The stacked segments in each of the bars represents the type of product. Simply outperform on each case interview question type and do it consistently. We can conclude that Company B has not only the highest sales, but also the highest sales in each of the three product categories. Charts showing Trends Quite self-explanatory, these charts are usually line charts and they show how a quantity changes with respect to another. Just like for 100% stacked bar charts, you can easily compare the relative proportion of a segment in one bar with another in a Mekko chart.
Consulting firms will therefore want to check that you have actually done your homework and that you have thought about why you want to be a consultant. The bars in light blue show drivers that increased profits. Much of it is the same, but there are a few nuances that are important to understand. : Tell me about a time you led a team through a difficult challenge., E.g. Not all firms use these tests but many of them do. WHAT you do outside of work does not really matter. Its a quantitative question but when youre not provided with any data. Each individual rectangle represents the percentage of the total $24,500 in sales. Focus your attention on identifying insights before presenting your thoughts. The bar in dark blue shows what driver decreased profits. In a profitability type of case, you are in search of the root-cause of the profitability decline. From this histogram, we can conclude that the 81+ years age group has the fewest number of people. Copyright 2019 Incredipedia LLC. focus on insights. The best thing to do for this question is to re-purpose one of the stories youll prepare for Personal Experience Interview questions which well cover next. At some point during your case interview, youll also be tested on yourcreativity. Extracting information from and charts and elaborating it is an essential skill for consultants. Now that you know the purpose of case interviews, lets understand the key skills that the top consulting firms and we interviewers are looking to test. There are four basic components to a chart: title, axis descriptions (units), legend, and values. Each program is tailored to master the nuances of the firms it targets. At BCG, this is a Project Leader or a Principal. We are currently working on adding a section about this specific topic to this guide. McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other strategy consulting firms use case interviews in their recruiting process. You can more easily measure your progress and focus your preparation on the specific areas of the case interview that youre less comfortable with. Whats more important is HOW you do it. Your client is a manufacturer of copper electrical wiring for commercial building applications. Product Mix Your client is the new SVP of appliances for a home improvement retailer. Store brand margins are high These questions are also consistent with the type of questions the candidates we work with are currently getting in interviews. Id want to better understand if our store-branded dishwasher would be well received by customers. Case interview prep books: There are two popular books on case interview prep. Therefore, this stacked bar chart shows the sales of different products by company. However, the below is what a typical one looks like: 1-4 weeks following your application, if you have been selected, you will receive an interview invitation, 1-4 weeks from invitation, you will have your first round interview (typically with Project Leaders or Principals), 2-36 hours following first round interview, you will be notified of the second round interview, 1-4 weeks following the notice, you will have your second round interview (typically with Partners or Senior Partners), 2 hours to 2 weeks following the second round interview, there will be a call from a partner or senior partner extending you an offer. After understanding the above, Id like to think of options to improve profitability which may include revenue based strategies like changing price or increasing our mix or cost-based strategies like lowering our costs, Identifies 1st level issues (also known as "key issues"), Mentions some 2nd level drivers (also known as "sub-issues"), Shows that you have a good grasp of the problem, Identifies more relevant 1st level issues, Shows that you have a deep understanding of the problem. Practice thirty realistic case interviews with peers (1 hour each, incl. Its important to note that every office will have some variation in the timeline. However, things usually get more complicated than this as charts are used to show more insightful data. MyConsultingCoach reserves the right not to proceed with the refund if the supporting evidence provided were not adequate.
The same five themes are used by McKinsey but in a slightly different rank order. One of the simplest charts is the bar chart. In this example, the x-axis represents annual growth in supply chain investments and the y-axis shows annual revenue growth. - Drawing conclusions - The final So What, relating the numerical answer to the bigger picture. The framework is a visual list of areas you plan to analyze to solve the problem the company is facing. In this example, we can conclude that laptops have the highest sales at $5,000 and tablets have the lowest sales at $1,500. Finally, its also important to prepare for the fit / personal experience interview as well. Price increase, quantity increase, and a decrease in variable costs all caused profits to increase. So how do you make sure you succeed at case interviews and land your dream job at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or another top consulting firm? This is the "mental model" they useto type each of the aspects of your case as either "good" or "great.". Your interviewer will be looking for signals that you are pursuing that activity with passion, drive, and intensity. This means youll be expected to play a much more proactive role in the case interviews at these firms than at McKinsey. We can also conclude that Company C has the highest proportion of sales coming from tablets. Do not over-rotate on margins/profitability. A BCG or Bain case interview is considered to be a candidate-led format. Your email address will not be published. In this example, each bubble represents a different drug.
In this example, you can see that Company B has the highest overall sales since the width of its bar is the widest. 1. One of the components of these programs is live case interviews where you can watch a best-in-class candidate (top 1% performer) solve cases.
Contact us at: info@myconsultingcoach.com, 2022 All Rights Reserved by MyConsultingCoach, Increase 3 times your chances of landing an offer, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google, This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. [CDATA[*/#mc_embed_signup{clear:left;font:23px}
/*]]>*/. They will also challenge your answers a bit more than at other companies. Yes, well cover consulting interview questions and answers, case interview frameworks, and realistic case interview examples. For instance,McKinsey and BCG almost exclusively ask personal experience interview questions. If you can get overall great scores on 5 cases in a row, you are in outstanding shape for your real case interview with the top consulting firms. Over the years, weve designed a system to get you from "Whats a case interview?" Economics In this example, the pie chart represents 100% of sales by product line. For instance, you may want to ask if the client has any specific profitability targets and understand how long the problem has been going on. When the chart is very long then you have an infographic. Leadership abilities, Problem solving Practice to derive conclusions and check yourself with the actual ones from the article/presentation, GMAT IR part (Official guide and Manhattan prep), Consulting Bible and Vault guide for consulting check the chapters on cases with graphs in these books. They should also show the units of measurement, which you should pay particularly close attention to. This data usually comes in the form of graphs and tables or can also be provided by your interviewer orally. This is one of the top reasons people use our REALISTIC practice case interviews. The second step ofyour case interview preparation shouldbe to know your performance baseline. The last step of your preparation should be to apply the step-by-step methods you learned in the free case interview prep course and the case question drills youve done to now practice case interviews.
Each round of interviews involves behavioral interview questions and case interview questions. Initative The proposed steps are obviously just guidelines and they should be adapted to every problem one has to solve. Once youve written down your five stories, rehearse telling them out loud. Simple bar charts are straightforward to read and interpret since they dont show that much information. Another potential clarification you could ask may be the geography in which the company operates (i.e., are they national or regional). For a limited time only, get access to a free download of the Grading Rubric. Example A pie chart shows the same information as a 100% stacked bar chart. This is because youll be expected to play a much more proactive role in the case interviews at these firms than at McKinsey. In this example, you can see that the proportion of sales from tablets is highest in Company C since its tablet segment is the tallest. The category had sales of $1.2B last year. This means that the interviewer is more active than at other firms, and most of the time theyll lead you from one question to the next. In this example, the x-axis shows years and the y-axis shows annual revenue. Weve created a comprehensive free case interview prep course that will teach you a proven step-by-step method for each of the 7 question types. Shifting 20 percentage points away from GE to and split equally to Whirlpool & our own store brand increases profit by $60M Chart questions test a few skills, from calculations to solving problems, which makes them an all time favourite when it comes to interviews. Its not from ex-consultants who never gave cases. You also want your framework to be relatively MECE, which stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. We recommend focusing on no more than your top 1 or 2 weakest areas at a time. Click here for the definitive guide on how to be MECE (coming soon). - Is our pricing and/or costs out of line with our competitors? Your competition is not the case, it is simply other very smart and very-well prepared people. Candidate then provides answer of incremental profit amount. However, there may be other costs not captured, such as upfront product development, and headcount considerations for someone to oversee this Instead, you should focus your energy on learning to adapt your own frameworks using the information you have gathered from your interviewer when talking about the situation and any clarifying questions you had. Lastly, there is the occasional: Case Interview Market Sizing - Question. This is the approach we take in our Case Interview Prep Courseand the majority of people who use it end up being successful with their target firm. Identify whats going on on the graph. If you pass that bar, youll be invited to an interview. But even better, youre going to learn a proven 5 step prep plan that is the #1 reason our readers get triple offers from McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.
Example #3: Southwire sees more competition entering. Jason Oh is a Senior Consultant, Strategy & Customer at EY with project experiences in commercial due diligence and corporate strategy planning. The ones who land offers simply learned and internalized how to consistently outperform in each type of case interview question. In other words, consulting makes you constantly come up a learning curve. In this chapter you are going to learn the seven types of case interview questions to be prepared for. I can SEE the graph, tell me something DEEPER. Example #2: FoodSaver wants to enter a new market. At the end of your final round interview, the Partners will get together in a room and make a decision about whether or not to extend you an offer. Thats why we modeled our practice case interviews against realistic cases that youll experience at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other top consulting firms. Correctly interpreting these exhibits is critical to acing your case. In the real world, case interviewersneed to make quick judgmentson your performance. However, in a Mekko, you can also compare the size of one entire bar with another. Bar charts and line charts are very commonly used for the purpose of comparison. Interpreting what you read to draw insights is what matters. Its important to keep these four attributes in mind because top consulting firms will grade you along these dimensions at each step of their recruiting process. The objective of the chart is to help you drive the case forward by approving or disapproving your hypothesis of the business problem. Next, Id like to understand the types of dishwashers were selling If you take a look atMcKinseys, BCGs, andBainssites, youll see that although they describe the skills they look for differently, they are essentially the same: Problem solving to "Now I need to choose which offer to accept, McKinsey, BCG or Bain.. The format is the same, but the people interviewing you will be different. In fact the way the question is asked (Tell me about a time ) is really an invitation to tell a story. Heres a common question we get: Is the second round of interviews different from the first one? Not all the information will be needed to make the calculation one of the core functions of a consultant is to know how to separate the useful data from the rest.
Therefore, resist the urge to talk through everything that you see.
However, Company B has the drug with the highest amount of sales. For example, tell me that margins falling faster than revenue is likely because its a fixed cost heavy biz. Finally, remember there are no shortcuts, the only way to hone your chart interpretation skills is through dedicated practice. They have a leading share of the copper electrical wiring market. Price x 3. : Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a colleague., E.g. Look for: Trends, % structures. Youll also learn what we case interviewers look for in each. You can see our guide to case interview coaching here (coming soon). Once you know how the chart or graph is structured, it will be easier to read. *The customer is entitled to claim a full or partial refund within 30 days of purchase were they to find that the quality of the material provided was not satisfactory. Interviewer prompt: Let's take a moment to discuss store brand. Now that you broadly know what information or data is being presented, the next step is to look at the axes. This way you can focus your energy on the specific areas that need the most improvement and get rid of the weak links in your overall case performance. Lastly, practice full case interviews that have a corresponding grading rubric. The next chart is the pie chart, which is heavily used by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). How the company can improve their profitability in this area? You will work with bright people. We can conclude that the largest driver behind the increase in profit is the quantity increase because that is the largest bar. Interviewer prompt: Lets say that the Senior VP walks in and wants a quick overview of your findings and recommendations what would you tell him? Completely updated for July 2022. So what makes the great candidates (who land offers) different from all the other merely good candidates (who get rejected)? A great answer will focus on a recent achievement thats relevant to the skills you need to be a great management consultant. This is an extremely efficient way to progress quickly. More importantly, the majority of these resources will not push you to great. Second, depending on which region youre applying for, you may need to pass a math and logic test (e.g., McKinsey PST or BCG Potential Test). Achievers Example - Recommendation question After you identify the one or two biggest insights, take some time to identify other important, but less obvious insights. Identify data points that are unexpected, unusual, or unique. Passion Your email address will not be published. What caused the increase? Start by talking through the one or two most obvious insights that stand out. This is the ultimate guide to maximizing your case interview prep. Unsubscribe at any time. The type of charts you will have to deal with can all be found on Excel. For an example of how to use a hypothesis-driven approach in case interviews you can watch the case interview examples in the bonus chapter of this guide. #4 Tell me something thats not on your resume. Example Interviewer prompt: What would you like to understand? Its more important to be able to connect the dots, including the title, axis descriptions, and legend. To receive these member-only resources, just register below for free instant access. These bags are fed into a vacuum sealer machine, which sucks air out of the bag to remove all moisture and oxygen. On the day of your interview, your interviewer will typically meet with 8 to 12 other candidates. This is what distinguishes outstanding case interview candidates from average candidates. While the category is profitable, its margin is below industry avg. Depending on the region youre applying for, if you pass the resume and cover letter screen, you may be invited to take a math and logic test. Making wild assumptions rather than basing findings on the facts, Not being able to identify what the different sources of data represent, Not practicing basic case interview mathematics, Always keep in mind the question and ultimate objective, Analyze with understanding dont do it for the sake of analyzing, Comprehend the information before attempting to identify a solution or rushing to carry out calculations. Vacuum sealer bags are used to keep food fresh much longer in either the refrigerator or freezer. For instance you could say something like: Im Kevin, Im currently doing my MBA at the Kellogg School of Management. As with anything regarding case interviews, being structured is key to securing an offer from the firms. And another bonus, these practice case examples allow you to actively practice along vs. just being a passive listener. Double check you are not missing anything and try to identify the twist, if one exists, to the problem. One way to do this is to find peers to practice with either at your school (if youre a student) or online (if youre an experienced hire candidate). Discovering your baseline is important so that you know what areas you need to focus on. In our experience, the best way to outperform on the overall case is to learn how to consistently outperform on each type of question in isolation first. Youll learn about each of these in the next chapter of this guide. We found that were selling too much of GE, which is a lower margin product and this is whats driving down our profitability Example - Market sizing / estimation question: Could you estimate the market size for dishwashers in the US making assumptions? They are trying to find out what kind of fun stuff you do outside of work. The best indication of this is to practice our ten Case Interview Prep Course videos and ensure youre scoring great overall on the interview grading rubric. Typically, the slides used during case interviews contain leads or a significant bit of information attached to the diagram. Second, McKinsey case interviews are a lot more structured than other case interviews and the flow of questions you will get is usually quite standard. Questions asked during the behavioral interview are geared to test your problem solving, personal impact, entrepreneurial drive, and leadership skills.
Consulting firms will therefore want to check that you have actually done your homework and that you have thought about why you want to be a consultant. The bars in light blue show drivers that increased profits. Much of it is the same, but there are a few nuances that are important to understand. : Tell me about a time you led a team through a difficult challenge., E.g. Not all firms use these tests but many of them do. WHAT you do outside of work does not really matter. Its a quantitative question but when youre not provided with any data. Each individual rectangle represents the percentage of the total $24,500 in sales. Focus your attention on identifying insights before presenting your thoughts. The bar in dark blue shows what driver decreased profits. In a profitability type of case, you are in search of the root-cause of the profitability decline. From this histogram, we can conclude that the 81+ years age group has the fewest number of people. Copyright 2019 Incredipedia LLC. focus on insights. The best thing to do for this question is to re-purpose one of the stories youll prepare for Personal Experience Interview questions which well cover next. At some point during your case interview, youll also be tested on yourcreativity. Extracting information from and charts and elaborating it is an essential skill for consultants. Now that you know the purpose of case interviews, lets understand the key skills that the top consulting firms and we interviewers are looking to test. There are four basic components to a chart: title, axis descriptions (units), legend, and values. Each program is tailored to master the nuances of the firms it targets. At BCG, this is a Project Leader or a Principal. We are currently working on adding a section about this specific topic to this guide. McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other strategy consulting firms use case interviews in their recruiting process. You can more easily measure your progress and focus your preparation on the specific areas of the case interview that youre less comfortable with. Whats more important is HOW you do it. Your client is a manufacturer of copper electrical wiring for commercial building applications. Product Mix Your client is the new SVP of appliances for a home improvement retailer. Store brand margins are high These questions are also consistent with the type of questions the candidates we work with are currently getting in interviews. Id want to better understand if our store-branded dishwasher would be well received by customers. Case interview prep books: There are two popular books on case interview prep. Therefore, this stacked bar chart shows the sales of different products by company. However, the below is what a typical one looks like: 1-4 weeks following your application, if you have been selected, you will receive an interview invitation, 1-4 weeks from invitation, you will have your first round interview (typically with Project Leaders or Principals), 2-36 hours following first round interview, you will be notified of the second round interview, 1-4 weeks following the notice, you will have your second round interview (typically with Partners or Senior Partners), 2 hours to 2 weeks following the second round interview, there will be a call from a partner or senior partner extending you an offer. After understanding the above, Id like to think of options to improve profitability which may include revenue based strategies like changing price or increasing our mix or cost-based strategies like lowering our costs, Identifies 1st level issues (also known as "key issues"), Mentions some 2nd level drivers (also known as "sub-issues"), Shows that you have a good grasp of the problem, Identifies more relevant 1st level issues, Shows that you have a deep understanding of the problem. Practice thirty realistic case interviews with peers (1 hour each, incl. Its important to note that every office will have some variation in the timeline. However, things usually get more complicated than this as charts are used to show more insightful data. MyConsultingCoach reserves the right not to proceed with the refund if the supporting evidence provided were not adequate.
The same five themes are used by McKinsey but in a slightly different rank order. One of the simplest charts is the bar chart. In this example, the x-axis represents annual growth in supply chain investments and the y-axis shows annual revenue growth. - Drawing conclusions - The final So What, relating the numerical answer to the bigger picture. The framework is a visual list of areas you plan to analyze to solve the problem the company is facing. In this example, we can conclude that laptops have the highest sales at $5,000 and tablets have the lowest sales at $1,500. Finally, its also important to prepare for the fit / personal experience interview as well. Price increase, quantity increase, and a decrease in variable costs all caused profits to increase. So how do you make sure you succeed at case interviews and land your dream job at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or another top consulting firm? This is the "mental model" they useto type each of the aspects of your case as either "good" or "great.". Your interviewer will be looking for signals that you are pursuing that activity with passion, drive, and intensity. This means youll be expected to play a much more proactive role in the case interviews at these firms than at McKinsey. We can also conclude that Company C has the highest proportion of sales coming from tablets. Do not over-rotate on margins/profitability. A BCG or Bain case interview is considered to be a candidate-led format. Your email address will not be published. In this example, each bubble represents a different drug. In this example, you can see that Company B has the highest overall sales since the width of its bar is the widest. 1. One of the components of these programs is live case interviews where you can watch a best-in-class candidate (top 1% performer) solve cases.
Contact us at: info@myconsultingcoach.com, 2022 All Rights Reserved by MyConsultingCoach, Increase 3 times your chances of landing an offer, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google, This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. [CDATA[*/#mc_embed_signup{clear:left;font:23px}
/*]]>*/. They will also challenge your answers a bit more than at other companies. Yes, well cover consulting interview questions and answers, case interview frameworks, and realistic case interview examples. For instance,McKinsey and BCG almost exclusively ask personal experience interview questions. If you can get overall great scores on 5 cases in a row, you are in outstanding shape for your real case interview with the top consulting firms. Over the years, weve designed a system to get you from "Whats a case interview?" Economics In this example, the pie chart represents 100% of sales by product line. For instance, you may want to ask if the client has any specific profitability targets and understand how long the problem has been going on. When the chart is very long then you have an infographic. Leadership abilities, Problem solving Practice to derive conclusions and check yourself with the actual ones from the article/presentation, GMAT IR part (Official guide and Manhattan prep), Consulting Bible and Vault guide for consulting check the chapters on cases with graphs in these books. They should also show the units of measurement, which you should pay particularly close attention to. This data usually comes in the form of graphs and tables or can also be provided by your interviewer orally. This is one of the top reasons people use our REALISTIC practice case interviews. The second step ofyour case interview preparation shouldbe to know your performance baseline. The last step of your preparation should be to apply the step-by-step methods you learned in the free case interview prep course and the case question drills youve done to now practice case interviews.
Each round of interviews involves behavioral interview questions and case interview questions. Initative The proposed steps are obviously just guidelines and they should be adapted to every problem one has to solve. Once youve written down your five stories, rehearse telling them out loud. Simple bar charts are straightforward to read and interpret since they dont show that much information. Another potential clarification you could ask may be the geography in which the company operates (i.e., are they national or regional). For a limited time only, get access to a free download of the Grading Rubric. Example A pie chart shows the same information as a 100% stacked bar chart. This is because youll be expected to play a much more proactive role in the case interviews at these firms than at McKinsey. In this example, you can see that the proportion of sales from tablets is highest in Company C since its tablet segment is the tallest. The category had sales of $1.2B last year. This means that the interviewer is more active than at other firms, and most of the time theyll lead you from one question to the next. In this example, the x-axis shows years and the y-axis shows annual revenue. Weve created a comprehensive free case interview prep course that will teach you a proven step-by-step method for each of the 7 question types. Shifting 20 percentage points away from GE to and split equally to Whirlpool & our own store brand increases profit by $60M Chart questions test a few skills, from calculations to solving problems, which makes them an all time favourite when it comes to interviews. Its not from ex-consultants who never gave cases. You also want your framework to be relatively MECE, which stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. We recommend focusing on no more than your top 1 or 2 weakest areas at a time. Click here for the definitive guide on how to be MECE (coming soon). - Is our pricing and/or costs out of line with our competitors? Your competition is not the case, it is simply other very smart and very-well prepared people. Candidate then provides answer of incremental profit amount. However, there may be other costs not captured, such as upfront product development, and headcount considerations for someone to oversee this Instead, you should focus your energy on learning to adapt your own frameworks using the information you have gathered from your interviewer when talking about the situation and any clarifying questions you had. Lastly, there is the occasional: Case Interview Market Sizing - Question. This is the approach we take in our Case Interview Prep Courseand the majority of people who use it end up being successful with their target firm. Identify whats going on on the graph. If you pass that bar, youll be invited to an interview. But even better, youre going to learn a proven 5 step prep plan that is the #1 reason our readers get triple offers from McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.
Example #3: Southwire sees more competition entering. Jason Oh is a Senior Consultant, Strategy & Customer at EY with project experiences in commercial due diligence and corporate strategy planning. The ones who land offers simply learned and internalized how to consistently outperform in each type of case interview question. In other words, consulting makes you constantly come up a learning curve. In this chapter you are going to learn the seven types of case interview questions to be prepared for. I can SEE the graph, tell me something DEEPER. Example #2: FoodSaver wants to enter a new market. At the end of your final round interview, the Partners will get together in a room and make a decision about whether or not to extend you an offer. Thats why we modeled our practice case interviews against realistic cases that youll experience at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other top consulting firms. Correctly interpreting these exhibits is critical to acing your case. In the real world, case interviewersneed to make quick judgmentson your performance. However, in a Mekko, you can also compare the size of one entire bar with another. Bar charts and line charts are very commonly used for the purpose of comparison. Interpreting what you read to draw insights is what matters. Its important to keep these four attributes in mind because top consulting firms will grade you along these dimensions at each step of their recruiting process. The objective of the chart is to help you drive the case forward by approving or disapproving your hypothesis of the business problem. Next, Id like to understand the types of dishwashers were selling If you take a look atMcKinseys, BCGs, andBainssites, youll see that although they describe the skills they look for differently, they are essentially the same: Problem solving to "Now I need to choose which offer to accept, McKinsey, BCG or Bain.. The format is the same, but the people interviewing you will be different. In fact the way the question is asked (Tell me about a time ) is really an invitation to tell a story. Heres a common question we get: Is the second round of interviews different from the first one? Not all the information will be needed to make the calculation one of the core functions of a consultant is to know how to separate the useful data from the rest.
Therefore, resist the urge to talk through everything that you see. However, Company B has the drug with the highest amount of sales. For example, tell me that margins falling faster than revenue is likely because its a fixed cost heavy biz. Finally, remember there are no shortcuts, the only way to hone your chart interpretation skills is through dedicated practice. They have a leading share of the copper electrical wiring market. Price x 3. : Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a colleague., E.g. Look for: Trends, % structures. Youll also learn what we case interviewers look for in each. You can see our guide to case interview coaching here (coming soon). Once you know how the chart or graph is structured, it will be easier to read. *The customer is entitled to claim a full or partial refund within 30 days of purchase were they to find that the quality of the material provided was not satisfactory. Interviewer prompt: Let's take a moment to discuss store brand. Now that you broadly know what information or data is being presented, the next step is to look at the axes. This way you can focus your energy on the specific areas that need the most improvement and get rid of the weak links in your overall case performance. Lastly, practice full case interviews that have a corresponding grading rubric. The next chart is the pie chart, which is heavily used by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). How the company can improve their profitability in this area? You will work with bright people. We can conclude that the largest driver behind the increase in profit is the quantity increase because that is the largest bar. Interviewer prompt: Lets say that the Senior VP walks in and wants a quick overview of your findings and recommendations what would you tell him? Completely updated for July 2022. So what makes the great candidates (who land offers) different from all the other merely good candidates (who get rejected)? A great answer will focus on a recent achievement thats relevant to the skills you need to be a great management consultant. This is an extremely efficient way to progress quickly. More importantly, the majority of these resources will not push you to great. Second, depending on which region youre applying for, you may need to pass a math and logic test (e.g., McKinsey PST or BCG Potential Test). Achievers Example - Recommendation question After you identify the one or two biggest insights, take some time to identify other important, but less obvious insights. Identify data points that are unexpected, unusual, or unique. Passion Your email address will not be published. What caused the increase? Start by talking through the one or two most obvious insights that stand out. This is the ultimate guide to maximizing your case interview prep. Unsubscribe at any time. The type of charts you will have to deal with can all be found on Excel. For an example of how to use a hypothesis-driven approach in case interviews you can watch the case interview examples in the bonus chapter of this guide. #4 Tell me something thats not on your resume. Example Interviewer prompt: What would you like to understand? Its more important to be able to connect the dots, including the title, axis descriptions, and legend. To receive these member-only resources, just register below for free instant access. These bags are fed into a vacuum sealer machine, which sucks air out of the bag to remove all moisture and oxygen. On the day of your interview, your interviewer will typically meet with 8 to 12 other candidates. This is what distinguishes outstanding case interview candidates from average candidates. While the category is profitable, its margin is below industry avg. Depending on the region youre applying for, if you pass the resume and cover letter screen, you may be invited to take a math and logic test. Making wild assumptions rather than basing findings on the facts, Not being able to identify what the different sources of data represent, Not practicing basic case interview mathematics, Always keep in mind the question and ultimate objective, Analyze with understanding dont do it for the sake of analyzing, Comprehend the information before attempting to identify a solution or rushing to carry out calculations. Vacuum sealer bags are used to keep food fresh much longer in either the refrigerator or freezer. For instance you could say something like: Im Kevin, Im currently doing my MBA at the Kellogg School of Management. As with anything regarding case interviews, being structured is key to securing an offer from the firms. And another bonus, these practice case examples allow you to actively practice along vs. just being a passive listener. Double check you are not missing anything and try to identify the twist, if one exists, to the problem. One way to do this is to find peers to practice with either at your school (if youre a student) or online (if youre an experienced hire candidate). Discovering your baseline is important so that you know what areas you need to focus on. In our experience, the best way to outperform on the overall case is to learn how to consistently outperform on each type of question in isolation first. Youll learn about each of these in the next chapter of this guide. We found that were selling too much of GE, which is a lower margin product and this is whats driving down our profitability Example - Market sizing / estimation question: Could you estimate the market size for dishwashers in the US making assumptions? They are trying to find out what kind of fun stuff you do outside of work. The best indication of this is to practice our ten Case Interview Prep Course videos and ensure youre scoring great overall on the interview grading rubric. Typically, the slides used during case interviews contain leads or a significant bit of information attached to the diagram. Second, McKinsey case interviews are a lot more structured than other case interviews and the flow of questions you will get is usually quite standard. Questions asked during the behavioral interview are geared to test your problem solving, personal impact, entrepreneurial drive, and leadership skills.