Managing consulting has always been an attractive career for MBA students. In all business schools, there has always been a lot of competition to land these coveted management consulting jobs given the tremendous growth and high starting salaries. Management consulting firms were the first to adopt the once unique case interview style of interviewing students given the unique nature of managing consulting career skills.
What is a Case Interview?
A case interview is an interview format where you are given a question/situation/problem and asked to resolve it. The case interview question/situation is usually a business situation or a business case that the interviewer has worked on in real life.
The case interviewee then proceeds to ask the case interviewer logical and sequential questions that will enable him/her to understand the situation, probe deeper into relevant areas, gather pertinent information and arrive at a solution or recommendation for the question or situation at hand.
Why are case interviews used in the management consulting and investment banking industries?
Most of the time in management consulting and investment banking jobs is spent understanding and analyzing businesses, problems, situations or solutions and communicating with clients, team members or management. Case interviews present a great setting to test whether a candidate for a job has the required structured, logical and analytical thinking and communication skills. Case interviews have the unique ability to place people in a real live situation/case. Case interviews allow the case interviewer to get a first hand glimpse of how the candidate will tackle a case/situation in real life.
What is the best way to prepare for case interviews?
Practice, practice and more practice! A good understanding of the various frameworks, general knowledge and business awareness will certainly help you in a case interview. However, practice with experienced partners and industry professionals/management consultants is a critical ingredient for success in the highly competitive worlds of investment banking, management consulting and private equity. We have outlined the top 10 tips to prepare for management consulting case interviews here.
Practice is where Graduate Tutor can help you in your preparation for your management consulting case interviews. Our expert case interview coaches can help you build your knowledge in the various frameworks that often appear in case interviews. Our case interview coaches can then assist you in practicing for the case interview by conducting case interviews for you, recording your interviews and giving you instant feedback that enables you to improve your performance.
This page specifically covers management consulting case interviews. We outlined the top 10 tips to prepare for job interviews here. Here are the top 10 tips for management consulting case interviews and how to prepare for behavioral interviews.