Case practice

Consulting Club at MIT

June 2011

Pierre-Olivier Lepage and Francisco Alonso, 2011 Page 1

Consulting club at MIT

Our Mission Facilitate a seamless transition from graduate school to a successful consulting career Events We put on more than 20 consulting related events throughout the year People 10 executive members 300 student members www.consultingclubatmit.com
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Why do firms conduct case interviews?

They are looking for 4 skills Client readiness Problem solving capabilities Business creativity

Team work abilities/ team work

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The case interview process

The case will generally start with a very broad question The clients business doesnt work, go and fix it

The reason for this is that consulting firms want to know if you can ask relevant clarifying questions and make reasonable assumption

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How to approach a case Starting a case

1. Ask clarification questions You want to make sure you understand the terms correctly; that you got the data right; etc 2. Restate the question The last thing you want to do is to answer the wrong question. Make

sure you understand the question and figure out what type of
case you are solving. You are going to have a very different solving approach depending on the case type. Are we interested in profit? Do we want to come up with a growth strategy?
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How to approach a case Structuring a case

3. Take a break and structure your thoughts This is a critical step. You want to have a clear plan on how you will approach the case. You can find information about different frameworks on www.caseinterview.com or in books (e.g. Case in point p. 33)

Profit Revenue # of unit sold * $ per unit Cost Fixed cost + Var. cost

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How to approach a case Digging in

4. This is an iterative hypothesis driven process for each element of your framework

1. State initial hypothesis clearly (e.g. Profit decrease is driven in part by internal revenue decrease)
2. Gather relevant data to test your hypothesis

3. Analyze the data to conclude whether or not your hypothesis is true

4. State your conclusion on this hypothesis clearly

5. Go back to step 1
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How to approach a case Evaluate possible solutions

5. For each identified problems/areas of improvement 1. List possible solutions (be creative this is a way of differencing yourself from other applicants) 2. How would you prioritize the different solutions 3. Organize the assessment of each solution: what would you have to consider in the implementation of each solution.

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How to approach a case Closing a case

6. The conclusion should be concise and well structured 1. State the initial problem you were trying to solve

2. State your recommendation(s): support them with facts/conclusions from your analysis

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Tips
1. Smile and make eye contact 2. Enjoy the process and be interested
if the interviewer feels that you dont enjoy the case solving process, he will think that you wont like the job (and hes probably right)

3. Structure, structure, structure 4. Consider the interviewer as a partner ask clarification questions and dont be afraid to ask for help 5. Bring paper and pen

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Tips (contd)
6. Think out loud in a structured manner
1. 2. 3. My hypothesis is X (Say it!) I would need this first piece of data and this second piece of data (Say it!) By multiplying them together I would get Y and I could compare it to Z (Say it!) 4. 5. 6. If Y>Z then conclusion A; otherwise B (Say it!) Do the math We can see that Y>Z. Therefore, conclusion A (Say it!)

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