the necessary framework to break the problem down into smaller elements that are easier to handle.
Once the elements are simple enough, he is creating a hypothesis as to what the main factors of the case are and how they can be impacted upon in order to achieve the desired result.
Bain Case Example
For educational purposes, Bain consultancy has provided one of their own videos of a case interview. This covers the full interview process, giving you an in-depth look at how the candidate handles himself, and the way the interviewer and the candidate communicate. Naturally, you also get to see how the candidate approaches the problem from a professional point of view.
The case itself is focused on the launch of a new product by the company, and the main concern is whether it will make a certain profit. The candidate will therefore gather all the data concerning the state of the market, the targeted consumer audience, the price and characteristics of the product, etc.
Once he has what he needs, he combines all the factors to create an estimate of the profit that the product is likely to make, making it more clear to the company representatives whether the launch will be a smart move, or not.
As a bonus, the final part of the video involves a summary of how well the candidate handled the case. The interviewer will highlight his stronger points, as well as the weak ones, and help you understand better what the dos and don’ts of a case interview are.
Final Thoughts
This article should serve just as an initial look into what case types or formats you can expect, and how to approach your case interview prep in the right manner. The two examples are merely a fraction of what lies ahead of you, and you should take all the time you need to go through as many examples as you can find from various sources.
Go through videos to learn everything you need to know about communicating your answers, and what to expect from the interviewer. Go through the texts and interactive formats of cases to test your level of knowledge and boost it. Once you think you’ve covered them all – go through them again, especially the ones that caused you trouble.
Approach your preparation responsibly and in a timely fashion, and you will drastically increase your chances of landing your consulting dream job. Good luck!
