It’s September/October, so case interviews will be in full swing for undergraduates and MBAs.  More than 14% of Harvard’s undergraduate class goes into consulting, and it’s a great career that gives you life-long learning, good compensation, and many post-consulting options. There are tons of case interview prep books, workshops, and advice out there. A few of my blog posts:

• Twenty tips for case interviews
• Case interview advice from Bain
• How consultants interview clients

Perhaps a good place to start is with the consulting firms themselves. Trust me – they want you to succeed on the case. Reading through their websites and some of their recruiting videos, their direct quotes in blue, ConsultantsMind comments in black.

Prepare

Understand the structure, and the rhythm of how that interview will take place, once you’re in control of that, you can actually focus on the problem in front of you.  – McKinsey

It’s really funny how brilliant things sound up here (head), and crazy how it can sound coming out of your mouth.  Have to practice what is coming out of your mouth with a live person [case practice] to get better at the interviews themselves.  – Bain 

Research the firm, know what we do. . . what is it like to work at BCG or another consulting firm, what are the things that differentiate different consulting firms. – BCG

• Yes, there are tons of resources about consulting case interviews. Use them.
• How many case interviews should you practice? Answer: enough that you feel comfortable with the format, and can move the conversation along comfortably with purpose.
• Why consulting? Why our firm? These two questions are de rigueur.

Create a business dialogue

Looking to have a conversation with you, not just a monologue on what you think the answer is. – McKinsey

Make it a business discussion, not an interview. – Bain

• Yes, think of yourself and the interviewer as business executives, who are collaboratively solving the case. They are not your adversary.
• Pretend that you are the consultant, and they are the client. Clients often have all the data, but need some coaxing, structured thinking, and persuasion for the answers to come out.
• In the end, the consulting firms wants to hire young talent who they can send to the client site, bill out at $200-400/hr, and the client says “okay.” Can they put you in front of a client?

Show your thinking

We want to see you think.  – BCG

We are looking for how you approach the situation, structure, and communicate it. – McKinsey

Dig in where there’s dirt. Inventory the information you have, and then dive in where you can have the most impact. Don’t forget to discuss your thought process, and explain your assumptions. – Accenture

At they end of the analysis, and end of the conversation, can they make a recommendation that shows business judgment? – Bain

• Dude. We want to see you think.
• There are many ways to “show” your thinking. Structure your ideas. Summarize your findings as you go. Explain what you’ve covered (so far), and what you’d like to look at next. Transition between topics. Draw linkage to relevant experiences from your past.

Listen, be present

Listen. The interviewer will give you tips or leads to go in the right direction. – McKinsey

Be in the moment, in the interview. – BCG

• There will be clues everywhere. Things they say, things they infer. Things they don’t say.
• The more rapport you build with them, the more likely you will get help. Be likable.
• If you were the consultant, interviewing a client (which is the approximate analogy), you’d want to be hyper-aware of what the client is saying/not saying.

Expect numbers

Use some basic math to try and understand how big the market is, how the prospects look for the company. That math will inform the recommendation. – Bain

If you find yourself in a touch situation, just round things to a point that makes you comfortable, then wait for the interviewer to tell you “no, I want the exact answer.” – McKinsey

Take your time, very clearly write out all your calculations for the interviewer – McKinsey

• Public math is brutal. Embrace it. Use round numbers to get a “sense” for the order of magnitude.  Is it a $100K, $1M, $10M, or $100M idea?

Communicate clearly

Ask clarifying questions, but be specific.  – Deloitte

Stop and think, don’t just start talking. – Deloitte

• What do consultants do for a living? Think, read, watch, write, and talk.
• If you were having an impromptu conversation with a client manager, standing in the hallway, you’d work very hard to explain things simply, and make sure the person did not get lost in the conversation.  This is no different. Show them the way. . .
• This is a discussion, not an interrogation. The more natural it feels, the better.

Craft a story

Contextualize that to the specific industry and specific problem that this client is facing, being able to weave in facts that have emerged from earlier in the interview, draw implications for what it actually means for the business. – McKinsey

Can recruits actually demonstrate an ability to frame the entire question that was asked of them? Do they understand the facts that were presented?  Do they understand the situation and complication that the client is facing that had them call Bain in the first place? Do they understand what it is they are trying to answer?  What are the 2-3 questions that are most important? – Bain

• Don’t be a business robot. If the case is about manufacturing; think about factories. Big car factories, precise semiconductor manufacturing, 3D printing additive manufacturing, outsourcing electronics to China, outsourcing pharmaceutical manufacturing to India.  Business problems are often generic, but the solutions are incredibly individualized.
• Consulting firms pride themselves on providing realistic solutions that can be implemented. Show them that you have business maturity beyond your years.
• Get them “nodding their head” throughout the interview. Score points as you go.

Find a rhythm

We expect the interviewee to drive the conversation – BCG

There will never be the exact right framework for it, it’s more about being open, and using your own approach to solve the problem.  – McKinsey

You can’t dwell in the one minor mistake you made. Everyone makes a minor mistake.  – BCG

• As a consultant early in your career, you will routinely be working with people 20+ years older than you.  Are you good with that? Comfortable speaking with the CFO and the warehouse worker? Unflappable, collected, comfortable in your own skin.
• Hypothesis-based consulting is all about thoughtful, experimentation of ideas. Even if you hit a dead-end, back it up, make a 3-point turn, and keep going.

Finish strong

Once they frame the conversation, once they’ve driven it down into 2-3 options, and done the math to support that, can they make a recommendation?  When I look at the recommendation I want it to demonstrate all the facts and insights that we have collected along the way as you and I have had a conversation about the client. – Bain

Toward the end of the case discussion, be prepared to take a stand and make some sort of recommendation. You might feel uncomfortable making a call with so little data and so little time to discuss all the issues. – PWC

• Track your time, knowing that you should be providing recommendations at the end.
• Ideally, they’ve been tracking your logic from the beginning.
• Summarize the evidence you acquired along the way, stitch it into a narrative.

Have fun

[Great candidates have] enthusiasm to discover the case, enthusiasm to solve the case. Visibly enjoying the case. – BCG

The best candidates have fun during the process. They like to have a business conversation. – Bain

If you hate cases, it’s a sign. . .  maybe you shouldn’t be a consultant. The core consulting toolkit is what we are testing you on: frameworks, analysis, hypothesis and synthesis. – BCG

• Show your intellectual curiosity. Consulting firms interview dozens of people (which come from an elite list already) for 1 spot. They want smart, eager, self-aware, and fun people.
• Yes, have fun.  Remember, they interview 5-8 people back-to-back on the same case; you want to crush the case, but also be memorable.

Other advice?

Senior managers, engagement managers, what other advice do you have for your analyst, senior consultant candidates with the case interview?  Tell all.