Cracking the Case: A Consulting Interview PrimerPage 1 of 3光华人向上的精神www.gsmer.netWeb Exclusive You dont have to be Sherlock Holmes to ace the cases in a consulting-firm interview. In fact, a little preparation can make solving them seem, well, elementary.Firms Are There to Help YouConsulting Industry GuideRemember your seventh-grade algebra teachers three favorite words? Show your work. At the time, it seemed silly: Why not just show the right answer? Now that youre older and wiser, however, you know that in many cases how you get to the right answer is more important than simply knowing the answer itself.The same goes for the case questions that consulting recruiters lob at you. Consulting is a demanding job with few correct answers; this method of interviewing gauges how well you manage the process of getting to an answer and how you perform under simulated client-engagement conditions. We talked to consultant-hunters at several firms to glean their advice on cracking the case interview. Heres what the recruiters revealedand how you can best prepare. Why the Case Interview?Case interviews have long been used by recruiters to see a candidates thought processes in motion. Can you deconstruct and analyze complex, open-ended business problems? Do you stay calm, or will you sweat bullets under pressure at a client site? At the most basic level, a case interview is about asking the right questions, developing a logical way of working through the relevant issues, and arriving at a recommendation. Your structure may be a packaged framework or it may be various frameworks strung together; you may even choose not to use frameworks at all. Whats important is that you demonstrate some defined structure. “Case studies are an imperfect science,” concedes Michael Gibney, project manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, “but are easily implementable in the 30 to 45 minutes we have for each interview.” Since they measure your analytical skills, theyre an improvement over simple fit or resum interviews. In most case interviews, the recruiter gives you an example of a real-life client problem. Some typical categories include: 光华人向上的精神www.gsmer.net Company Strategy: “My client is thinking of making an acquisition, and ” Brain Games: “How many tennis balls are in the United States?” Operations Improvement: “Why is my clients factory running behind?” Market Size: “How big is the global air conditioner market?” Although each requires a slightly different approach, all are meant mainly to evaluate the process you use, not the answer you come up with. Practice Makes PerfectYou absolutely, positively must prepare in advance for case interviews. “It becomes pretty clear pretty fast who hasand who has notpracticed,” says Gibney. “I know there is a basic sort of business acumen that may not be able to be practiced, but candidates must have an understandable approach to solving problems. Thats what our clients demand of us. If we cant relate solutions to the client, its a problem.” Dont assume that attending a case-oriented business school will give you an upper hand. John Flato, Cap Gemini Ernst & Youngs national director of university recruiting, says these candidates dont seem to do any better or worse than candidates from non-case schools. Study different kinds of case questions. Just because your buddy interviewed before you and gave you a heads-up on the questions doesnt mean you have a leg up. Recruiters have tons of case questions in their repertoire, and the chances of their using the same question multiple times on one campus visit are slim to none. 光华人向上的精神www.gsmer.netGet a classmate or friend to role-play the interview with you, and use any resources (such as a casebook) that your schools consulting club provides. The more mock cases you sink your teeth into, the more likely you are to be relaxed and poised for the real thing. Sometimes you learn more by presenting a case question to someone than you do when solving the case yourself. Deliberately pick industries youre not familiar with so as to test your analytical skills, not memorized facts; for instance, if your pre-B-school experience is mostly in media and entertainment, ask your case buddy to ask you about steel production or medical device marketing. That said, do consider brushing up on the basics in several industriesfor instance, know the product development cycle in pharmaceutical research, and understand current trends in technology. (For more information on various fields, check out our industry guides.) Although each case is different, with practice you will improve your analytical reasoning skills and solution method. Think Through the ProcessWhen it comes to strategy or product marketing questions, the interviewer will often give you only the bare bones of a case and wi