First-round interviews You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Eye contact, a pleasant smile, and a firm handshake are paramount. What they are looking for: a confident, comfortable demeanor and strong communication skills (Are you a nervous wreck?) leadership ability and initiative (Forget about the time you organized that keg party.) ability to be a team player (Do you play well with others?) drive, aspirations, energy, morals, and ethics (Do you have any?) 3 stories for each question, bullet point components of each answer. So dig into the old treasure chest and come up with memorable stories and accomplishments that substantiate the skills needed to make you a strong candidate. Tell me about yourself. What are you doing here? Why consulting? LOOK INTERVIEWER IN THE EYE Sincerity, enthusiasm, purpose 1. Youll work and learn from very intelligent and articulate people. 2. Youll develop a vast array of marketable skills in a prestigious environment. 3. The learning curve never ends. 4. Youll receive exposure to the corporate elite: the way they think, act, and analyze their problems. 5. Youll be exposed to many industries. 6. Youll work as part of a team. 7. Youll solve problems. 8. Youll make organizations more efficient.

Why did you pick your school? What do you think consultants do? What do you know about this job and our firm? Why would you choose our firm over our competitors? How are your quantitative skills? What percentage is 7 of 63? Tell me of a time you showed leadership skills. Tell me of a time you were a team player. Give me an example of a time you influenced or persuaded a group. Tell me about a recent crisis you handled. Have you ever failed at anything? Tell me about a time you took the initiative to start something. What type of work do you like to do best? With which other firms are you interviewing? Which other industries are you looking into? What accomplishments have given you the greatest satisfaction? What experiences/skills do you feel are particularly transferable to our organization? Why should I hire you? I want to be a consultant. Then laundry list show that you are a low-risk hire. Have you ever failed at anything? Yes. Talk about how you failed, what you learned from that mistake, then how you turned it into a success. No academic failures!! With which other firms are you interviewing? With which other industries are you interviewing? Think before you speak

Asking the interviewer questions Before I ask my first question, I just want to make sure you understand ... 6. How much client contact does an entry-level consultant have the first year? 7. Does the firm have a mentor program? 8. How often do first-years sleep in their own beds? Whats their travel schedule like? 9. How many hours make up a typical work day? 10. How is a case team picked? 11. How often do consultants get reviewed? 12. How many consultants does the firm expect to hire this year? 13. How does that compare to last year? 14. Where do the consultants go when they leave the firm? 15. Is it possible to transfer to other offices, even international offices?

1. They are able to convince the interviewer that they are committed to consulting and know what theyre getting into (i.e., type of work, lifestyle, travel). 2. They can demonstrate success-oriented behavior. 3. They exhibit good analytical skills when answering case questions. (Thats where we come in.) 4. They are able to articulate their thoughts, create a positive presence and defend themselves without being defensive.

Case Interview Firms look to see if you have that rip right through it look in your eyes. Its called confidence.

Interviewers want to see if you are: relaxed, confident and mature? a good listener? engaging and enthusiastic? exhibiting strong social and presentation skills? asking insightful and probing questions? able to determine whats truly relevant? organizing the information effectively and developing a logical framework for analysis? stating assumptions clearly? comfortable discussing the multifunctional aspects of the case? trying to quantify his response at every opportunity? displaying both business sense & common sense? thinking creatively? rolling with the punches? defending himself without being defensive? Case commandments: 1. Listen to the Question. What are they really asking for? 2. Take notes. 3. Summarize the question and its highlights out loud. 4. Verify the objectives. One objective is to increase sales. Are there any other objectives I should know about? 5. Ask clarifying questions a. to get additional information that will help you identify and label the question b. to demonstrate to the interviewer that you are not shy about asking probing questions under difficult circumstances (something youll be doing on a regular basis as a consultant) c. to turn the question into a conversation (nothing turns off an interviewer more quickly than a five minute monologue)

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You should ask basic questions about the company, the industry, the competition, external market factors and the product. The further you get into the case, the more your questions should switch from open-ended questions to closed-ended questions. Ask for numbers. Organize your answer. Identify and label your case, then lay out your structure. Hold a thought before speaking. Your answer should be as linear as possible. Dont get bogged down in the details. Answer from a macro level and move the answer forward. Its easy to lose your way by going off on a tangent. Stay focused on the original question asked. Finally, dont lose track of the question, the objective or the framework. Go back to the original question and objectives during the case to make sure you havent lost your way. Work the numbers. Be coachable; dont be afraid to ask for help. Brainstorming without commitment, as consultants call it, allows you to toss out uninhibited suggestions without being married to them. It gives you the opportunity to review all the options and eliminate the inappropriate ones. Exude enthusiasm and a positive attitude. Summarize the case; restate your suggestions, make a recommendation

Market-sizing questions Work out all the logic and assumptions; listen to the question Population question, household question, individual question p. 114 if scenarios finding a proxy, MECE

Knowledge vs. habit

Can I drop you off with a division of a Fortune 500 company by yourself, with little to no supervision? Can you handle the client, solve its problems, and in the process make the firm look good? Many candidates use the boiling the ocean approach and list every little thing they think of, but managers in consulting teach new consultants not to do this, because there isnt enough time or staff to do everything. Clients do not accept factually accurate recommendations; they accept factually supported recommendations they can understand. Use a hypothesis-driven approach; state the hypothesis clearly The only reason you use a framework or issue tree is to test a hypothesis! If all the branches of the issue tree turn out to be true, I cant imagine a scenario in which the opposite of my hypothesis would be true. What is critical is that each branch has something concrete that could be challenged with factual data, each branch tests a distinct aspect of the argument separate from the other branches (is mutually exclusive), and all the branches combined cover the entire range of key issues (are collectively exhaustive). The hypothesis is more important than the framework. If the interviewer cannot see your problem-solving structure at the outset of the interview, she may conclude that you dont have one. The point (and its a key point) here is that the balanced candidate verifies qualitative intuition with numerical data. The balanced candidate would instead numerically measure what percentage of the total decline in profits is attributable to the decline in sales versus the increase in costs. Perhaps of the total decline in profits, 75 percent comes from a decline in sales and only 25 percent comes from an increase in costs. The balanced candidate would focus on analyzing the decline in sales first (and possibly exclusively) because it is the primary driver of the problem.

On the flip side, you dont want to overanalyze a branch of analysis beyond what is minimally necessary to test your hypothesis. To grasp this concept, we refer to the 80/20 rule, which states that 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the potential causes. As it applies to case interview problem solving, it means that you want to find the minimally necessary data to test your hypothesis. A synthesis follows a specific communication structure: State action-oriented recommendation/conclusion Supporting point 1 Supporting point 2 Supporting point 3 Restate recommendation/conclusion. Given more time, Top-down, concise communication You should synthesize the case not only at the end of the interview but also throughout the case. The clients profits have declined by 20 percent. What should the client do? You might say, Given the limited information we have to start, Im going to state an arbitrary hypothesis that the client should cut costs to improve profits. This arbitrary hypothesis will help me organize my analysis, and I will quite likely revise my hypothesis as I discover more information. To test this hypothesis ... Each of these lies should make you think, We need to segment these numbers into their component pieces in order to grasp whats really going on. A great close goes like this: Conclusion with a definitive action recommendation, three pieces of data that are logically related to the conclusion, restatement of the conclusion. Confidence. Outwardly projected confidence in case interviews comes from three places: Extreme technical competence Correct mental perceptions Extensive practice