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CASE INTERVIEWS
Case interviews are broadly defined as an interview geared around
solving problems on the spot. A lot of companies give you the interview
based on your resume, and they are really not interested in going
through a one-hour re-hash of your experience as a camp counsellor, and
how it helped you become a leader. The resume part of your interview
will either be cut partially or fully, in favour of a more real-life,
nitty-gritty, "let’s see how well you think" discussion. It cuts away
from the B.S. about how you are detail-oriented ‘cause you built some
spreadsheet in your dad’s office last summer, and gauges exactly how
detail oriented you are, by giving you a problem and seeing you work
it out. The form in which that problem is presented can take many forms,
but in every case interview, the interviewer is trying to judge all or
some of the following:
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Logical Thought Process.
How do you go about arriving at a solution, identifying key
concepts, an orderly thought process, clearly separating
important facts from irrelevant facts, analytical ability, are
all factors which can impact the interviewer’s assessment of
your thought process. |
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General Business Knowledge and
Acumen. Though no one wants to see you use Porter’s Model
(in fact don’t use it at all), interviewer’s want to see to what
degree you have insight and knowledge of relevant issues in a
business problem scenario – competitive threats, barriers to
entry, competitive advantages, target marketing, pricing
strategies, etc. Each case will have different concepts
highlighted – the interviewer wants to make sure you can
recognize which types of business analysis is appropriate for
his specific case, as opposed to your trying to squeeze
everything into some Model you learned in class as the
end-all-and-be-all of human existence. |
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General Knowledge. In
cases, there are a lot of times when the information you need
will just not be available. This is not a problem, as the
interviewer does not expect you to know them. However, you will
have to make assumptions, and the degree to which your
assumptions are reasonable will impact your performance. If, for
example, you are conducting a market sizing example, and you say
"Let’s assume there are around 30 million people in Canada" –
that’s fine, the exact population is not needed. If, however,
you say "Let’s assume there are 100 million people in Canada",
the interviewer might wonder what you’ve been smoking for the
past eight years. |
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Comfort with Quantitative
Analysis. No one will test you on differential calculus or
statistical regression abilities – but if you can’t figure out
10% of $250,000 in your head ($25,000), you’ll be in trouble.
Here the interviewer just wants to make sure you don’t break
into a cold sweat at the mention of a number, and that you can
do some rough, back-of-the-envelope calculations accurately and
quickly. It’s just arithmetic – but you better know it. Quick,
if you have 15% margins on a $20 widget that you’re selling, and
you sell 3,000 units – what was your profit?
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Creativity. A new approach
to a problem, an insightful remark, finding a hurdle that nobody
else had noticed, using a strategy that worked for another
company in a similar situation – this is what consultants do. If
you can demonstrate some creativity, you will surely impress.
This becomes more important in 2nd and 3rd
round interviews, than in the 1st. Just make sure
that in your quest for creativity, you don’t come up with some
ludicrous situation that make you sound like you have no idea
what you’re talking about. It’s a fine line? Yes. Will you have
to walk it? Yes. |
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Communication skills. You
could be the most intelligent person in the world, but if you
can’t communicate your ideas, sell your ideas, and answer to
criticism about your ideas, you will not be successful. Not in
interviews – not in the business world either. There’s no way
around this one – learn to communicate!
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http://www.campusaccess.com/campus_web/career/c4job_inca.htm
Interviews |
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