Introduction to Case Interviews
Consulting firms, strategic planning departments and marketing departments ask case interview questions. They do this to get a handle on how you think, and the logic and structure behind your thought. They do this to get a feel for how you communicate, how you articulate your thoughts under pressure and how you verbalize problems, concepts and numbers. And they do this to see how you listen. Listening is the most important characteristic a consultant can have — because in the end, it’s not about you or the interviewer, it’s about the client.
Case questions are role plays. Often times you are given a situation or a set of data and asked what the problems are and what you can we do about them? The interviewers are testing your:
- analytical ability
- ability to think logically
- tolerance for ambiguity
- intrapersonal skills
- problem-solving skills
There are three types of case questions: brain teasers, market-sizing questions and business problems. Brain teasers are rare, but they still pop up from time to time so you need to be aware of the possibility. Market-sizing questions, sometimes known as “back-of-the-envelope” questions ask you to determine the size of a certain market (i.e., Estimate the size of the US cell phone market,) or the number of units in a current market (i.e., How many payphones are there in Savannah, Georgia?). Business cases can, and often do, encompass a market-sizing question within a larger business question. (i.e. Nokia wants to enter the “iPod-clone” market. How big is that market and how should they enter it?).
Oftentimes all you have to work with are assumptions and logic. Even if you knew the exact number of payphones in Savannah the interviewer could care less. He wants to see how you come up with the answer on your own. Your answer may be way off — he doesn’t care. He’s more interested in the process than the answer.
During the interview, case questions take up a lot of time and carry much weight. You can charm everyone during the interview, but if you flub the case, you’re out. Practice makes perfect. This is something that you can learn, but it takes a combination of studying, interactive practice and live practice. It is one thing to read about case questions, it’s another to do them live. I would track down alumni or your classmates who are former consultants and ask, beg or bribe them to give you practice cases. In the meantime, this site serves as the next best thing.
If you make it through all three rounds of interviews, you will probably have been given and answered 6 to 10 case questions. Most of this is psychological. The biggest assets a candidate can bring are a measure of confidence, a perspective of self-worth and a good night’s sleep. The interview structure is daunting, the people generally intimidating, the atmosphere tense — but you can slay all these dragons immediately when you choose to arm yourself with a positive self-image. In the end, it’s not whether you are right or wrong, it is how you present yourself, your information, your thinking — this is the measure of marketability for the firm and it is what they seek to determine through an imperfect process.