consulting problem solving questions

Hacking the Case Interview

Consulting interview questions aim to assess a candidate’s problem solving, analytical thinking, and communication skills. Interview questions may include: case interviews, behavioral or fit interviews, motivational questions, market sizing, and brainteasers.

Preparing for each of these different types of consulting interview questions will give you an edge over other less prepared candidates. It can easily make the difference between landing a consulting offer and getting rejected.

If you’re stressed out about your upcoming consulting interviews and either don’t know what to expect or know what to prepare for, we have you covered.

I’m a former Bain Manager and interviewer and in this comprehensive article, we’ll cover the major types of consulting interview questions and the 15 most common questions that account for over 90% of all interview questions asked.

If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly, enroll in our case interview course . These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

What are the Major Types of Consulting Interview Questions?

The five types of questions asked in consulting interviews include: case interviews, behavioral or fit interviews, motivational questions, market sizing, and brainteasers.

Consulting Case Interviews

Case interviews are a special type of interview that every single consulting firm uses. They are almost exclusively used by consulting firms, although some companies with ex- consultants may also use them.

A case interview, also known as a “case” for short, is a 30 to 60-minute exercise in which you and the interviewer work together to develop a recommendation or answer to a business problem.

These business problems can be anything that real companies face:

• How can Amazon increase its profitability?
• What can Apple do to increase customer retention?
• How should Tesla price its new electric vehicle?
• Where should Disney open another Disneyland theme park?

Case interviews simulate what the consulting job will be like by placing you in a hypothetical business situation. Cases simulate real business problems that consulting firms solve for their clients. Many case interviews are based on actual projects that interviewers have worked on.

While consulting projects typically last between 3 to 9 months, case interviews condense solving the business problem into just 30 to 45 minutes.

Case interviews can cover any industry, including retail, consumer packaged goods, financial services, energy, education, healthcare, government, and technology.

They can also cover a wide range of business situations, including entering a new market, launching a new product, acquiring a company, improving profitability, and growing revenues.

Although case interviews cover a wide range of industries and business situations, no technical or specialized knowledge is needed.

Unless you are interviewing for a consulting firm that specializes in a particular industry or function, cases are designed to be solved by someone that has general business knowledge.

Consulting Behavioral or Fit Interviews

A consulting behavioral interview, also known as a fit interview, focuses on assessing a candidate’s behavior in specific past experiences to give insight into the candidates skills, qualities, and future potential.

In a consulting behavioral or fit interview, candidates are typically asked to provide specific examples from their past work experiences that demonstrate certain behavioral traits or skills, such as problem solving, teamwork, leadership, and resilience.

Examples of consulting behavioral and fit interview questions include:

• Tell me about a time when you used data to solve a problem
• Give a time when you disagreed with your manager
• What accomplishment are you most proud of?
• Describe a situation in which you handled conflict while working on a team
• What is a piece of feedback you have received from a former supervisor or colleague?

Interviewers may ask follow-up questions to dig deeper into the candidate's responses. This helps them gain a clearer understanding of the candidate's thought process, decision-making, and problem-solving abilities.

For consulting interviews, behavioral and fit questions are tailored to assess how the candidate's past experiences align with the skills and competencies required for a consulting role.

This may include dealing with clients, handling complex problems, managing projects, and working effectively in a team.

If you want to learn how to answer 98% of consulting behavioral and fit interview questions in just a few hours, enroll in our consulting behavioral & fit interview course .

Consulting Motivational Questions

Consulting interview motivational questions aim to assess your passion for consulting, your alignment with the firm's values, and your reasons for pursuing a career in consulting.

These questions help the interviewer gauge your enthusiasm, commitment, and fit with the consulting role and the company culture.

Here are some examples of consulting interview motivational questions:

• Why do you want to work in consulting?
• Why do you want to work for our consulting firm?
• Where do you see yourself in ten years?
• What aspects of consulting excite you the most?

Consulting Market Sizing

Market sizing is the process of estimating the annual spending of a specific category of product or service. It involves determining the total addressable market (TAM), which represents the maximum revenue a product or service could generate if it captured 100% of the market.

Determining the size of a market is a critical step in business planning that helps businesses make informed decisions regarding product development, pricing, marketing, and resource allocation.

The skill of market sizing is so valuable that management consulting firms ask market sizing questions, also known as estimation questions or guesstimate questions, in their interviews.

Market sizing questions assess several key skills and qualities, including analytical thinking, problem solving, quantitative skills, communication, creativity, attention to detail, adaptability, and confidence.

Examples of market sizing questions include:

• What is the global market size for electric toothbrushes?
• How many pizzas are sold in Manhattan a day?
• How many people purchase a new iPhone in the United States each day?
• How many golf balls fit in a Boeing 737?

Consulting Brainteasers

Consulting brainteasers are non-traditional, often unconventional questions that are designed to test a candidate's ability to think creatively, approach problems from different angles, and come up with innovative solutions.

These questions don't necessarily have a single correct answer, and the focus is on your thought process and how you approach the problem.

Now a days, the use of brainteasers in consulting interviews is rare. There are many reasons why they are being used less often:

• Lack of relevance to the role : many brainteasers have little to do with the actual responsibilities and skills of the consulting job
• Limited predictive value : there’s limited evidence to suggest that success in answering brainteasers correlates with job performance
• Potential unfairness : some candidates may have encountered specific brainteasers before, giving them an advantage
• Frustration : if a candidate struggles with a brainteaser, it can lead to frustration and potentially damage their confidence for the rest of the interview process
• Time-consuming : solving brainteasers can take a significant amount of time, which could be better spent on other aspects of the interview

Here are some examples of consulting brainteaser questions:

• Why are manhole covers round?
• How would you move Mount Fuji?
• If you were shrunk down to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?
• You have a 3-gallon jug and a 5-gallon jug. How can you measure exactly 4 gallons?

You have 25 horses and you want to find the three fastest ones. You can race five horses at a time. What is the minimum number of races needed to identify the top three fastest 

Consulting Interview Questions with Answers

Below, we cover 15 of the most common consulting interview questions. These questions account for over 90% of the questions you'll see in your upcoming consulting interviews. We'll cover what to expect, what interviewers are looking for, and exactly how to answer each.

1. Walk Me Through Your Resume

This consulting interview question is typically asked in the beginning of the interview. So, it is important to answer this question well in order to leave a great first impression.

In asking this question, interviewers are looking to learn two things:

One, interviewers want to get an overview of your work experience and achievements. Many times, interviewers don’t have the time to look at your resume beforehand.

Two, interviewers want to understand why you would be a good fit for consulting. Your accomplishments in previous work experiences and the skills you have developed from these experiences are a good indicator.

When you answer this question, follow this strategy:

• Start with a strong opening statement that summarizes your areas of expertise and number of years of experience
• Highlight your most relevant and impressive experiences and accomplishments, starting with the most recent
• Connect your experiences to why you’re interested in consulting and the firm and why you would be a good fit

Example : Walk me through your resume.

I am a marketing and strategy professional with over five years of experience in media and e-commerce. 

I spent the last two years working at Activision Blizzard, where I led social media marketing. I planned and executed marketing campaigns that led to over $1 million in sales. I also developed a marketing strategy that lowered customer acquisition costs by 15%.

Before that, I spent three years working at LinkedIn in their ads team. I ran customer surveys and focus groups to identify key customer pain points for ad purchasers. From this, I launched over fifty tailored email campaigns that had a 25% higher conversion rate than previous campaigns.

Given my experience in data-driven marketing and strategy, I believe I would be an excellent fit for McKinsey’s Marketing and Sales practice.

Side note: make sure that yo ur consulting resume is up-to-date and highlights your achievements and accomplishments in the best possible light.  

There are many more consulting behavioral and fit interview questions besides "tell me about yourself." For a step-by-step guide on how to best answer all of these questions and more, check out our consulting behavioral & fit interview course .

2. Why Consulting?

Consulting is a tough job and many consultants quit even before reaching their one-year mark. It is a huge waste of resources for a consulting firm to hire and train someone only for them to leave after six months.

The “why consulting” interview question assesses your interest and passion for consulting.

This question checks if you have a basic understanding of the job. The better you understand what consulting is, the more likely you are to stay at the firm for a longer time because there will be no surprises to you once you start working.

Secondly, this question checks for enthusiasm, which signals to the interviewer that you would work hard as a consultant.

To answer this question, identify three compelling reasons why you are interested in consulting and use the following simple, but effective structure to make your answer clear and organized.  

• State that consulting is your top career choice
• Provide three reasons to support this
• Reiterate that consulting best fits your professional needs and goals

Example : Why are you interested in consulting?

Consulting is currently my top career choice for the following three reasons. 

One, I want to make a significant impact by working with executives at billion-dollar companies on their most challenging business problems. The opportunity to make such a big difference is what excites me and gets me out of bed.

Two, I am passionate about the energy sector through my previous work experience at ExxonMobil. Through consulting, I can further develop my expertise in energy and also develop the soft and hard skills to make me a successful business executive.

Three, I enjoy working closely with teams, especially with bright and extraordinary people. I look forward to getting to know my colleagues closer and developing friendships with them.

At this moment, I feel that no other career better suits my professional needs and goals than consulting.

3. Why This Firm?

Interviewers will often ask you why you are interested in working at their particular firm. This consulting interview question is used to assess whether you are genuinely interested in the company.

Before extending job offers, consulting firms want to confirm that you are actually interested in the firm and have a decent likelihood of accepting their job offer if they gave you one.

It is a huge waste of resources for a firm to interview and give offers to candidates who are applying to the firm as a backup choice with no real intent to accept a job offer.

Therefore, in answering this question, you need to demonstrate why the consulting firm you are interviewing for is a top choice for you. You need to convince interviewers of this.

Identify three compelling reasons why you are interested in the consulting firm and organize your answer using the following structure:

• State that the firm is your top choice consulting firm
• Reiterate that the firm best fits your professional needs and goals

Example : Why are you interested in McKinsey?

McKinsey is my top choice consulting firm to work for. There are three reasons why.

One, I am passionate about the government and education sector. McKinsey is the clear leader in these sectors among all consulting firms. McKinsey has tremendous expertise and strong client relationships that I would love to learn from.

Two, McKinsey has a global staffing model, which gives me the opportunity to travel and work with different people around the world. I get fulfillment from working with smart, diverse teams and McKinsey is the best place for this.

Three, many of my mentors that I respect and look up to have worked at McKinsey. They have all highly recommended working at McKinsey, so I know that McKinsey would be the best place to work to develop my skills and advance my career.

Given these reasons, I feel that no other consulting firm besides McKinsey best fits my professional needs and goals.

4. Give an Example of a Time When You Led a Team

Behavioral or fit interview questions are commonly asked consulting interview questions. They ask you to draw upon a time or experience in the past in which you demonstrated a particular trait or quality. These questions dive deeper beyond what is listed on your resume.

The most common type of consulting behavioral interview question focuses on leadership. Examples of this type of question include:

• Give an example of a time when you led a team
• Tell me about a time when you managed someone
• Describe a situation in which you had to motivate someone
• Tell me about a time when you showed initiative

To answer these questions, pick an experience in which you made a meaningful and significant impact while working with or managing other people.

1. Provide context of the situation and what the objective or goal was

2. Describe the leadership role you took and what actions you took

3. Explain the impact and results of these actions

4. Summarize what this experience taught you about leadership or what this situation reveals about you as a leader

Example : Give an example of a time when you led a team.

While working on a customer service improvement project for Amazon, I led a four-person analytics team. The goal was to analyze recent customer survey data to identify ways to improve customer service.

I distributed work according to each person’s interests and expertise. After a few weeks, I observed that three members worked productively and effectively while one member, John, was consistently delivering work that was both low-quality and late.

Realizing that this was a potential motivation issue, I sat down with John to understand what the root cause was. The problem was that the analytics team had recently shifted to using an analytics software called Tableau.

John found Tableau difficult to set up and use, so he was unmotivated to switch from using Excel, which he was an expert at. As a result, Excel could not handle the millions of rows of data, causing poor work quality and delays.

To motivate John, I set up three one-on-one Tableau training sessions with him to walk him through the setup of Tableau. I demonstrated how it could save him time because it performed computationally intensive calculations much quicker than Excel.

Afterward, John began liking Tableau. He became excited to learn about what other features of Tableau could save him time in his other projects. His performance significantly improved and he began consistently delivering high-quality work on-time. Our team generated over twenty different customer initiatives that would increase customer satisfaction scores by 20% and generate $125M in additional revenue each year.

This leadership experience taught me how important it is to understand your teammates. John did not have a motivational issue, but a transitioning issue. If I did not take the time to understand how John was really feeling, I would have overlooked a simple solution to this problem.

5. Tell Me About a Time When You Solved a Difficult Problem.

Another type of behavioral consulting interview question focuses on problem solving. Examples of this type of question include:  

• Give me a time when you used data to solve a problem
• Describe a complicated or difficult problem you faced and how you approached it
• Tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision
• Give an example of a problem you solved in a unique way

To answer these questions, pick an experience in which you faced a difficult problem or situation but were still able to make a meaningful and significant impact.

1. Provide context of the situation and what the problem was

2. Describe what actions you took to solve the problem

3. Explain the impact and results of these actions on the problem

4. Summarize what this experience taught you about problem solving or what this situation reveals about you as a problem solver

Example : Tell me about a time when you solved a difficult problem.

Last year, I was working at Airbnb in their strategic planning & analysis group. I worked primarily with the customer experience team.

I was tasked to determine whether the incremental $10M that Airbnb spent on initiatives to improve customer satisfaction had a positive return on investment. This was important because Airbnb was focused on cutting unnecessary costs to achieve better profitability.

I used SQL and excel to analyze over 700K customer data points to create a model forecasting how much happy customers spend per year versus unhappy customers.

I collaborated with data science, customer experience, and finance teams and persuaded them to give me their support and buy-in. I also performed competitor and industry benchmarking to validate the results further.

In the end, I determined that the customer satisfaction initiatives had a negative 20% return on investment. I presented the findings to the CFO and to my 30-person strategic planning & analysis group, who all supported my recommendation. My work would save Airbnb $10M per year moving forward.

Throughout this process, I learned how to work with multiple cross-functional teams and how to persuade stakeholders to get their buy-in. This experience also further reinforced my perspective on using data to make intelligent business decisions.

6. Describe a Situation When You Disagreed with Someone.

A third type of behavioral consulting interview question focuses on resolving conflict. Examples of this type of question include:

• Give an example of a time when you disagreed with your manager
• Tell me about a time when you didn’t get along with a colleague
• Describe a situation in which you had to resolve conflict on a team
• Give me a time when you worked with someone that was difficult to work with

To answer these questions, pick an experience in which you faced conflict but still made a meaningful and significant impact.

1. Provide context of the situation and what the conflict was

2. Describe what actions you took to resolve the conflict

3. Explain the impact and results of resolving the conflict

4. Summarize what this experience taught you about working with other people or what this situation reveals about you as a teammate

Example : Describe a situation when you disagreed with someone.

On my last project, I worked with a newly hired manager that was difficult to work with. He had an investment banking background and liked to overwork his team without taking breaks. We often would be expected to skip lunch to deliver work on-time.

After two weeks, the manager asked his direct reports for feedback on how things were going. During my feedback session with the manager, I brought up how I disagreed with the working style he was subjecting the team to. 

I explained that it was unhealthy to skip meals and that this made the team hungry, unhappy, and unproductive. I explained that I felt that his working style was not a good fit for the team.

I asked if we could be more thoughtful in prioritizing work and reducing the amount of time spent working on tasks that were not critically important. I also proposed scheduling breaks for the team to relax together, which could improve productivity overall.

The manager initially disagreed with my approach because he was used to working with higher performance teams when he was an investment banker. However, I convinced the manager to trial my preferred working style for a few weeks to see if the team performed better.

By building in breaks into the work schedule, the team immediately became happier and more motivated. We completed the next three projects on-time without working on any weekends by focusing on the most important tasks.

This situation taught me how to communicate disagreement with someone in a calm and non-aggressive way. By reaching a compromise with my manager, I was able to convince him to try my working style, which was ultimately better for the team.

7. Tell Me About a Time When You Failed.

The final type of behavioral consulting interview question focuses on resilience when facing failure. Examples of this type of question include:

• Give an example of a time when you tried to accomplish something but failed
• Describe a situation in which you made a mistake
• Talk about a setback you had at work
• Tell me about a time when you failed to meet expectations

To answer these questions, pick an experience in which you faced a major obstacle or setback but overcame it to deliver a meaningful and significant impact.

1. Provide context of the situation and what major obstacle or setback you faced

2. Describe how you reacted to the obstacle or setback and what actions you took in response

3. Explain the impact and results of moving past the obstacle or setback

4. Summarize what this experience taught you about resilience or what this situation reveals about your motivation, adaptability, or optimism

Example : Tell me about a time when you failed.

While working at Apple in their AppleCare business, I was responsible for analyzing data to identify opportunities to improve customer satisfaction.

While looking through survey responses, I realized there was an opportunity to use the tremendous amount of data that Apple had to predict which customers were likely to cancel their AppleCare subscriptions. Apple could focus on retaining these customers by sending them discount codes for renewal.

I pulled over five years of purchasing data for over 10 million customers to create a logistic regression model. In the end, I determined that Apple could increase revenues by $100M by targeting the top 10% of customers that were most likely to cancel and sending them discounts.

I was excited to present my results to the head of AppleCare. To my dismay, he rejected my proposal because he did not like the idea of discounting a premium service. Throughout my presentation, I had failed to convince him of why my idea had merit.

However, I still felt that the work I had done on predicting customer churn was useful. Instead of offering discounts, I suggested to the head of AppleCare that we interview customers that were most likely to cancel to identify opportunities to improve the service. He was more open to this idea than my previous one.

After interviewing a hundred customers, we identified three service improvements that would reduce churn for these customers by nearly 20%. This would increase Apple revenues by $150M.

This experience taught me how to be flexible and adaptable when faced with a rejection or failure. Although my initial idea was rejected, I learned how to stay positive and look for other opportunities to make a meaningful impact with the work I had done so far.

8. What's Your Greatest Weakness?

To answer this question, it is best to structure your answer.

Provide a one sentence, high-level summary of a weakness . Then, illustrate that weakness with an example.

Afterwards, explain the specific steps you took to work on and improve on this weakness. Finally, describe the tangible outcomes as a result of your improvement.

You should pick a weakness that will not raise a red flag to the interviewer. It needs to be a real weakness - not a strength in disguise! Trying to mask a strength as a weakness will signal to the interviewer that you aren't reflective enough to identify your own weaknesses.

Examples of great weaknesses you could talk about include:

• Focusing too much on details and not enough on the big picture
• Difficulty presenting effectively in front of large groups
• Trouble tackling ambiguous or unclear problems
• Slow decision-making when it comes to handling important or big problems
• Trouble delegating work to others effectively
• Trouble exhibiting confidence in front of others
• Difficulty staying organized when given too many tasks or assignments

For a complete, step-by-step guide on answering this type of question, check out our best weaknesses for consulting interviews article .

9. Case Interview: How Can We Improve Profitability?

Among case interviews, profitability cases are the most common consulting interview question. Profitability cases ask you to determine how to improve a company’s profitability.

There are two steps to solving a profitability case.

First, you need to understand quantitatively, what is the driver causing the decline in profits?

Since profit is revenues minus costs, you need to determine whether revenues have gone done, costs have gone up, or both. You’ll then need to dive deeper to understand exactly what revenue or cost driver is responsible.

For example, on the revenue side, is the decline due to a decline in quantity sold or a decrease a price? Within quantity sold, is the decline concentrated in a particular product line, geography, or customer segment?

You’ll need to dive deeper into costs as well, breaking it down into variable costs and fixed costs.

The second step is to identify, qualitatively, what factors are driving the decline in profitability that you identified in the previous step.

To do this, you’ll likely need to look at customers, competitors, and the overall market.

Looking at customers, have customer needs or preferences changed? Have their purchasing habits or behaviors changed? Have their perceptions of the company changed?

Looking at competitors, have new players entered the market? Have existing competitors made any recent strategic moves? Are competitors also experiencing a decline in profitability?

Looking at the market, are there any market trends that we should be aware of? For example, are there new technology or regulatory changes? How do these trends impact profitability?

To solve a profitability case, you can use the following framework:

10. Case Interview: Should We Enter This New Market?

Among case interviews, market entry cases are the second most common consulting interview question. Market entry cases ask you to determine whether a company should enter a new market.

Typically, to recommend entering a new market, there are four things that would ideally be true:  

• The market is attractive
• Competition is weak
• The company has the capabilities to enter the market
• The company would be profitable from entering the market

In other words, you need to determine if the market is attractive enough to be worth entering. If the market is attractive, how competitive would it be to enter?

If the market is attractive and easy to enter, does the company actually have the capabilities required to enter the market successfully?

Finally, if the company does enter the market, will they be profitable?

To solve a market entry case, you can use the following framework:

11. Case Interview: Should We Acquire This Company?

Merger and acquisition case interviews are another common type of consulting interview question.

Merger and acquisition cases ask you to determine whether a company or private equity firm should acquire another company.

In the case of a company looking to acquire another company, the reason for the acquisition is usually to access a new market, access new customers, or to grow revenues and profits.

In the case of a private equity firm looking to acquire a company, the reason for the acquisition is usually to grow the acquired company and then sell the company years later for a high return on investment.

In either case, four things typically need to be true to recommend making an acquisition:  

• The market that the acquisition target is in is attractive
• The acquisition target is an attractive company
• The acquisition would generate meaningful synergies
• The acquisition makes sense financially

To solve a merger and acquisition case, you can use the following framework:

12. Case Interview: How Should We Price Our Product?

Pricing case interviews are another common type of consulting interview question.

Pricing cases ask you to determine how to price a particular product or service. To solve pricing case interviews, you should be familiar with the three different pricing strategies:

• Pricing based on costs : set a price based on what the costs are of producing the product or delivering the service
• Pricing based on competition : set a price based on the prices that competitors are charging for similar products and services
• Pricing based on value added : set a price based on the benefits the product or service provides customers and how much they would be willing to pay for the benefits

You’ll likely use all three pricing strategies to help you determine the optimal price.

Pricing based on costs determines the minimum price you should set to make sure that you are not losing money.

Pricing based on value determines the maximum price you could set and still have customers that are willing to purchase your product or service.

Pricing based on competition will help you determine which price in between the previous two price points you should set.

To solve a pricing case, you can use the following framework:

13. Case Interview: Should We Launch This New Product?

New product case interviews are another common type of consulting interview question.

New product cases ask you to determine whether a company should create and launch a new product. These types of case interviews are similar to new market entry cases.

To recommend creating and launching a new product, four things generally need to be true:

• The product’s market is attractive
• The product meets customers’ needs and is better than competitors’ products
• The company has the capabilities to create and launch the product
• The company will be profitable

To solve a new product case, you can use the following framework:

For a complete guide on how to create tailored and unique frameworks for each case, check out our article on case interview frameworks .

14. Case Interview: Market Sizing

Market sizing questions are another common type of consulting interview question that may be asked as a part of any case interview.

Market sizing questions ask you to estimate the size of a particular market. Market size is typically defined as the total sales of a product or service in one year in a specified geography.

There are two different approaches to answer market sizing questions:

• Top-down approach : start with a large number and then refine and break down the number until you get your answer
• Bottom-up approach : start with a small number and then build up and increase the number until you get your answer

To answer market sizing questions, decide which approach you want to take, outline the steps you would take to calculate the market size, and then walk the interviewer through your assumptions and calculations.

Example : What is the size of the contact lenses market in the United States?

Using a top-down approach, we can answer this question by taking the following steps:  

• Start with the population of the United States
• Segment the population by age
• Estimate the percentage of people in each age group with vision problems
• Estimate the percentage of people that wear contact lenses
• Estimate the number of pairs of contact lenses each person wears per year
• Multiply all of these figures to calculate the market size

Starting with the United States population, assume there are 320 million people. Assume that life expectancy is 80 years and there is a uniform distribution of ages.

Let’s segment the population into four age groups, 0 to 20-year-olds, 21 to 40-year-olds, 41 to 60-year-olds, and 61 to 80-year-olds. There are 80 million people in each age group.

Let’s assume that 20% of people in the first age group have vision problems, 30% in the second group, 50% in the third group, and 50% in the fourth group.

This gives us 16 million people in the first age group, 24 million people in the second group, 40 million people in the third group, and 40 million people in the fourth group. This gives us a total of 120 million people that have vision problems.

Assume that a third of people wear contact lenses versus wear glasses. This means 40 million people wear contact lenses.

If each person uses 2 pairs of contact lenses a month, that is 24 pairs of contact lenses a year.

Multiplying 40 million people with 24 pairs gives us 960 million pairs of contact lenses that are used each year.

If a pair of contact lenses costs $5 on average, then the market size of contact lenses is 960 million pairs times $5, which is $4.8 billion.

15. Do You Have any Questions?

The final common consulting interview question is “do you have any questions for me?” Almost all consulting interviewers will try to leave time at the end of the interview for you to ask questions at the end of the interview .

Asking meaningful questions to the interviewer is a great opportunity to connect with the interviewer on a more personal level. Additionally, it is another opportunity to show how interested you are in consulting and in the firm that you are interviewing for.

If you ask the right questions, you can leave the interviewer with a positive and memorable last impression. If you ask the wrong questions, you can leave the interviewer with a negative last impression or they may forget who you are by the end of the day.

Therefore, carefully prepare what questions you’d like to ask at the end of the interview.

Here are a few examples of great questions you can ask:

• What was the most challenging case that you worked on?
• What has been your favorite case so far?
• What do you enjoy the most and the least about your job?
• Looking back at your first year in consulting, what would you have done differently?
• What are attributes or qualities of the most successful consultants?
• What advice would you give to an incoming consultant?
• What do you see as the biggest opportunities or challenges for the company?
• How do the core values of the firm impact how the firm’s employees work with each other and clients?

Land your Dream Consulting Job

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• The 1%: Conquer Your Consulting Case Interview
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• McKinsey Solve Game (Imbellus)
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McKinsey Case Interview Guide 2024 (by former Interviewers)

Last Updated on March 27, 2024

The McKinsey case interview, also called the Problem-Solving Interview by the firm, is a crucial and defining element of the consulting recruitment process for one of the world’s most prestigious management consulting firms. This unique type of interview assesses a candidate’s analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, as well as their ability to think critically under pressure.

With a reputation for being challenging and rigorous, the McKinsey case interview is often seen as a significant hurdle for aspiring consultants to overcome. Forbes ranked McKinsey’s interview process as the most difficult across all firms globally and the case plays a crucial role in that evaluation, besides the Personal Experience Interview .

Recognizing the importance of thorough preparation, this article aims to become the go-to resource for candidates worldwide who are seeking to excel in the McKinsey case interview and want to kickstart their McKinsey careers. By providing comprehensive insights, practical tips, and concrete examples, our goal is to equip you with the knowledge and confidence required to stand out in the competitive world of management consulting.

As former McKinsey consultants and interview experts, we have specialized in helping our candidates to effectively tackle this part of the McKinsey assessment. We found that the information on the McKinsey application process and specifically the case interviews is often wrong, outdated, or assumed to be the same as for every other consulting firm, and written by ‘experts’, who have never conducted an interview at McKinsey or even seen a McKinsey office from the inside.

As a consequence, the advice given can be detrimental to your recruiting success with the firm.

In this article, we want to shed some light on this mysterious, often-talked-about, even more often misunderstood interview. For those overcoming McKinsey case interview challenges, our article serves as a comprehensive guide, infused with McKinsey interview tips and tailored strategies that resonate with interviewers.

McKinsey’s Interview Process

Overview of the recruitment process.

Discover advanced techniques for McKinsey case studies and understand the McKinsey interview process, setting a solid foundation for your case interview preparation. The McKinsey recruitment process typically consists of the following stages:

• Application submission: Candidates submit their resume , cover letter , and academic transcripts online.
• Online assessments: Selected candidates may be invited to complete an online assessment, the McKinsey Solve Game (previously known as the Imbellus test, or Problem Solving Game/PSG)
• First-round interviews: Successful candidates progress to first-round interviews, which typically involve two separate interviews, each consisting of a Personal Experience Interview (PEI) and a case interview.
• Final-round interviews: Candidates who excel in the first round are invited to final-round interviews, which usually consist of two to three separate interviews with more senior McKinsey consultants or partners, again featuring a PEI and a case interview in each session.
• Offer decision: Following the final round, the interviewers of the firm decide on whether to extend an offer to the candidate.

The Personal Experience Interview (PEI)

The Personal Experience Interview (PEI) is a critical component of McKinsey’s interview process. During the PEI, the interviewer will ask the candidate to share a specific example from their past experiences that demonstrates one of McKinsey’s core values, such as leadership, personal impact, or the ability to deal with change. Candidates should prepare concise and compelling stories that highlight their achievements, challenges faced, and the lessons learned. The PEI aims to assess the candidate’s interpersonal skills, self-awareness, and overall fit with McKinsey’s culture.

To read more on this part of the interview, follow these links:

McKinsey Personal Experience Interview

McKinsey PEI: Courageous Change

McKinsey PEI: Inclusive Leadership

McKinsey PEI: Personal Impact

The Case Interview (Problem-Solving Interview)

The case interview is the centerpiece of McKinsey’s interview process. In this interview, the candidate is presented with a real-life or hypothetical business problem, which they must analyze and solve. The interviewer will assess the candidate’s ability to structure the problem, analyze data, generate insights, and communicate recommendations effectively.

During the case interview, candidates should exhibit strong problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills, as well as the ability to think critically under pressure. Preparing for the case interview involves practicing a variety of cases, developing essential skills, and understanding the McKinsey case interview framework (more on that below).

How to prepare for McKinsey case interviews encompasses more than just understanding consulting case frameworks; it involves a deep dive into McKinsey case interview examples and solutions.

McKinsey Interview Video Academy

Look behind the curtains and understand how to ace McKinsey Case and Personal Experience Interviews with our 40-part video academy. Curated by former McKinsey consultants and interviewers with the best track record in the industry.

Understanding the McKinsey Case Interview

What is a case interview.

A case interview is a unique type of job interview that tests a candidate’s ability to analyze, solve, and communicate complex business problems. During a case interview, the interviewer presents a real-life or hypothetical business scenario, and the candidate is expected to analyze the situation, identify the key issues, and propose a strategic solution. The case interview format allows the interviewer to evaluate a candidate’s problem-solving, analytical, and interpersonal skills, which are essential for a successful career in management consulting.

Why does McKinsey use case interviews?

McKinsey & Company uses case interviews as a key component of its recruitment process for several reasons. First, the case interview format closely simulates the work environment and tasks that consultants face daily, providing the firm with a more accurate assessment of a candidate’s potential performance. Second, case interviews allow McKinsey to evaluate a candidate’s ability to think critically, structure complex problems, and communicate effectively under pressure – skills that are crucial for consultants who must deliver high-quality solutions to clients. Lastly, case interviews serve as a consistent and objective measure of a candidate’s capabilities, enabling the firm to compare candidates from diverse backgrounds fairly and accurately.

Regarding the last point, McKinsey invests significantly into creating an objective recruitment procedure with the cases. Interviewers are selected from the top performers of the firm, go through rigorous interviewer training, and shadow other interviewers in live interviews before being allowed to conduct interviews themselves.

Cases are created in a thorough training seminar based on stringent criteria that standardize difficulty levels across the globe. Also, the interviewer-led format allows for a more objective evaluation compared to the candidate-led format employed by most other firms. More on that next.

What is different in McKinsey’s interview format?

The McKinsey Problem Solving Interview is a typical case interview as it is employed by most consulting firms to test the analytical capabilities and communication skills of applicants. However, it comes with a twist. The interview simulates a client situation, where you are tasked to solve a specific business problem that they are facing.

You will have to answer a succession of several questions rather than driving the case yourself as would be the case in other consulting firms. Within the interview, which is a dialogue between you and the interviewer, you need to structure problems, propose concrete ideas, gather information, spot insights in data and charts, solve quantitative problems, and communicate professionally and calmly.

The case is the hardest part for most candidates since it involves several different skills that need to be demonstrated consistently across all questions and multiple cases in succession. Depending on the office, applicants need to go through four to six case interviews before receiving an offer. They need to convince the interviewers in all cases to start their McKinsey careers.

Types of cases you may encounter

During a McKinsey case interview, candidates may encounter a variety of case types that cover different industries, functions, and challenges. The following is just a selection of potential case problems that you would need to solve.

• Market entry: Evaluating the attractiveness of entering a new market or launching a new product or service.
• Growth strategy: Identifying opportunities for a company to grow its revenue, market share, or profitability.
• Mergers and acquisitions: Assessing the feasibility and potential value of merging with or acquiring another company.
• Cost reduction: Identifying areas for cost savings and efficiency improvements in a company’s operations or supply chain.
• Pricing strategy: Determining the optimal pricing structure for a product or service to maximize revenue or profit.
• Organizational restructuring: Evaluating changes to a company’s organizational structure or management processes to improve performance.
• Operational improvements: Figure out and improve operational issues.

While the specifics of each case may differ, the core skills required to tackle these cases – such as structuring, data analysis, and problem-solving – remain consistent across all case types.

On top of that, McKinsey cases have become much more creative over the last couple of years, hence, using memorized and established frameworks will never serve you well . Rather it is important to approach every McKinsey case from a first-principles approach. While you might expect a case in a market entry context, it is almost guaranteed that you will have to create a non-standard case framework.

Consider as a case context an EV manufacturer that wants to enter the Chinese market.

What most candidates expect the framework question to look like: What factors would you look at when deciding whether to enter the Chinese EV market?

How an actual McKinsey framework question could look like: What key product characteristics would you consider and analyze when looking at the Chinese EV market?

No standardized framework would help you in this situation.

For instance, consider another real McKinsey case example.

You are working with an operator of a specific type of machines. They break down at different rates at different locations. What factors can you think of why that would happen? Example of a McKinsey Case Interview Structure Questions

There is not a single memorized framework bucket that would work here.

Let us look at an example answer for this prompt.

Less than 1% of candidates make it through the recruiting filters of McKinsey. You want to provide insights that the interviewer has not heard before and not be just like the other 99% that fail to impress.

Learning how to deconstruct problems is the key to success, not memorizing outdated approaches and frameworks of yesteryear.

What is the Format of the McKinsey Case?

A typical McKinsey case follows the PEI in a one-hour interview session. It lasts for 25 to 30 minutes in an interviewer-led format , meaning that the interviewer takes the lead and guides you through the case. Your role as the interviewee is to answer the questions asked by the interviewer before they move on to the next question. While it is the interviewer’s responsibility to provide hints and move you through the different questions, you should take the lead with each question.

Depending on your performance and speed, you will be asked three to six questions . Question types are:

• Structuring / Initial Case Framework
• Data and Chart Analysis
• Structuring / Brainstorming

Recommendations are usually not part of the evaluation, though they might come up now and then.

Only receiving three questions is a positive sign since the interviewer was happy with your answers to each question. Going above three questions usually happens when the interviewer wants to dig deeper into a specific question type to see if the quality of a previous answer to a similar question was just an outlier or can be confirmed with a second question.

Most candidates need more than three questions to convince the interviewer, so don’t be scared when your case gets a little bit longer and consists of more than three questions.

Some offices also offer a McKinsey phone case interview as a first screening device, which follows the same structure as an in-person interview.

Is the McKinsey Case Interview Different From a BCG or Bain Interview?

While there are many similarities between McKinsey interviews and interviews with other firms, McKinsey interviews are interviewer-led, while other firms employ a candidate-led format .

McKinsey, BCG, and Bain cases have certain things in common:

• The elements of the cases are the same. You will have to structure problems, interpret exhibits, and work through some calculations, come up with recommendations or implications, etc.
• The skills that are assessed are the same. You need to exhibit strong problem-solving skills, creativity, ability to work under pressure, top-down communication, etc.

However, there is one key difference:

• In interviewer-led cases, you take ownership of every question and go into greater detail here, while the interviewer guides you from question to question. In the interviewee-led case, you drive the whole case and have to move along, get the correct information to work with by asking the right questions, and analyze the problem to then deduct a recommendation

In a McKinsey case, the interviewer will guide you through a series of connected questions that you need to answer, synthesize, and develop recommendations from. There are clear directions and a flow of questions, which you need to answer with a hypothesis-driven mindset . These are arguably easier to prepare for and to go through since the flow and types of questions will always be the same.

For McKinsey case interview examples, check the available interviewer-led cases  here .

In a candidate-led BCG case interview or Bain case interview, due to the nature of your role as an investigator, it is much easier to get lost, walk down the wrong branch of the issue tree, and waste a ton of time. While the interviewers will try to influence you to move in the right direction (pay attention to their hints), it is still up to you what elements of the problem you would like to analyze. Each answer should lead to a new question (hypothesis-driven) on your quest to find the root cause of the problem to come up with a recommendation on how to overcome it.

Nonetheless, it is not necessarily easier to convince a McKinsey interviewer, since your answers need to stand out in terms of breadth, depth, and insightfulness. You have more time to develop and discuss each answer but expectations about the quality of your answers are also heightened significantly.

For instance, in an interviewer-led case, candidates are afforded more time to elaborate on their frameworks. This demands not only a comprehensive framework but also one that delves deeper, aiming for three levels of insightful analysis. This depth showcases the candidate’s ability to think critically and provide nuanced insights. The discussion of this framework typically spans 5 to 8 minutes.

Conversely, in candidate-led cases, the strategy shifts. Here, the emphasis is on swiftly identifying and articulating the most critical areas for examination. Candidates must quickly prioritize these areas and then delve into a detailed analysis of the selected issues. This requires a concise yet targeted approach, with the initial framework discussion taking about 2 to 3 minutes. This format tests the candidate’s ability to quickly discern key areas and efficiently manage their analysis under tighter time constraints.

Questions of a McKinsey Case Interview

In the McKinsey interview you will have to answer  three different questions types  – broadly speaking:

• Structuring (includes creating frameworks and brainstorming questions)
• Exhibit Interpretation

Structuring

Structuring includes both the framework creation at the beginning of a case as well as answering brainstorming questions (usually at a later stage of the case).

A case interview structure is used to break the problem you are trying to solve for the client down into smaller problems or components. It is the roadmap you establish at the beginning of the interview that will guide your problem-solving approach throughout the case. A strong initial structure should cover all elements of the situation AND allow you to understand where the problem is coming from. Read more about case interview structure and frameworks here .

A common question would be:

What factors would you look at to understand the problem better? McKinsey framework question

Brainstorming has you come up with specific ideas around a certain topic (in a structured manner). Read more about brainstorming here .

What ideas can you think of that could decrease customer check-out time? McKinsey brainstorming question

Data interpretation

For chart or data interpretation , you are tasked to find the key insights of 1-2 PowerPoint slides and relate them to the case question and the client situation at hand. Read more about exhibit interpretation here .

Case math questions have you analyze a problem mathematically before qualitatively investigating the particular reason for the numerical result or deriving specific recommendations from the outcome. Read more on how to ace case math here .

How to Think About McKinsey Case Questions

Now for  structure and exhibit interpretation , there is no right or wrong answer in a McKinsey interview. Some answers are better than others because they are

• hypothesis-driven
• follow strong communication (MECE, top-down, signposted)

That being said, there is no 100% that you can reach or a one-and-only solution/ answer. Your answers must display the characteristics specified above and are supported well with arguments.

Though numerous strategies exist for tackling a problem, it’s crucial to understand that while there aren’t strictly right or wrong answers, not all approaches are equally effective. The misconception often lies in the belief that there’s a singular correct method, especially when constructing a framework.

In reality, you could employ over ten different strategies to analyze a case or break down a problem, potentially leading to the same analytical results. This versatility and ability to think through various lenses are precisely what McKinsey interviews aim to evaluate.

However, it’s also important to recognize that there are countless ways to miss the mark. This typically happens when your framework is either too narrow or excessively broad, lacks depth, or fails to offer meaningful insights.

As for  math questions , usually, some answers are correct (not always 100% the same since some candidates simplify or round differently – which is ok), and others are wrong, either due to the

• calculation approach
• calculation itself

Now, for the interviewer, the overall picture counts. Mistakes in one area need to be balanced by a strong performance in other areas. McKinsey wants to see spikes in performance in certain areas and a good enough performance in other areas.

The most common example we see almost every day: You can be strong in structure and exhibit, yet make a small mistake in the math section – overall as you might consider 80% – and still pass on to the next round.

Be aware that in 99% of cases, there is no recommendation question in the end. The case just ends with the last case question. This is something many candidates are surprised by when they get out of their McKinsey interviews.

Mastering the McKinsey Case Interview Framework

In the sequence of questions that you receive, you need to demonstrate that you can

• identify the ask;
• structure the problem to investigate it;
• analyze data related to it;
• generate insight and recommendations;
• communicate effectively.

Problem identification

The first step in tackling a McKinsey case interview is to identify the core problem or question that needs to be addressed. Carefully listen to the case prompt and take notes, ensuring that you understand the client’s objectives, the scope of the problem, and any constraints. Clarify any uncertainties with the interviewer before moving forward.

Structuring the problem

Once you have identified the problem, develop a structured approach to address it. Break down the problem into smaller, more manageable components using logical frameworks. Tailor the chosen framework to the specific case, incorporating any unique factors or considerations. Present your structure to the interviewer, explaining your rationale and seeking their input or approval.

Data analysis and interpretation

As you proceed with your structured approach, you may be provided with additional data or information by the interviewer. Analyze the data, using quantitative techniques, such as calculating growth rates, market shares, or breakeven points, to draw meaningful insights. Be prepared to make assumptions or estimates if necessary but ensure they are reasonable and well-justified.

Generating insights and recommendations

Based on your data analysis, develop actionable insights and recommendations that address the client’s objectives. Consider the potential impact, feasibility, and risks associated with each recommendation. Think creatively and strategically, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative factors into your decision-making process.

Synthesis and communication

Finally, synthesize your findings and recommendations into a clear and concise conclusion. Use the “top-down” communication style, starting with your main recommendation, followed by the supporting evidence and insights. Demonstrate strong communication skills by articulating your thought process and recommendations persuasively and confidently. Be prepared to answer any follow-up questions from the interviewer and engage in a discussion to defend or refine your conclusions.

• Pyramid principle communication
• How to communicate in a case interview

In this format, McKinsey assesses in a case interview six skills that you need to demonstrate consistently in every case interview.

Skills Assessed by McKinsey

• Problem-solving: Are you able to derive a MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) framework, breaking a problem down into smaller problems, and accurately covering all aspects of the problem?
• Analytical rigor and logical thinking: Can you link the structure to creative thinking? Are you using a hypothesis-driven approach to your problem solving, i.e. have a clear picture of where you think the solution of the case is buried most likely? Do you qualify your thinking, follow your structure, tackle (likely) high-impact issues first, lead the interviewer, and ask the right questions?
• Mental math and basic calculus : Are you able to structure quantitative problems and comfortably perform calculations? Can you derive the correct approach to calculate the desired outcome variable? Can you plug in the numbers and perform the calculations, relying on basic pen-and-paper math, shortcuts, and mental math?
• Creativity: Do you think about a problem holistically, offering broad, deep, and insightful perspectives? Are you able to come up with different angles to the problem (breadth) and draft rich descriptions that qualify why these areas are important to investigate (depth)?
• Communication: Are you able to communicate like a consultant? Are you following a top-down communication approach similar to the Pyramid Principle taught by Minto? Do all of your statements add value and do you guide the interviewer through your thinking?
• Maturity and presence: Are you leading the conversation or are merely getting dragged along by the interviewer? Are you confident and mature? Are you comfortable with silence while taking time to structure your thinking?
• Business sense and intuition : Are you able to quickly understand the business and the situation of the client? Can you swiftly interpret data, charts, exhibits, and statements made by the interview? Are you asking the right questions? Are you able to make sense of new information quickly and interpret it properly in the context of the case?

Now, these skills are assessed in a very specific interviewing format, which is not natural for most applicants and needs significant practice to become second nature.

You can download this scoring sheet for your case practice here .

Key Strategies to Excel in a McKinsey Case Interview

Using the mece principle.

MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) is a problem-solving principle that helps ensure your analysis is both comprehensive and well-organized. Apply the MECE principle when structuring your approach to a case by breaking down the problem into distinct, non-overlapping components while ensuring that all relevant aspects are covered. This method allows you to maintain a clear and logical structure throughout the case and reduces the likelihood of overlooking critical factors.

Applying the 80/20 rule

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle , suggests that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In the context of a case interview, this means focusing on the most critical issues or factors that will have the most significant impact on the client’s objectives. By prioritizing your analysis and recommendations, you can work more efficiently and effectively, demonstrating your ability to identify and address the most pressing concerns for the client.

Hypothesis-driven approach

Using a hypothesis-driven approach means forming an initial hypothesis or educated guess about the potential solution to the problem and then testing it using data and analysis. By starting with a hypothesis, you can guide your problem-solving process more efficiently, focusing your efforts on collecting evidence that supports or refutes your hypothesis. Throughout the case, be prepared to revise or refine your hypothesis as new information emerges.

Incorporating creativity and business intuition

While frameworks and structured approaches are essential, it’s also crucial to demonstrate creativity and business intuition during a McKinsey case interview. This means thinking beyond the standard frameworks and considering innovative solutions or unique factors that may be relevant to the specific case. Use your knowledge of industry trends, best practices, and real-world business challenges to inform your analysis and recommendations. By combining structured thinking with creative problem-solving, you can showcase your ability to deliver well-rounded, impactful solutions for clients.

Preparing for the McKinsey Case Interview

Most candidates prepare using generic frameworks. Alternatively, they are looking for a McKinsey case book PDF or a case study interview questions and answers PDF with the hope that the cases will be the same across interviewers and interviews.

Do not learn case-specific frameworks by heart , expecting them to work for every case you encounter. There is no specific McKinsey case study framework or McKinsey case study book. It is much more important to learn the right approach that will help you tackle all types of cases. This is even more relevant for McKinsey interviews.

What you need to do is to study each question type and the associated skills in a case interview and learn how to approach it, regardless of the client situation, the context of the case, the industry, or the function. Your goal should be to learn how to build issue trees, interpret charts, and perform math no matter the context, industry, or function of the case, and follow our McKinsey case interview tips.

Similarly to the case types and frameworks, many candidates ask if there is a specific McKinsey implementation case interview, McKinsey operation case interview, or McKinsey digital case interview. In fact, the cases are usually a mix of cases in a domain-relevant context as well as cases set in a completely different context to the role you are applying for.

Be aware that frameworks were applicable in the 2000 years, the era of Victor Cheng and Case in Point. McKinsey has long caught up on this and the cases you will get during the interviews are tailored in a way to test your creativity and ability to generate insights on the spot, not remember specific frameworks.

In fact, it will hurt you when you try to use a framework on a case that calls for a completely different approach. Also, it gives a false sense of security that will translate to stress once you figure out how your approach won’t work during the real interview – We have seen this way too often…

Rather, focus on the following:

Developing the right mindset

Success in the McKinsey case interview starts with cultivating the right mindset. Being mentally prepared involves:

• Embracing a growth mindset: Recognize that your skills can improve with consistent practice and effort. Stay open to feedback from coaches and peers and learn from your mistakes.
• Building resilience: Understand that case interviews are challenging, and you may face setbacks during your preparation. Stay persistent and maintain a positive attitude. Use a proper case interview preparation plan .
• Adopting a client-first perspective: Approach each case as if you were a consultant working on a real client engagement, focusing on delivering value and actionable insights.

Learning the essential skills

To excel in the McKinsey case interview, it’s crucial to develop the following skills:

• Problem structuring: Break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable components using frameworks and logical structures.
• Qualitative and quantitative analysis: Interpret and analyze data to draw meaningful insights and make informed decisions.
• Hypothesis-driven thinking: Develop and test hypotheses to guide your problem-solving approach efficiently.
• Communication: Clearly articulate your thought process, insights, and recommendations concisely and persuasively.

Our courses and drills are designed to provide you with the precise knowledge you need. Drawing on our experience as former McKinsey interviewers, we understand what matters most and how to ensure you can leverage that to your advantage.

More on that next.

Studying relevant materials and resources

Leverage various resources to enhance your understanding of case interviews and management consulting:

• Books: The most effective and exhaustive case interview preparation book is The 1%: Conquer Your Consulting Case Interview (shameless plug). It goes much deeper than the usual suspects which are outdated and provide faulty advice on case interviews.
• Websites and blogs : Websites like StrategyCase.com offer the latest case interview tips, practice cases, and industry insights. You can check out more free articles covering consulting applications and interviews here .
• Online courses: Enroll in case interview preparation courses to gain structured guidance and access to a wealth of practice materials. We have created several high-quality courses for all elements of the McKinsey interview (see below)

We are the highest ranked and most successful case coaches on the web and have helped 100s of candidates break into McKinsey. As former McKinsey consultants and interview experts, we have specialized in getting our candidates into the firm. We can help you by

• tailoring your resume and cover letter to meet McKinsey’s standards
• showing you how to pass the McKinsey Imbellus Solve Game
• showing you how to ace McKinsey interviews and the PEI with our video academy
• coaching you in our 1-on-1 sessions to become an excellent case solver and impress with your fit answers (90% success rate after 5 sessions)
• preparing your math to be bulletproof for every McKinsey case interview
• helping you structure creative and complex McKinsey cases
• teaching you how to interpret McKinsey charts and exhibits
• providing you with cheat sheets and overviews for 27 industries .

Reach out to us if you have any questions! We are happy to help and offer a tailored program.

Practicing with case partners

Regular practice with case partners is essential for honing your case interview skills:

• Find practice partners: Connect with fellow candidates through online forums, social media groups, or local consulting clubs.
• Set a practice schedule: Aim to practice at least a few cases per week, gradually increasing the difficulty and variety of cases.
• Seek feedback: After each practice case, discuss your performance with your partner, and identify areas for improvement.
• Alternate roles: Take turns playing the role of the interviewer and the interviewee to develop a deeper understanding of the case interview process.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Common mistakes.

• Insufficient structure: Failing to break down the problem into manageable components can lead to a disorganized analysis and an inability to identify key issues.
• Overlooking the big picture: Becoming too focused on the details and losing sight of the overall objective or client’s needs can hinder the development of effective recommendations.
• Ignoring qualitative factors: Relying solely on quantitative data without considering qualitative aspects may result in an incomplete understanding of the problem.
• Ineffective communication: Struggling to articulate your thought process, insights, or recommendations clearly and persuasively can undermine the value of your analysis.
• Failing to adapt: Sticking to a preconceived framework or hypothesis despite conflicting evidence may indicate a lack of flexibility and critical thinking.

Tips to prevent these mistakes

• Practice structuring: Develop your ability to structure problems effectively by practicing with a wide range of cases and familiarizing yourself with common frameworks.
• Stay focused on the objective: Periodically remind yourself of the client’s goals and priorities, ensuring that your analysis remains aligned with their needs.
• Balance quantitative and qualitative factors: Recognize the importance of both quantitative data and qualitative insights in forming a well-rounded understanding of the problem.
• Hone your communication skills: Practice speaking clearly, concisely, and persuasively, ensuring that your message is easily understood and well-received.
• Embrace adaptability: Be open to revising your approach, framework, or hypothesis in response to new information or feedback, demonstrating your ability to think critically and flexibly.

McKinsey Interview Course

Unlock the Secrets to Acing McKinsey Interviews with Our Comprehensive Training Program

Are you eager to dive deep into mastering the McKinsey interviews? Look no further than our extensive 40-part Ready-for-McKinsey Interview Academy . This exceptional video program features simulated McKinsey-specific case studies and in-depth coverage of all Personal Experience Interview (PEI) dimensions and stories. Our Interview Academy is the ultimate resource to prepare you for success in your McKinsey case interviews.

We take pride in our results: an impressive 9 out of 10 candidates who complete our one-on-one Ready-for-McKinsey Interview Coaching program receive an offer. This track record has earned us consistent recognition as the best McKinsey and MBB coaches on several platforms.

Frequently Asked Questions McKinsey Case Interview

How can candidates best manage their time during the case interview to ensure they cover all necessary aspects of the case without running out of time? Candidates can manage their time effectively by quickly understanding the case prompt, structuring their approach clearly, prioritizing key analyses, staying focused on the most critical issues, and keeping an eye on the time to ensure they cover all necessary aspects without running out of time​ ​. However, keep in mind that it is also the McKinsey interviewer’s responsibility to go through all necessary elements of the case within the allotted time. If you are too slow (problematic) or too exhaustive yet add value to the question (not problematic), they might move the case forward on their own.

What are the most common reasons candidates fail in McKinsey case interviews, and how can these pitfalls be avoided? Common reasons for failure include lack of structure in problem-solving, missing key insights by not delving deep enough into the data, poor communication of thought process, and inability to adapt to new information. These pitfalls can be avoided by practicing structured problem-solving, actively engaging with the data, clearly articulating thought processes, and being flexible to pivot as needed​ ​.

Can you provide examples of unexpected or unconventional case types that have appeared in McKinsey interviews in recent years? Recent McKinsey interviews have featured cases beyond traditional business scenarios, such as identifying the right stakeholders to talk to in a situation or identifying reasons why an app has a low customer retention rate.

How does McKinsey adjust its case interview process for candidates with non-business backgrounds, such as those from engineering or humanities? McKinsey’s case interview process for candidates with non-business backgrounds is the same as for candidates with a business background. All cases focus on problem-solving skills and potential rather than specific business knowledge. Candidates are evaluated on their ability to structure problems, analyze data, and think critically, with the understanding that business-specific knowledge can be learned​ ​. This article not only outlines tips for passing McKinsey consulting interviews but also addresses preparing for McKinsey interviews without a business background, ensuring a holistic approach to your consulting journey.

What specific aspects of a candidate’s performance are McKinsey interviewers most focused on during the case interview? McKinsey interviewers focus on problem-solving skills, the ability to structure and analyze complex issues, creativity in developing solutions, clear and concise communication, and the potential for leadership and impact​ ​. They are looking for candidates with a well-rounded profile that have performance spikes in some areas and a robust performance in others (without clear weaknesses).

How does the difficulty level of McKinsey’s case interviews compare to real consulting projects at McKinsey? The difficulty level of McKinsey’s case interviews is designed to be comparable to the challenges faced in real consulting projects. They simulate the complex, ambiguous problems consultants tackle, testing candidates’ ability to navigate similar challenges effectively​ ​. The main difference is that they are simplified to the extent that it is feasible to go through them in 25 minutes.

Are there any particular industries or business functions that McKinsey is focusing on in its current case interviews due to market trends or strategic priorities of the firm? While McKinsey’s case interviews cover a wide range of industries and functions, there may be a focus on emerging areas of strategic importance such as digital transformation, sustainability, healthcare innovation, and analytics, reflecting broader market trends and the firm’s current priorities​ ​.

How has the transition to more virtual interviews affected the case interview process and candidates’ performance from McKinsey’s perspective? The transition to more virtual interviews has required adjustments in how cases are presented and how candidates engage with the material. While the core evaluation criteria remain unchanged, McKinsey has adapted to ensure a fair assessment, paying close attention to communication and problem-solving skills in a virtual format​ ​.

What advice do former candidates who successfully passed the McKinsey case interview have for future applicants? Former candidates advise practicing as much as possible, understanding the case interview format, focusing on structured problem-solving, developing clear and concise communication skills, being prepared to think on one’s feet, and demonstrating leadership potential and personal impact​ ​.

How can candidates incorporate feedback from practice sessions into improving their performance for the actual McKinsey case interview? Candidates can improve their performance by actively seeking feedback from practice sessions, identifying areas for improvement, working on specific skills such as structuring or analysis, practicing under realistic conditions (e.g., timed), and continuously refining their approach based on feedback​ ​.

In summary, acing the McKinsey case interview requires a deep understanding of the interview process, mastery of essential skills, and the ability to apply effective problem-solving strategies. In this article, we highlighted the key strategies for McKinsey problem-solving interviews, ensuring your preparation aligns with the best practices for McKinsey interview preparation. By embracing the MECE principle, applying the 80/20 rule, adopting a hypothesis-driven approach, and incorporating creativity and business intuition, you will be well-equipped to tackle any case interview challenge.

Remember to invest time in preparing for both the Personal Experience Interview and the case interview itself, using the wealth of resources and practice materials available. Focus on developing a structured approach, honing your analytical and communication skills, and staying adaptable throughout the interview process.

As you embark on your McKinsey case interview journey, stay confident and persistent in your efforts. By applying the tips and strategies shared in this article, you will be one step closer to achieving your consulting career aspirations. We wish you the best of luck in your journey toward success at McKinsey.

We Want to Hear from You!

Your journey to mastering the McKinsey case interview is unique, and you might have lingering questions or insights you’d like to share. Whether you’re curious about specific parts of the McKinsey interview process, seeking further clarification on case interview preparation strategies, or have your own tips for navigating the challenges of consulting interviews, we’re here to engage and assist.

Drop your questions, experiences, or advice in the comments below.

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Florian spent 5 years with McKinsey as a senior consultant. He is an experienced consulting interviewer and problem-solving coach, having interviewed 100s of candidates in real and mock interviews. He started StrategyCase.com to make top-tier consulting firms more accessible for top talent, using tailored and up-to-date know-how about their recruiting. He ranks as the most successful consulting case and fit interview coach, generating more than 500 offers with MBB, tier-2 firms, Big 4 consulting divisions, in-house consultancies, and boutique firms through direct coaching of his clients over the last 3.5 years. His books “The 1%: Conquer Your Consulting Case Interview” and “Consulting Career Secrets” are available via Amazon.

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31 consulting interview questions (from McKinsey, BCG, etc.)

Today we’re going to show you the types of consulting interview questions that you’d typically face at companies like McKinsey , BCG , Bain , etc.

These are the same types of practice questions used by the 7,700+ candidates whom we’ve helped to get offers from consulting companies.

And here’s one of the first things you’ll want to know:

Consulting firms ask four broad categories of interview questions, and you’ll need to be ready to answer questions from each of them. 

Let's jump right into the following:

• Fit questions
• Behavioural (PEI) questions
• Market sizing questions
• Case interview questions
• How to prepare for consulting interviews

Click here to practise 1-on-1 with MBB ex-interviewers

1. fit questions.

Fit questions are used to evaluate whether a candidate will thrive within a specific consulting firm. Interviewers know that the candidates who are most likely to be their top performers will be the people who love the company’s culture, people, and projects.  You can learn more about fit questions, and how to answer them, in our case interview guide .

Below are several typical questions used to test a candidate’s company “fit.” It's worth mentioning that these are REAL interview questions that were originally reported by candidates on Glassdoor.com. We've just rephrased the questions in some places for better readability. 

Example fit questions

• Why firm X?  
• Why consulting?
• Walk me through your resume
• Tell me something not on your resume 
• Tell me about your greatest accomplishment
• Why choose location X?
• What’s your 5-year plan?

2. Behavioural (PEI) questions

Behavioural questions, which are sometimes also called Personal Experience Interview (PEI) questions, are used to assess candidates on three primary skills: leadership, entrepreneurial drive, and personal impact.  You can learn more about these questions, and how to answer them, in our PEI interview guide .

Below are several typical  behavioural / PEI questions. Again, these are real interview questions that were originally reported by candidates on Glassdoor.com. We've just rephrased the questions in some places for better readability.

Example behavioural (PEI) questions

• Tell me about a situation when you had to change someone’s opinion
• Tell me about a situation in which you disagreed with someone
• Tell me about a time you had to resolve a conflict in a team setting
• Tell me about a challenging situation with a tight deadline
• Give me an example of how you handled a crisis
• Name the biggest obstacle you’ve had in your career, and how you overcame it
• Tell me about a time when you influenced without authority
• Tell me about a project that you have led

3. Market sizing questions

Market sizing questions are used to assess a candidate’s maths skills, and their ability to logically solve problems without any provided data. Market sizing questions are often asked at the beginning of consulting case interviews (more on those later). 

Below are several typical market sizing  questions. T o learn more about market sizing questions, and to see the original sources and solutions for each of the below questions, visit our market sizing questions guide . 

Example market sizing questions

• How many t-shirts are purchased in New York City in a given year? 
• Provide an estimate for the number of dentists currently working in the UK 
• What is the yearly market size for smartphones in the USA?
• Estimate the market size for televisions in Poland
• Calculate the market size for weddings in the UK
• Calculate the market size for medical consumables in GP practices 
• Estimate how many women in the USA play golf 
• What is the size of the sandwich market in India?

4. Case interview questions

A case interview simulates the conditions of a real consulting project, so that your interviewer can evaluate how you would perform on the job. Case interviews usually start with a broad question or statement that provides context on the business, then the case will evolve with a series of additional questions or considerations.

Below are paraphrased versions of the opening questions for several case interviews. Each of the cases below are from McKinsey, BCG, and other leading firms. Click the corresponding link to see the full case. And for a larger list of example case interviews, check out our case interview examples article .

Example case interview questions

• Should the Diconsa network be used to provide financial services? (See the full McKinsey case )
• Should SuperSoda launch a new sports drink product? And how? (See the full McKinsey case )
• How should Foods Inc. approach its distribution strategy for cereal? (See the full BCG case )
• How should GenCo increase revenues? (See the full BCG case )
• Should your friend open a coffee shop in Cambridge? (See the full Bain case )
• Why have FashionCo’s revenues declined over the past 5 years? And what should they do about it? (See the full Bain case )
• How should Duraflex change its strategy for their work boot products? (See the full Deloitte case )

Why Are WumbleWorld’s theme park profits declining? And how should they turn the situation around? (See the full Oliver Wyman case )

5. How to prepare for consulting interviews

Most people won’t be ready to flawlessly solve any of the above consulting interview questions without preparing first. 

To make the most of your practise time and to maximise your chances of landing a consulting offer, we’d recommend you take the following preparation steps:

Learn a consistent method

Having a framework will help you structure your answers logically and minimise your potential for mistakes. For each category of questions above, we have a separate free guide that will help you develop a consistent approach for answering questions successfully. 

Here’s a quick list of those resources:

• For fit questions , study the fit / PEI section of our case interview guide .
• For behavioural / PEI questions , you can dig deeper with our McKinsey PEI guide .
• For market sizing questions , check out our in-depth market sizing guide .
• For case interview questions , review our guide on case interview frameworks .

Practise on your own

Once you’ve learned a repeatable approach for a given category of questions, we recommend answering lots of questions until it starts to come naturally. The question list above provides an excellent starting point. 

And once you’ve used all the questions above, here’s where you can find even more:

• For fit questions , you can find a few under “other” in our case interview guide .
• For PEI questions , you can find several more examples in our McKinsey PEI guide .
• For market sizing questions , look in our separate market sizing questions guide . 
• For case interview questions , check out our case interview examples article . 

We also recommend interviewing yourself out loud, by asking yourself questions and responding to them. This may sound strange, but it will dramatically improve the way you communicate your answers during interviews.

Practise with others

Practising by yourself is a great way to get started, and can help you get more comfortable with the flow of a case interview. However, this type of practice won’t prepare you for realistic interview conditions.

After getting some practice on your own, you should find someone who can do a mock interview with you, like a friend or family member.

We’d also recommend that you practise 1-1 with ex-interviewers from a top consulting firm. This is the best way to replicate the conditions of a real case interview, and to get feedback from someone who understands the process extremely well. Meet our MBB ex-interviewers who’d love to work with you.

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Consulting Case Interview Questions

Cracking the Case Interview: Your Guide to Sample Questions and Answers

Matthew started his finance career working as an investment banking analyst for Falcon Capital Partners, a healthcare IT boutique, before moving on to  work for Raymond James  Financial, Inc in their specialty finance coverage group in Atlanta. Matthew then started in a role in corporate development at Babcock & Wilcox before moving to a corporate development associate role with Caesars Entertainment Corporation where he currently is. Matthew provides support to Caesars'  M&A  processes including evaluating inbound teasers/ CIMs  to identify possible acquisition targets, due diligence, constructing  financial models , corporate valuation, and interacting with potential acquisition targets.

Matthew has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in German from University of North Carolina.

Austin has been working with Ernst & Young for over four years, starting as a senior consultant before being promoted to a manager. At EY, he focuses on strategy, process and operations improvement, and business transformation consulting services focused on health provider, payer, and public health organizations. Austin specializes in the health industry but supports clients across multiple industries.

Austin has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and a Masters of Business Administration in Strategy, Management and Organization, both from the University of Michigan.

Consulting Case Interview Example

• How Are Management Consulting Case Interviews Graded?

Full WSO Consulting Case Interview Prep Guide & Additional Resources

Consulting is among the most sought profession by business management graduates. The top three consulting firms are abbreviated as MBB ( McKinsey , Boston Consulting Group , and Bain ), also known as the Big Three .

Since most consultancy firms work on various kinds of problems, they look to hire people with the best critical thinking abilities who can tackle challenges faced by their clients by applying well-known frameworks for problem-solving.

Hence, most consulting firms rely on case studies as a crucial part of the interview process. Nailing these case studies can be the difference between landing a role as a consultant or leaving empty-handed from an interview.

However, most case studies can be solved with existing frameworks like Porter’s five forces, SWOT analysis , and the 4 Ps. Learning these frameworks and walking through them during the interview helps differentiate yourself as a star candidate.

We strongly believe it’s a great place to start your preparation before investing in our more comprehensive Consulting Case Interview Course, which features more than 2,000 questions.

Consulting Case Interview Tips

• Prepare to be assessed on your thinking and problem-solving abilities.
• Familiarize yourself with frameworks like Porter's five forces and SWOT analysis.
• Note essential information and critical relationships in the case study.
• Use proven approaches and frameworks to analyze and answer questions during the interview.
• Candidates are evaluated on demeanor, structure, communication, math proficiency, and creativity.

Everything You Need To Break into the Top Consulting Firms

Land at an Elite Consulting Firm with the Most Comprehensive Case Interview Prep Course in the World.

Every case study interview starts by providing some background information on the case, which helps you understand the problem you are tasked with finding a solution to. It is essential to separate the necessary information from the useless ones, as this skill is highly sought after. 

Also, make sure to note down all the critical relationships between the date provided. For example, suppose the case first mentions that profits have been declining, and later mentions something about reducing marketing costs.

In that case, it’s a good idea to jot down that it might be a factor in lowering profits (reduction in marketing costs means lower revenue, which in turn means lower yields).

For this sample case, we will use the example of Cali Cable and present it just like how an interviewer would.

Sample Case Prep: Cali Cable

Cali Cable is a small business that operates in northern California. Their core business is installing cable infrastructure in residential neighborhoods so that the homes have access to cable television. Cali Cable has manufactured its own cable since it has been in existence. 

However, the factory is out of date and must be shut down. The CEO does not want to open a new factory because it will be expensive, costing as much as $15 per foot of cable. Therefore, he is considering outsourcing cable manufacturing from either a local supplier, an Asian supplier, or an Eastern European supplier. 

He is experiencing problems with the local supplier, so he asked the COO to find the most cost-effective way to find a reliable cable supplier elsewhere. You are assigned to work with the COO to find the best course of action.

Sample Consulting Interview Questions and Frameworks

Based on the case study above, the interviewer will proceed to ask you questions that test your critical thinking and analysis skills. Hence, it is very important to properly understand the case first, ask the right questions, and follow a proven approach.

1. How should the COO approach outsourcing?

Framework:  A 2x2 for an outsourcing case is a valuable framework.

• For the x-axis competitiveness, the candidate should consider Cali Cable’s effectiveness in terms of costs. 
• For strategic importance, the candidate should think about how the cable is important to the company’s overall goals. For example, how is the quality of an outsourced line going to threaten customer satisfaction?

The candidate should also consider the costs and risks of outsourcing. The tree below could be useful.

2. The COO approaches you. She has collected some data and wants you to analyze it and prepare a PowerPoint presentation slide for a meeting with the CEO. The template for the slide is as follows.

The COO has found that the Asian supplier will charge $7 per foot of cable with a fixed payment of $600,000 per year. The Eastern European supplier will charge $6 per foot of cable and $800,000 in fixed costs. Complete the blank slide for the COO plotting the total cost per foot for the two different options for 100K, 200K, 300K, and 400K feet.

Answer:  The candidate is instructed to create her own slide on her scratch paper.

You should immediately recognize the economies of scale resulting from the fixed  cost structure of the two outsourcing options. If not, try to explain the graph. All three plants cost $10 per foot at 200,000 units, but the Asian and Eastern European plants enjoy the benefits of scale beyond this point.

The Eastern European plant becomes the clear cost leader past 200,000 units.

3. The COO thinks she has a good feel for demand based on historical data. She calls you and says, ‘for the past few years, Cali Cable has used about 50 miles of cable per year, so we’ll order 50 miles of cable from our new supplier for next year.’ What should you tell her?

Considering the standard deviation and service level, how much cable should be ordered annually how much will cali cable save compared to the local supplier if it goes with the eastern european option.

Answer:  Because the COO wants to satisfy demand 98% of the time, the 400,000 feet of cable is the relevant footage on the x-axis of the cost graph. With the Eastern European plant costing $8 per foot for 400,000 units, Cali Cable will save $800,000 per year ($2 times 400K feet).

4. What else should the COO consider to reduce costs?

Answer:  Consider at least four different options. We have highlighted the four below:

• Warehouse: store any excess supply in a warehouse and adjust order levels for the next year. Inventory carrying costs should be compared to the costs of mismatching supply and demand. 
• Increase the number of orders: annual orders result in costs from stock-outs or excess supply. If Cali Cable can order throughout the year, it can better match supply and demand. 
• Shorten lead times: this could also fall under increasing the number of orders. Shorter lead times from the supplier to Cali Cable will allow them to postpone ordering and have more information about demand forecasts. 
• Explore other options and suppliers: for example, when demand exceeds supply, locate excess capacity at other cable operations or use the local supplier at $10 per foot when the cable is needed. This allows Cali Cable to order less.
• Better forecasting: find a more accurate way to forecast demand or have customers commit to quantities in advance.

5. What are some of the risks to outsourcing to Asia or Eastern Europe?

Answer:  There are many different risks to consider. We have named a few below under the relevant bucket.

• Product Risks: Will the cable be compatible with American cables and televisions? Are there any risks to the cable becoming obsolete? With the growth in high definition, 3D, and internet television, the supplier needs to be able to stay up to date with technology. 
• Company Risks: Is the Eastern European or Asia supplier a sustainable company that will be able to deliver into the future? If Cali Cable sources exclusively from a new supplier, their fortunes are tied.
• Operational Risks: Will the new supplier be successfully integrated with the supply chain logistics at Cali Cable? Are there any risks to shipping cable from Europe or Asia? Will it be shipped via boat or plane? What are the lead times? How reliable is this company in delivering on time? 
• Customer Service Risks: Will the quality of the cable meet the customer’s expectations? What are the risks to over or under-ordering cable?

6. Using the PowerPoint slide you prepared with the COO, present your recommendation to the CEO.

Recommendation:  The CEO wants the most cost-effective supplier, but the candidate should also mention the reasons behind the decision and the risks involved. A possible recommendation: 

“For our cost structure to remain competitive, it looks like outsourcing is the best option. As long as the outsourced cable meets our quality standards, it appears to align with our corporate strategy . Cali Cable should consider outsourcing its cable from Eastern Europe because it is a low-cost option. 

Show the PowerPoint slide. Due to the fixed cost structure, Cali Cable will enjoy economies of scale with both offshore options, but Eastern Europe appears to be the most attractive. Cali Cable will save $800,000 per year compared to the local supplier and $200,000 per year compared to the Asian supplier. 

Before proceeding, I’d like to find out more about the risks associated with the Eastern European supplier, such as their reliability, quality, ordering processes, and ability to integrate with our supply chain.”

This free guide covers one whole case study question from start to finish and will drastically improve your chances of securing an offer with your dream job.  You can find more tips, tricks, and examples in the free Case Interview Guide created by our friends at Management Consulted.  

How are management consulting case interviews graded?

Interviewers usually grade the candidates over a variety of qualities using a scale ranging from 1 to 10, with one meaning poor and ten meaning star.

We look into the various qualities that are evaluated, as well as questions used to measure them. These questions should give you a good feel for what you need to focus on to ace these consulting interview cases.

• Did she maintain eye contact?
• Did she fidget during the interview?
• Did she appear nervous?
• Did she smile and appear relaxed?
• Was the framework clearly presented on the page?
• Was the math organized and easy to follow on the page?
• Did she keep track of key findings?
• Did the framework provide a road map to solve the case?
• Did she “bucket” or categorize any lists or ideas?
• Did she follow the cadence of clarify, structure, solve, and recommend?

Communication

• Did she speak clearly throughout the interview?
• Was it easy or difficult to follow her ideas?
• Did she try to work with you as a partner in solving the case?

Math Proficiency

• Did she correctly complete all math problems?
• Did she use appropriate assumptions or clarify any ambiguity?
• Did she think out loud so that you could follow the calculations?
• Did she think outside the box?
• Did she mention any current events or recent trends affecting the industry?

Recommendation

• Did she answer the question?
• Was the conclusion clear, confident, and to the point?
• Did she justify the conclusion with the key findings?
• Did she include “next steps” as though she would finish the case?

The case study covered in this free guide was obtained directly from WSO’s very own Consulting Case Interview Guide, which features:

• 2,037 questions across 209 consulting firms
• 11 challenging cases authored by McKinsey Associate
• Five critical frameworks for case interview success

Think about it - if this page alone can set you miles ahead of the competition, imagine what our complete course can do for you.

The WSO Case Interview Course will guide you through each step of the interview process and ensure you’re in the strongest position to land the job at a top-tier consulting firm. Check it out below!

Free Resources

To learn more about interviews and the questions asked, please check out the additional interview resources below:

• Accounting Interview Questions and Answers
• Finance Interview Questions and Answers
• Hedge Funds Interview Questions and Answers
• Investment Banking Interview Questions and Answers
• Private Equity Interview Questions and Answers

Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.

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Case Interview 101: The Online Guidebook

“Case Interview” is the cornerstone of consulting recruitment, playing a decisive role in final results. In 30 minutes, your “consulting” qualities will be tested to the limit as you cruise through a hypothetical “consulting project” with the interviewer.

Yes, this is a BIG topic. The depth of content in this single article is HUGE with various chapters ranging from beginner’s topics to more advanced ones. You would want to bookmark this page and go back often throughout your whole preparation journey.

What is a case interview?

A case interview is a job interview where the candidate is asked to solve a business problem. They are often used by consulting firms, and are among the hardest job interviews, testing both problem-solving skills and “soft” skills. Case interviews often last 30-45 minutes each, and firms can utilize up to 6 case interviews, usually divided into 2 rounds.

Example case questions:

• “We have a restaurant called “In-and-out Burger” with recently falling profits. How can you help?”
• “The CEO of a cement company wants to close one of its plants. Should they do it?”
• “A top 20 bank wants to get in top 5. How can the bank achieve that goal?”

Case interviews are modeled after the course of actions real consultants do in real projects – so success in case interviews is seen by consulting firms as a (partial) indication of a good management consultant.

During the interview, the interviewer will assess your ability to think analytically, probe appropriate questions, and make the most client-friendly pitches. Be noted that the analytical thought process is more important than arriving at correct answers.

Generally, there are 2 styles of conducting cases:  Candidate-led and Interviewer-led. 

Candidate-led cases

On this end, the interviewer rarely intervenes; the candidate will lead the approach from structuring the problem, drawing frameworks, asking for data, synthesizing findings, to proposing solutions. This format can be difficult for beginners but it provides you with much control over the case.

Interviewer-led cases

On this end, the interviewer controls the process in significant ways. He or she has the candidate work on specific parts of the overall problem and sometimes disregards the natural flow of the case. The game here is not to solve the one big problem, but rather to nail every question, every pitch, every mini-case perfectly. Because the evaluation is done on a question basis, the level of insightfulness required is higher.

Most cases will fall somewhere in the middle section of that spectrum, but for educational purposes, we need to learn case interviews from both extremes ends.

Great details in each and every aspect of the case, as well as tips, techniques and study plans are coming in the chapters below. You may skip straight to Chapter 3 if you have business background and confidence in your own understanding of the terminology used in case interviews. 

To better understand or practice candidate-led and interview-led cases, let’s book a personal meeting with our coaches . At MConsultingPrep, you can connect with consulting experts who will help you learn the ins and outs of both cases and the solving approach to each one. Get “real” practice now!

Case interview starter guide for non-business students

All consulting firms claim that all educational backgrounds have equal chances. But no matter what, case interview reflects  real-life business problems and you will, therefore, come across business concepts .

Not everybody has the time to go to a full Business Undergraduate program all over. So through this compact Chapter 2, I will provide you, the non-business people, with every business concept you need in case interviews.

Accounting and financial terms – The language of business

Accounting & Financial Terms are often called the language of business, which is used to communicate the firm’s financial and economic information to external parties such as shareholders and creditors.

There are three basic financial statements : Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Cash Flow Statement.

Balance Sheet

A snapshot of the current stage of the company’s property, debt, and ownership at one given point in time, showing:

• Assets: what the company owns: Building, Equipment, Cash, Inventory, along with some other intangible items.
• Liabilities: what the company owes: Loans, overdrafts, bills to be paid, etc. Debt is like negative assets.
• Equity (Net worth): Calculate by taking Assets subtract Liabilities.

The neat thing about the Balance sheet is that it’s always balanced. Every action, every transaction changes the three components but it’s always in harmony.

Income Statement

A record of the business performance through a period of time , given it a quarter or a year. The Income Statement directly tells you how the company is doing in terms of making money, the heart of any business.

From the top to bottom, the Income Statement shows the Revenues, Costs, and Profits. That’s why often, Profits are referred to as the “bottom line”.

There are a few types of costs to notice – see the two pictures below this table.

One important thing to notice is that even though it may seem like, the Income Statement does NOT necessarily relate to cash. Many times, especially for B2B transactions, the selling happens before the money flow. Therefore, we may have to record revenue without having the cash.

Cash Flow Statement

There’s a famous saying that: Income statement is an opinion, Cash Flow statement is a fact.

The Cash Flow statement just strictly monitors the cash flow in or out, categorized into different sections. Three of them are:

• Operation: illustrates how much cash the company can generate from its products and services.
• Financial: includes the sources of cash from investors or banks and the uses of cash paid to shareholders.
• Investing: includes any sources and uses of cash from a company’s investments.

Upon completion this section, you should be able to read and interpret financial statements for business diagnosis and decision-making.

More importantly, you possess the conceptual base to start solving case interviews on your own. Do not forget that, as with any other language, becoming proficient with accounting and financial terms require constant practice.

Organizational structure – The heart of a company

When it comes to organizational structure, it is important to notice the fine line between the company’s ownership and management .

Technically, at the highest level, there are shareholders . For private companies, the group of shareholders and their shares are not necessarily disclosed and publicly tradable. For public companies, on the other hand, shares are publicly traded on different stock exchanges. One of the most famous is the NYSE, which stands for New York Stock Exchange.

• A company can have one, a few, or millions of individual owners, but being governed by the Board of Directors – a group of people elected by owners, with the President or Chairman being their highest leader.
• The Board usually hires a management team to manage the company. They are led by the Chief Executive Officer – CEO , who makes every decision on day-to-day work. Most of the time, the Board of Directors doesn’t directly intervene in the CEO’s work, but they reserve the right to fire CEOs.
• Besides that, there’s a committee called Supervisors. The supervisor’s job is to independently monitor the CEO and the management team and report to the Board.

Below CEOs, there are two general two ways of structuring the company. One way is through business lines and the other one is through functions. Think of business lines as mini-companies themselves inside the big company.

Within functions, here are a few most typical divisions most companies have:

Business strategy concepts

Even with business students, strategy is a challenging topic – especially with those without a strategy major. These fundamental concepts will get you started.

• Organization: In general, this refers to how a company is organized, what are different components that make up a company
• Governance refers to how a company is managed and directed, how well the leader team runs. The leader team includes the Board of Directors and Board of Managers. A company with good governance has good leadership people, tight control, and effective check & balance processes, etc.
• Process looks like rules and common practices of having a number of processes, entailing every single activity. Process design should include 4 factors: who, what, when, and accompanied tools.

For example, let’s look at Kim’s family picnic process.

• The who part is presented on the y-axis, left-hand side, labeling all departments, a.k.a: family members, involved.
• The what part is presented through the big mid-session with each box represents every single activity.
• The when and tools parts are presented at the bottom

B2B  vs B2C : stand for “business-to-business” and “business-to-customer”. These two terms refer to two types of transactions a company typically does: transactions with other companies and transactions with individual customers.

Bottom-up vs Top-down: this refers to two opposite schools of thought or action. Top-down usually encompasses various general branches while bottom-up tends to narrowly focus. 

Management consulting terms & concepts

These are the most common consulting terms you may encounter not just in case interviews but also in consulting tasks .

• Lever: Think of this as one or a group of initiatives, actions to perform to meet certain goals. e.g. some levers to help increase customer experience in a hotel are free breakfast, free Wi-Fi, 24/7 support, etc.
• Best practice: Refers to how things should be done, especially if it has been successfully implemented elsewhere.
• Granular: This refers to how specific and detailed a break-down or an issue goes. For example, a not-so-granular breakdown of the NBA is the West and the East conferences. A much more granular is something like this: Leagues, Conferences, Divisions, and Teams.
• MECE: MECE is so important and we explain it in detail in this article. In short, MECE is the standard, per which we can divide things down in a systematic, comprehensive, and non-overlapping way.

There are three parameters the consulting world uses in the categorization of businesses.

• Industry: used to group different companies mostly based on their product (Banking, Construction, Education, Steel Industry, etc.)
• Function: is the categorization mostly based on missions and the type of roles of different parts of a company. We can count some as Human Resource, Finance, Strategy, Operation, Product Development, etc.
• Location: is where things are, geographically.

Normally two consultants ask each other “What do you work on?”, they need to give 3 pieces of information in all of those three parameters, such as “I worked on a Cement project, focusing on Finance, in Southeast Asia”. In fact, all of the McKinsey support networks are organized in this way. During my projects, I would need to speak to some Cement experts, some Finance experts, and some local experts as well.

This chapter is relatively long, yet it is still way shorter than 4 years at business college. I hope this will act as a great prerequisite to your case interview study. Make sure that you have mastered all of these content before really tackling the Case Interview.

Case interview example – The typical flow

In a simplified way, a typical case would go through these phrases (we will talk about exceptions in great detail later):

Case question -> Recap -> Clarification -> Timeout -> Propose issue tree -> Analyze issue tree -> Identify root-causes -> Solutions -> Closing pitch

Problem-solving fundamentals – Candidate-led cases

Though most cases will be conducted in mixed format, let’s dive deep and learn about each extreme end of the spectrum to get the full picture.

Even though this is the harder format, it shows us the foundation of how management consulting works, i.e: the consulting problem-solving logics!

If you were exposed to case interviews, you have probably heard about some of these concepts: framework, issue tree, benchmark, data, root cause, solutions, etc. But how do they all fit into the picture?

It all starts with the PROBLEM

Before getting into anything fancy, the first step is to define and be really clear about the problem.

This sounds easy but can be quite tricky. Here are a few guidelines:

1. What’s the objective?

2. What’s the timeline required?

3. Any quantified or well-described goals?

For example, one client can state a problem as: “I lost my car key”. In normal contexts, this is a perfectly simple and straightforward problem. But a consultant tackling this would go ask clarification questions to achieve even more details:

1. Objective: the client in fact just needs to be able to use the car.

2. Timeline: this is an urgent need. He is happy only if we can help him within the next hour.

3. Specificity: help the client put his car into normal operation like before he lost the key.

Find the ROOT-CAUSE, don’t just fix the symptom

To completely wipe out the problem and create long-lasting impacts, consultants always  search and find the root causes.

For example, fixing the symptom is like you breaking the door lock, getting into the ignition electrics behind the wheel, and connecting the wires to start the car.

That does fix the surface symptom: the client can drive the car. But it does NOT create a long-lasting impact because without you there, the car can’t be started. The client will need to rely on you every single time. Plus, more problems even arise (now he needs to fix the broken door lock too).

A much better approach is to find the root cause. What is the bottom-line reason causing the problem? Once we trace, find, and fix it, the problem will be gone for good.

In this example, the root cause is “the lost key”. We need to find its location!

Use ISSUE TREE to isolate potential root-causes into groups

There could be thousands of possible root-causes. How do we make sure every possible one is examined? If we are to list out all thousands and test one by one, there is simply not enough time. On the other hand, if we just list out some of the most “possible” ones, we run a high risk of missing the true root-cause.

This is where we need issue trees ! We would group possible root-causes into big groups. Those big groups will have smaller sub-groups and so on. All is done in the spirit of top-down and MECE. By doing this, we have an organized way to include all possible root-causes.

Continue with the example: A “bottom-up” approach to search for the car key is to go straight to specific places like the microwave’s top, the black jacket pocket, under the master bed, etc. There can be thousands of these possible locations.

The top-down approach is to draw an issue tree, breaking the whole house into groups and examine the whole group one by one. For example: first floor, second floor, and the basement.

Issue Tree only works if it’s MECE

What happens if we break down the search area into the First floor and East wing? The search area would not cover the whole house and there will be some overlapping which creates inefficiencies.

So for an issue tree to work properly, it has to be MECE – Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive … which in simple language just mean 2 things: no overlap and no gap

How to draw MECE issue trees? Use FRAMEWORKS!

Each problem requires a unique issue tree. Coming up with MECE and spot-on issue trees for each problem can be really difficult. This is where “framework” helps.

Think of frameworks as “frequently used templates” to draw issue trees in any particular context. Many people use the word “framework” to refer to “issue tree” but this is conceptually incorrect.

We will talk about frameworks in more detail in the below chapters. You can also check out this deep-dive article on Frameworks.

Choosing which branch to go to first? Use HYPOTHESES!

So let’s say you have an issue tree of First floor, Second floor, and Third floor. Now what?

To make the problem-solving process even faster and more efficient, we use hypotheses. In simple language, it’s the educated guess of where the root cause may lie in. So we can prioritize the branch with the highest chance.

So let’s say, the client spends most time on the first floor, it’s where he/she most likely leaves the car key. Any consultant would hypothesize that the root cause is in the first-floor branch and go search there first.

Notice: hypothesis and issue tree always go together. It doesn’t make sense to draw an issue of First, Second, and Third floor and hypothesize that the key is in the East wing. Many times, hypotheses are even the inspiration to draw issue trees.

How to test a branch? Use DATA and compare it with BENCHMARK

Now that we decide to test the branch “First floor”, how do we do that?

We prove or disprove our hypothesis by collecting DATA. That data is then compared with benchmarks to shed more meaning. Two main types of benchmarks are: historical and competitive. For example, let’s say by some magic, the client has a metal detection machine that can measure the metal concentration of any space.

To test the “first-floor” branch, the consultant would come to the first floor, measure the metal concentration and compare it with the data before the car key is lost, a.k.a: historical benchmark.

If a hypothesis is true, drill down; if it’s false, go sideways

What happens when we test a hypothesis?

Assuming that we have access to enough data, it either gets proven TRUE or proven FALSE. How do we proceed from here? 

• Proven True: go DOWN the issue tree to sub-branches! Let’s say the metal detector identified the key IS indeed on the first floor. Go deeper. Draw sub-branches of that first-floor branch and repeat the process.
• Proven False: go HORIZONTAL to other big branches! Let’s say the metal detector denies the key presence on the first floor. We then can cross out this branch and go test others, a.k.a: the second and third floor.

Test, Sleep, Test, Repeat … until the ROOT-CAUSE shows up!

Once identified the ROOT-CAUSES, go for SOLUTIONS

With all proven root causes identified, the last step is to come up with solutions to kill the problem … and we are done! There can be multiple solutions to each root cause. These solutions should attack straight to the root cause.

Case interview questions – Interviewer-led cases

While candidate-led cases are all about the logical foundation of problem-solving, interviewer-led cases are more about tackling each individual question itself. The structure of the whole case is relatively loose and flexible.

In this chapter, we touch on some of the most popular ones. You can read in-depth about each in this designated article.

Framework/Issue Tree questions

“Which factors would you consider when tackling this problem?”

This is one of the most popular question types in case interviews, often asked in the beginning. It comes with several shapes and forms, but the real meaning is always: “Give me the bloody issue tree!”

So how do you tackle it? Just like in candidate-led cases. Take a timeout; brainstorm about the problem and how it should be broken down into; plug a few frameworks to see how it looks; and go for the most appropriate issue tree.

Unlike in candidate-led cases where you only present the upper-most layer, here you should walk the interviewer through the whole issue tree, covering at least 2 layers. Interviewer-led cases are much less interactive. It’s more like they ask you a question, and you deliver a comprehensive and big answer. They ask you another one. And so on.

Market-sizing / Guesstimate questions

“How many face masks are being produced in the whole world today?”

This is among  the most popular question types and you will likely face a few of them throughout several interview rounds. These questions ask you to “guess” and come up with number estimations in non-conventional contexts. These questions are called “Guesstimate”.

When a guesstimate question asks you to “guess” the size of a market, it’s called a “Market-sizing” question. Though this variation is very popular in consulting, the nature is nothing different from other Guesstimate questions.

It can be intimidating to face a question like this. Where to start? Where to go? What clues to hold on to?

The key is to understand that you don’t have to provide an exact correct answer. In fact, nobody knows or even cares. What matters is HOW you get there. Can you show off consulting traits, using a sound approach to come up with the best “estimate” possible?

Read the designated article on this for great details. Here, let’s walk through the 4-step approach that you can apply to absolutely every market-sizing question.

Step 1: Clarify

Make sure you and the interviewer are on the same page regarding every detail and terminology, so you won’t be answering the wrong question.

Step 2: Break down the problem

Break the item in the question (number of trees in Central Park, market size of pickup trucks) down into smaller, easy-to-estimate pieces.

Step 3: Solve each piece

Estimate each small piece one at a time; each estimation should be backed by facts, figures, or at least observations.

Step 4: Consolidate the pieces

Combine the previous estimations to arrive at a final result; be quick with the math, but don’t rush it if you aren’t confident.

Math questions

“If the factory can lower the clinker factor by 0.2, how much money will they save on production cost?”

Almost all cases involve some math. So you will face math questions for sure. These “questions” can go at you either explicitly and implicitly. Sometimes, the case interviewer will ask out loud a math problem and have you solve. But sometimes, you have to do multiple calculations on the background to push the analysis forward.

Either way, a strong math capability will help you a lot during cases and the future career in consulting. See this Consulting Math article for more details.

Chart insight questions

“What insights can you draw from this chart?”

Consultant works with data and a big chunk of those data are presented by charts. Many times, the interviewer would pull out a sanitized exhibit from an actual project and have you list out insights you can see from it.

There are many types of charts. Getting yourselves familiar with the most popular ones is not a bad idea.

• Bar charts simply compare the values of items that are somewhat parallel in nature.

• Line charts illustrate the continuous nature of a data series, e.g: how my heart rate evolved through time.

• Pie charts illustrate proportions, i.e “parts of a whole” analyses.

• Scatter-plots use data points to visualize how two variables relate to each other. Correlation for example.

Tips on tackling chart-insights questions:

1. Read labels first: from Chart titles, Axis titles, Legend titles, etc. Don’t jump straight to the content of the chart. It takes more time to get lost there and has to go back to read the label. Besides, you may also run a risk of misunderstanding the content.

2. Look for abnormalities: important insights always lie in those unexpected and abnormal data. Look for them!

Value proposition questions

“What factors does a customer consider when deciding which car insurance company to buy from?”

In simple language, this question type asks you: what do the customers want? Understanding exactly this need will put any company in the best position to tailor products/services.

Like any other questions, Value-proposition questions are not only about correctly identifying customer preferences (insights) but also about analyzing and delivering the answer in a structured fashion. Here are a few tips for you to do that:

How to be more insightful: 

• It always helps to break customers into groups and provide different substances for each.
• Put yourselves into the customers’ shoes. Think from the first-view perspective and more insights will arrive.
• If there is any data/ information previously provided in the case, definitely use it.
• A library of factors? Safety, speed, convenience, affordability, flexibility, add-on services, durability, fashion, ease of use, location, freshness, etc.

How to appear more structured:

• Follow this structure: Customer group 1, Customer group 2, etc. Under each: Factor A, factor B, factor C.
• Develop your personal script for this question type. Make sure it’s easy to follow and structured in nature.

Information questions

What kind of data do you need to test this hypothesis? How do you get data

Consulting is a data-driven industry. As consultants, we spent most of our time gathering and presenting data to clients ( see the What the heck does a consultant do video ). No surprise information questions are relatively popular in cases.

The best way to tackle this question type is to understand inside out the types of data actual consultants use in real projects. Because almost no candidate knows about this. This is also a very quick way to build rapport. The interviewer will feel like he/she is talking to a real consultant.

Case interview example video – Pandora case

Enough theory! Enough cute little illustrations here and there. Time to get our hands into a serious case interview example.

Notice the following when watching the video:

• How the problem is given and clarified
• How the problem-solving approach is layouted and executed
• How the candidate use wording and frame the pitches
• The dynamic of a case. How energy transfers from one to another person.

Every case is unique in its own way but principles are universal. The more examples you see, the better. This video is extracted from our  Case Interview End-to-end Secrets program, where you can find 10 complete examples like this and many other supplement contents.

How to prepare for case interviews

Case Interview preparation is a long and tough process. In an ocean of books, videos, programs, how do we navigate to maximize learning? Most materials floating around are quite good, at least in terms of substance. But the timing and the organization of them can be confusing.

• Too much theory in the beginning can burn brain power very quickly.
• Tackling cases without basics can develop bad habits, which eventually cost more time to unlearn.
• Practicing complicated (or even just normal) cases in the beginning can destroy morale drastically.

So a good study plan is constantly switching between 3 activities: reading theory, watching examples, and practicing, with cases increasing difficulty level. It’s so crucial to start with super easy cases, be patient, and stay on that level until you are ready to move up. There are so many skills, habits, and scripts to develop and these take time.

“The quickest way to do just about everything is … Step by Step”

Even for candidates with cases coming up urgently, I still strongly recommend spending the most valuable time practicing cases that match your level. After all, cases are just the context. What you will be evaluated on is your approach, your skills, your techniques, etc.

So, this is a sample study plan you can adopt for yourselves:

Step 1: Learn the basics of case interview theory

• Read this article thus far
• Watch this  Case Interview 101 video

Step 2: Watch a simple case interview example

• Read the sample case flow above.
• Watch this  Case Interview Example video
• Go to this list of free case examples and try to select a very simple one. If you can’t follow one, it’s probably not good for you. Just skip it.
• Watch the first example in the  End-to-end Program

Step 3: Review the theory of case interview approaches  

• Read deeply about the logical foundation of problem-solving in this BCG & Bain Case Interview article.
• Watch intensively the logical foundation of problem-solving in this Candidate-led cases video.

Step 4: Do one mock case interview

• Practice with consultants. They have the insight and knowledge to help you pass the interview. Discover our experienced coaches from McKinsey, BCG and Bain here .
• Find a partner to practice with. Make sure you both watch this  Guide on how to conduct a case. A bad coach can do more harm than good.
• Get your hand on another example in the  End-to-end Program. But this time, don’t just watch. Actively solve the case as you see it! Try to say out loud your version, then listen to the candidate, then hear the feedback!

Step 5: Start improving your business intuition

Business Intuition is like your natural sense of the business world: how to be insightful and creative in various business contexts, how to feed the “content” into your approach, etc. Think of this as a basketball player trained for muscle strength, agility, or durability. Intuition can be improved gradually through constantly exposing yourselves to a wide range of business situations and contexts.

You can do this by:

• Read consulting publications. One article per day for example. Three wonderful sources are: McKinsey Insights, BCG Perspectives, and Bain Publications
• Train  case interview questions individually. By isolating each part of the case, you can focus more on the substance. Hit that link or get more question training on the End-to-end Secret Program .

Step 6: Start training consulting math

• Visit this in-depth consulting math article.
• Train our  Mental Math methodology.

Step 7: Practice another mock case interview

At this stage, please still stick to very basic cases. The goal is to see all of the knowledge and skills above in real action. Again, this can be done by either:

• Book a meeting with coaches
• Find another partner to practice with. Just make sure you both watch this Guide on how to conduct a case. A bad coach is always more harmful than not practicing at all.
• See another example in the End-to-end Program. Like the previous one, try actively solving the case as you see it! Say out loud your version, then listen to the candidate, then hear the feedback!

Step 8: Equip yourself with tips, techniques, and advance theory

• Read on! The below chapters of this very article will provide you with more advanced theory and killer tips.
• Watch the whole Tips & Techniques sections of the End-to-end Program. You will find 10 examples with clear walkthroughs of tips and techniques right in the middle of real action.

Step 9: Do further mock cases, review, and improve

Practicing for case interviews is a time consuming process – but as long as you have the right method, you will make it!

• First, brush up on knowledge related to case interviews with the Case Interview End-to-End Secrets Program .
• Second, get personalized practice with ex-consultants. That way, you’ll receive clear and tuned feedback to understand what to improve, building your own proper case approaches.  See a list of experienced coaches here .

Stay tuned with us on this website and our Youtube channel for continuously updated information on case interviews and management consulting recruitment; you can also subscribe to the newsletter below for free materials and other insightful content!

Good luck with your case prep!

Case interview tips – With instant results

Imagine a case interview just falls out of the sky and into your lap, scheduled for tomorrow – how can you even prepare?

The answer lies in a few “quick and dirty” tips, which I’ll share with you in a moment.

I am a firm believer in the 80-20 rule – which states that 20% of the causes lead to 80% of the consequences.

In the case interview prep context, 20% of your learning efforts will bring about 80% of the improvements – so the key to instantly and dramatically improving your case performance is to identify and focus on that 20%.

In the next 8 chapters, I’ll tell you the killer tips and tricks that helped me get a McKinsey offer, the majority of which were previously only available in the premium End-to-End Secrets Program , including:

• Chapter 9: Delivering the perfect case opening
• Chapter 10: Remaining absolutely structured throughout the case
• Chapter 11: Taking the best notes
• Chapter 12: Getting out if stuck
• Chapter 13: How to ask for data
• Chapter 14: What to do when receiving data
• Chapter 15: Deliver the most convincing closing pitch
• Chapter 16: Developing your personal scripts

One thing before you proceed: don’t forget to learn the fundamentals, the question types, and the frameworks. Remember, these 20% tips can only get you 80% performance; if you want 100%, there’s  no substitute for hard work.

How to deliver the perfect case opening

The result of a case interview is determined  the first 3 minutes – and I’m not even exaggerating.

Most people will be put off by this fact – indeed, with all those efforts spent on learning for the later part of the case, and the hiring decision is made when you’re not even properly warmed up yet.

However, putting a spin on it, this is the 20% to focus on – if you nail the opening, you’ll make a better impression than most candidates; it’s also easier to perform well in 3 minutes than in 30 minutes, especially when the case hasn’t gotten tricky. Additionally, you can prepare the opening in a formulaic manner – essentially learning by heart until it becomes natural.

There are 7 steps in the perfect case opening formula:

1. Show appreciation

2. Announce case introduction

5. Announce case approach

7. Ask for a timeout

In this chapter, I’ll walk you through each of those steps.

Step 1: Show appreciation

The quickest way to score the first points with any interviewer is to  sincerely compliment them. Everybody loves compliments.

Case interviewers are not dedicated HR staff, but Engagement Managers, Partners, and Directors who conduct interviews ON TOP OF their projects as goodwill for the firm, so you should at least be thankful for the time they spend with you.

Begin your interview with a sincere “thank you” for the interesting case (if you have to fake these words because deep down you don’t like case interviews, you aren’t exactly cut out for the job).

Step 2: Announce case introduction

Announce you’re going to do  steps 3, 4, and 5.

This step is related to what I call the “map habit”, which I’ll describe in detail in the next chapter. For now, just understand that it  helps the interviewer follow your introduction, and shows you’re a structured person.

Step 3: Recap  

What is the key question of the case?

On a side note: one common mistake is to mix up step 3 with step 4 (clarify) – remember, don’t ask anything , just rephrase the case to ensure that you get it right.

Step 4:  Clarify

Ask questions to clear up any  potential confusion about the details of the case.

Case questions are always very short with a lot of vague details; if you don’t see the need to ask anything, you’re doing it wrong.

Run this checklist through your mind to help you clarify as many unclear points as possible:

• Definitions: are there words you don’t understand or can be interpreted in multiple ways?
• Timeframe: what is the “deadline” for solving this problem?
• Measurement: how are the important variables (performance, revenue, etc.) measured?

Additionally, number your questions so it’s easier for you and the interviewer to keep track.

Step 5: Announce case approach

Roughly sum up  how you’ll analyze the problem.

Again, this is related to the map habit, which makes the overall case progress easier to follow.

There are 3 types of cases: (1) problem-solution, (2) should I choose A or B, and (3) how to do C. For each type, there is a different approach. The latter two are discussed in the “Advanced Logic” chapter, for now, we’ll continue with the first type: tell the interviewer you’re going to find the root cause to ensure long-lasting solutions, and to do that you’ll develop an issue tree.

Step 6: Align

Check if the interviewer  approves of your case approach.

This is an important habit of real consultants  because nobody wants to waste resources going in the wrong direction; interviewers expect candidates to show it in the case interview.

Simply ask “Does this sound like a reasonable approach to you?” – most likely the interviewer will give you the green light, but if you’re lucky he/she may even suggest a better approach.

Step 7: Ask for timeout

After you’ve gone continuously through the 6 steps above, ask the interviewer for timeout to (make this explicit) gather your thoughts and develop the first part of the issue tree.

Make the most of your timeout session, and keep it as short as possible. Any unnecessary silence will damage the impression and hurt your chances (refer to the End-to-End Program example in Chapter 6 to “feel” how awkward a lengthy timeout session is).

Case opening – Example script

Now it’s time to see how you can put all those steps into action!

Thank you for this very interesting case, I am really happy to get a chance to solve it!

The first step in solving any business problem is to make sure we solve the right one, so before diving into the problem, I would like to first recap the case, then ask a few clarification questions to make sure we’re both on the same page, and lastly announce my overall case approach.

So here is my understanding of the case:

• [facts regarding the client and situation]
• [key case question]

Does that correctly summarize the case?

<assume the interview confirms that your playback is correct>

Great, now I’d like to ask my three clarification questions:

• [question 1]
• [question 2]
• [question 3]

<wait for answers>

Thank you for the clarification. Is there anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks for all the insights. It’s great that we all agree on the key details.

For the overall approach to this case, to completely wipe out the problem for a long-lasting impact, we will need to find out the root causes of this problem. To do that I will try to break the problem down into bite-size pieces with issue trees, in order to quickly isolate the root causes inside the branches, then drill down accordingly to gather information until we can draw actionable solutions.

So before I go on to establish my first issue tree, does that approach sound reasonable to you?

<assumes the interviewer agrees with your approach>

It’s great to see that we’re on the same page regarding the key details as well as the overall approach to the case. I do need some time to gather my thoughts, so may I have a short timeout?

Being structured throughout the case

The high stress and large amount of information in case interviews make it easy for even the brightest candidates to derail from the objective or present in an unstructured manner.

I’ll be sharing with you my 3 most impactful tips for keeping the structure in case interview:

1. The map habit

2. Numbering your items

3. Sticking to the big problem

The map habit

It means regularly and explicitly checking where you are, and where you’re doing next.

I call it the map habit because it’s similar to using a map while traveling – pausing every once in a while to check your location, destination, and direction.

This habit gives you a sense of direction and authority while making it easier for the interviewer to follow your case progress. It also makes you sound organized and systematic – a definitive mark of management consultants – and the interviewer will love it!

You’ll see this habit a lot in our Case Interview End-to-End Secrets Program, where candidates would often pause at each key step during the case. Do the same thing in your own case interviews, and you’ll greatly impress the interviewer.

Numbering your items

A very easy and effective way to make your pitches sound structured is to number each item.

The formula is simple: “There are X items that I’m going to say; they are: No.1 … No.2 … No.3 …”

By now you may have noticed that I use this structure many times throughout this guidebook – it’s already quite effective in written language, but it’s even more impactful in spoken communications!

Having this numbering habit will make it very easy for the listener to follow your speech, and it creates an impression of MECE (even if content-wise it’s not MECE).

Sticking to the big problem

There are two ways to keep yourself on track  all the time in those high-stress case interviews

1. Occasionally check your position on the issue tree, and quickly get back on track if it seems you’re “derailing”. If this sounds like the previous map habit, you’re right, it is the map habit.

2. Take good notes, with the case question being written big and bold on top of your scratch paper. That way you’ll be reminded every few seconds.

That last point brings us to the next issue: how to take notes.

How to take notes in case interviews

The best notes for case interviews are always  clear-cut, structured, and relevant.

Even the smartest candidates suffer from seemingly silly problems in case interviews – forgetting data, messing up the numbers, getting stuck with frameworks, losing sight of the original objective, etc. And in the true management consulting spirit, I set out to find the root causes.

And looking back at hundreds of coaching sessions I did, I found one thing in common – none of those candidates could take good notes.

I’ll tell you precisely how I took notes to get a McKinsey offer; however, I hope that after this chapter, you can install the spirit of the method, not just the method itself.

So here we are, with the 3 groups of sheets laid out for the ideal note-taking:

1. Data sheets

2. Presentation sheets

3. Scratch sheets

Data sheets

Data sheets are used to store and process every piece of incoming data .

Try to draw tables for these sheets, because this not only makes the calculation process easier but also gives the impression that you’re a careful and organized person.

Also, remember to write only the results of calculations on this sheet, to keep it neat and tidy. Most of your calculations should be done mentally (see the article on Consulting Math for more details); if you really need to jot down the calculations, do it on the scratch sheets.

Presentation sheets

Presentation sheets are used to develop and present any “outgoing” content.

Your issue trees should be drawn on these sheets, along with the big-and-bold case question/objective right on top. When delivering your pitches, always turn around the presentation sheets so the interviewer can clearly read what’s on them.

As with the data sheets, avoid any messy “mid-process” drawings. Put them on the scratch sheets instead.

Scratch sheets

Scratch sheets exist to keep other sheets clean.

Ever felt irritated receiving a notebook full of correction marks? That’s exactly how the interviewer feels if you present with untidy notes. You should try your best to hide all the unorganized, messy parts of your thought process.

The scratch sheets provide a sanctuary for that unstructured part of yours – it’s okay to go all over the place for brainstorming, as long as you can organize the incoming resources and present in a systematic manner.

“I took the notes just as you instructed, but I still get stuck in cases. How can I avoid it?” – Well, that’s the subject for our next chapter – “Stuck” situations and how to get out of them.

Stuck in cases – What to do

We’ve all been there – that scarily awkward feeling when you don’t know what to do next in a case interview, that fear of being rejected.

In every “stuck” situation, the most important thing is to remain calm and collected (you’ll lose points if you panic) – then methodically work your way out. I’ll teach you how to get out of those situations, with style.

There are actually 3 different kinds of “stuck”, and for each, I have a different solution:

1. The “Framework” stuck

2. The “Data” stuck

3. The “I-Cannot-Find-The-Problem” stuck

Let’s go through each in detail.

The framework stuck

This situation happens when the candidate does not know which framework to use, and the secret tool for it, is “segmentation”.

Segmentation works just like any framework, and like a Swiss Army knife, it’s usually safe and easy to use. So if you’re unsure how to break things down, say these magic words:

“At this point, I’d like to break down this X item, and one good way is to use the natural segmentation within this line of business. So may I ask how they break this X item in this industry?”

If you get it right, the interviewer will reply with the most industry-relevant way to segment the item.

You may be wondering why I’m not talking about issue trees and frameworks here, after all the theory at the beginning of the guidebook.

The answer is that the textbook and “ideal” solution – learning the problem-solving fundamentals and deep-diving the frameworks to increase your flexibility – takes a lot of time, while the “cliched” solution – learning as many frameworks as possible, usually at the cost of depth – is inherently dangerous.

The data stuck

The “data stuck” happens when the candidate can’t extract relevant insights from the given data. And when this happens, ask for benchmarks.

Comparing with benchmarks is the quickest way to put data into perspective, yielding useful insights. There are 2 kinds of benchmarks – if you remember from the chapter on Candidate-led Cases: 

• Historical benchmarks: data on the same entity in the past
• Competitor benchmarks: data on similar/competing entities in the same timeframe

To ask for benchmarks, Just say the following lines:

“For now, I hypothesize that the root cause of the problem comes from the X branch of this issue tree. However, to further break down the problem in a spot-on way, I do need some information on the context of our client’s problem.

One of the quickest ways to grasp that context is to use competitor’s data; so can I have the X figure for our client’s competitors?”

The “I-Cannot-Find-The-Problem” stuck

This is the scariest “stuck” because there’s no obvious reason or solution – you’ve done your math right, your framework is suitable, and you’ve got a lot of interesting insights from data. Why are you still stuck?

From my experience in coaching sessions, there are 2 scenarios where this happens: (1) your issue tree is not MECE, and (2) if your issue tree is MECE, it does not isolate the problem.

You can try to avoid this in the first place by mastering the MECE principle, improving intuition, as well as aligning with the interviewer early and often.

But what if you still get stuck? The answer is to calmly admit you’ve hit a dead-end, and ask for time to fix the problem; be it the first or second scenario, you have to redraw your issue tree.

Literally use the following script:

“My whole analysis seems going towards a dead-end, which means either part of my issue tree is not MECE or my method of breaking down does not isolate the problem. Either way, I would like to take a timeout to have a look at it.”

You likely get stuck when practicing on yourself. That’s the reason why you need personal coaching. Veteran coaches at MConsultingPrep will give insightful feedback, propose actionable steps, and help you significantly enhance your performance. Find my coach !

How to ask for data

Data is the fuel for the case interview engine. Without it , your analysis can’t progress.

The problem is that interviewers don’t simply give out precious data for free. It has to be earned. There are 4 tips you can use to show that “worthiness”, and prompt the interviewer to supply you with the best information:

1. Create a good impression

2. Explain the purpose of the data

3. Explain the method of acquiring the data

4. Ask open-ended questions

Tip 1: Creating a good impression

The interviewer will love you if you think and act like a real consultant – if you can achieve that, he/she will always give you the best pieces of data available.

In this guidebook, there are countless tips to show your consulting characteristics – I even write a whole chapter on how to install consulting culture into your own personality. Generally, you must always be (1) structured , (2) fact-based, and (3) action-oriented.

Additionally, common people skills and interview tips also apply – show your appreciation by thanking for their help, keep a smile on your face to maintain a positive atmosphere, etc.

Tip 2: Explaining the purpose of the data

Say why you need that data, so the interviewer knows you can actually use it.

There are only two purposes for data in case interviews: (1) to test a hypothesis, and (2) to understand the context.

You can use the following scripts to when to reason your data requests:

“For now, I’m hypothesizing that the root cause of this problem comes from the X branch. Since this hypothesis can only be tested with the data on X, may I have those figures?”< testing hypothesis>

“For now, I hypothesize that the root cause of the problem comes from the X branch of this issue tree. However, to further break down the problem in a spot-on way, to better understand the context of our client’s problem, I will ask a few more questions. Does that sound reasonable to you?” < understanding the context>

Tip 3: Explaining the method to acquire the data

By stating how to get the data, you prove its feasibility and reinforce your data request.

In real consulting projects, data is not always available; the interviewer may rely on this logic and refuse to give you any information. So, when you ask for data, make sure your request is realistic, then state the method to acquire it using these words:

“If this was a real project, this information can be acquired from/by X source/method”.

In our  Prospective Candidate Starter Pack ,   there is a sheet listing all the possible sources of information in consulting projects, which you can download for your own use, along with many other free case interview materials.

Accurately explaining the data acquisition method also shows that you’ve done your homework and you know the consulting industry inside-out. Any interviewer will be greatly impressed.

Ask open-ended questions

This prompts the interviewer to give you data you haven’t thought of.

The precise questions mostly depend on specific cases (meaning you need to sharpen your intuition), but there is a Swiss Army knife here: “Is there anything else?” – which is a question real consultants ask several times a day, at the end of their conversations.

Use open-ended questions when you feel you might be missing something – for example, during clarification – and only after a series of well-defined, close-ended questions. Otherwise, you risk appearing lazy and over-reliant.

What to do when receiving data

Suppose the interviewer agrees to give you data. Now what?

Time to shine! If you do these following 3 steps, even just once, in the interviewer’s mind, you already pass:

1. Acknowledge the data and show appreciation

2. Describe the data, especially its notable features

3. State the implications of the data

Let’s dive into each separately.

Step 1: Acknowledging the data

Simply  thank the interviewer for the interesting piece of data.

Firstly, it confirms that you have received, and can understand the data.

Secondly, it’s always good to give out modest, subtle compliments to the interviewer. Trust me, conducting case interviews is hard work, and the interviewer does appreciate those little compliments.

Last but not least, it buys you a few seconds to fully absorb the new information and minimize any possible silence.

Step 2: Describing the data

Summarize  the most important insights you can extract.

Don’t recite a short essay about the data, there is no time for that. Quickly and mentally calculate all the important points, then state it out loud in 1-2 sentences.

This step has several uses:

It showcases your consulting math skills (chart insights and mental calculation)

It eliminates the silence during your analysis

It helps you quickly memorize the key trends in the data

Step 3: Stating the implications

Concisely explain how the insights from the data  related to the issue tree – do they confirm or reject the current hypothesis? Do they open new areas for investigations?

This part is extremely important because it connects to the action-oriented mindset of actual management consultants while laying solid foundations for your next steps (fact-based).

Example – Handling revenue data

Suppose you’re working on a profitability case (how to fix low profits), and you’re trying to dictate whether the root cause comes from the revenue side.

The interviewer gives you this data:

How would you respond? Try to answer it yourself before revealing the sample answer.

Sample Script - Receiving Data 

Thank you for the very interesting data. (acknowledging)

It seems that our client’s revenue has been increasing steadily throughout four years – around the mark of 20% annual growth, in fact. (describe the data)

This suggests that the problem may not come from this side of the issue tree. However, in order to fully reject the possibility, I need the figures on the revenue of other companies in this industry around this time. Do we have those numbers? (implications)

Delivering the perfect closing pitch

“You have one minute to summarize all of your findings to the client CEO. What would you say?”

Your answer must be short, to-the-point, action-oriented, and client-friendly.

The closing pitch of the case interview is sometimes called the “elevator pitch” , where you supposedly meet the client CEO inside the elevator and must somehow deliver the results of the project before the elevator arrives at its destination floor (it’s even worded like that sometimes).

Regardless of the wording, the principles remain the same, and your closing pitch must consist of these 4 parts:

1. Introduction / Lead-in

2. Summary of the root causes

3. Summary of the solutions

4. Next step

Part 1: Introduction / Lead-in

Open your pitch in a client-friendly way. Remember, consulting is a service – a premium one, in fact.

There is a simple formula for this part of the pitch:

“Mr. CEO, it has been a great pleasure to be working with you on your company’s X problem.”

Everybody loves a little compliment, don’t they?

Part 2: Summary of the root causes

Don’t go into detail about your analysis – show them the results first.

CEOs are busy people, they have no time for a 15-minute break-down of your issue tree. They only care about the “big picture” – “Why is the problem happening?”.

You need to sum up root causes in a structured manner, with a numbered list – in the case interview context, that’s one characteristic the interviewer looks for, and in real projects, it helps the listener follow your pitch.

“After careful analysis, we have found X root causes for the company’s problem: 1… 2… 3… X”.

Part 3: Summary of the solutions

The solutions are what the clients pay for in the first place, so make sure to deliver them clearly and systematically.

This step must also be structured. Additionally, list the solution in the same order as their corresponding root causes, to imply the connection between them (if the root causes are listed as A, B, C, then the solutions should never be C, B, A).

“To solve the aforementioned issues, we propose the X following solutions: 1… 2… 3… X”.

Part 4: Next step

The ending must lead the customer towards a follow-up project, in a client-friendly way.

This step shows that you have an action-oriented mindset and necessary people skills to represent the firm before the clients.

Moreover, follow-up implementation projects are a major source of revenue for the top consulting firms (such as McKinsey, BCG or Bain), so mentioning them in your case interview ending pitch proves that you did the appropriate research before applying.

So here’s what you’ll say when the elevator reaches the destination:

“We would be more than happy to work with you to implement these solutions”.

Develop personal interview scripts

Every tip I’ve mentioned in the previous 7 chapters is for recurring situations in case interviews, and they can be dealt with using formulaic responses.

What that means for you – the candidate – is that you can make personal scripts and learn them by heart until they all become your second nature. That will save you a lot of brainpower to use on the issue tree. This approach has proven successful with all of my coachees, and it’s also a major part of our Case Interview End-to-End Secrets Program. You will find my own personal script I used back in the day, and I will also personally give feedback to scripts of members of the program.

So open your document tool and start writing now. Once you’ve finished the scripts, learn them by heart one at a time. When you feel comfortable with every one of them, you can move up to a higher level and practice with whole cases.

Inside the case interviewer’s mind – Consulting culture

The best way to impress your consulting interviewer is to act like a consultant. And to do that, you need to know what goes on inside their mind – both the conscious and unconscious – then install it into your own personality.

In this chapter, I’ll guide you through 15 ingredients that make up a consulting mind. However, I won’t tell you how to apply this in case interviews because it will sound fake – what you need is to immerse yourself in a consulting environment, and incorporate these “ingredients” into your own mindset.

Responsibility & proactivity

Everyone talks about responsibility and proactivity these days, but in management consulting, we have a much more powerful word – “ownership” . When you “own” the work, you deeply and sincerely care about it, and you always try to go beyond what is required.

If you ever spend your efforts trying to improve a piece of work that your boss already approved, just because you know it is the right thing to do, because you feel so good seeing a job well-done, you have that “ownership” mindset.

In management consulting, you are expected to possess that mindset. In my early days at McKinsey, I was almost thrown out the window for working on a cement project but not knowing where the aggregate mines were (which was outside my responsibilities, but my boss expected me to know it, since I “owned” that cement project).

If you fail to do your work, don’t ever blame anyone or anything. Your responsibility is to draw up contingency plans for the “worst-case scenarios”:

• Missing the deadline because the client did not send you the data? You should have accounted for it in your schedule. 
• Late for work because of a traffic jam? Why didn’t you get up earlier?
• Your pet bite your suit? Any sensible person should have a spare one; even if that one is bitten, aren’t we paying you enough to get a new suit at the store this morning?

In short, if you want to be a consultant,  don’t make excuses.

Result-oriented / Can-do attitude

“There’s nothing I can’t do” – that’s the mindset you need to work in management consulting.

The result orientation inside a consulting firm is intense – saying that it’s “Mission Impossible” everyday would not be an exaggeration, but at the end of the day it’s always “Mission Accomplished”.

The boss doesn’t pay much attention to how you do a task, or what resources it takes, as long as you get it done. The firm has enough resources of every kind to help you with that, so there’s no reason you can’t pull it off.

Top-down communication

Communications made by consultants are always short, concise, to-the-point, action-oriented, and structured.

We were all given full-on lectures by our parents back when we were kids, for wasting food or not exercising (or not studying, for Asians like me). If they were management consultants, most of those lectures would be replaced with powerful, action-oriented messages: “Go study. If you don’t get an A+ for the next test, I’ll have to discipline you”.

A consultant seeing something non-MECE is like your mom seeing your messy bedroom. It’s that discomforting.

If you wish to be a consultant, train yourself to be MECE in everything you do. Once you can be MECE effortlessly, and you start spotting the annoying non-MECE-ness in everything around you, you know you’ve got it. 

If you’re unstructured, you won’t get into the business.

Being “structured” is a pretty vague concept, but everyone in the consulting industry knows when they see it. It’s about being organized, logical, top-down, MECE, etc.. Basically, if you can approach things the same way as real consultants, you will be deemed “structured”

If you can’t meet the deadline, you’re dead (of course, not literally).

A consulting firm works like the perfect machine, where every part operates as intended. When consultants promise to help you with something, you can be nearly 100% sure that they’ll keep their word. This makes work management that much easier.

Consequently, if you start missing the deadlines, you’ll be out of the game soon enough.

Manager from Day 1

You’ll get the idea right away if you watched this video on the job of management consultants:

In short, even as an entry-level associate, you’ll be managing a multitude of resources (experts, specialists, etc.), contents (reports, client data, expert knowledge,…), and stakeholders (the two most important being your client and your boss).

Pulling all of these together to create impactful results would be an impressive feat, even for the best and brightest new hires.

Client first

Don’t. Ever. Piss off. The client.

Management consulting is a special service industry – besides the usual “don’t disrespect the client” and “don’t leave a bad image of the firm”, there’s also “don’t make them hate you while telling them to do what they probably hate.” (which is a good way to sum up a consultant’s job).

In case interviews and PEIs, the interviewer will be asking himself a big question: “Can I trust this guy to represent me and my firm before the client?” – if the answer is anything below a stellar impression, you won’t be receiving an offer.

Consultants will have valid reasons for everything they do.

In both consulting work and case interviews, you need to be very explicit about the basis of your actions – every conclusion must have backing data, every idea must be explained, and every request must serve a purpose. Don’t ever assume that you’re justified.

Being fact-based is part of the foundation for the trust people place in consulting firms, so people who draw ideas out of thin air and act impulsively will never get into the industry.

Effective time & resources management

Every consultant works hard, so the only way to stand out is to work smart.

Yes, I know it’s a buzzword, and I know it’s cliched, but the 80-20 rule really does apply in this line of work. The best performers are always the ones to identify the most important lever and focus on it.

With the intense workload and up-or-out policy at major consulting firms, this skill is vital. Don’t be surprised if you pull all-nighters and work hard all the time but still get fired, while that one guy who goes home at 5 gets promoted. If you want to survive, learn from him.

Key takeaways & key messages

To a management consultant, everything has a key takeaway.

Consultants are efficient people, they don’t simply waste time, effort, and resources on irrelevant things. Things are only worthy of their attention if they have an interesting, helpful “so what”:

• You tell a story? So what?
• You perform a data analysis? So what are your key insights, and what’s the implication?
• You draw a slide? What’s the key message you’re trying to deliver?

If you already think like this, trust me, the interviewer will love you.

Think on your feet first

You should only ask for leadership assistance only  after you’ve thought well about the problem.

Just pause for a second and think: would you be more ready to help someone who really tries their best at the job or someone who does nothing and relies solely on you?

The same thing is true in consulting work, and even in case interviews: the interviewer will assist you if you can deliver well-informed opinions.

With that said, “asking without thinking first” is a very common mistake in case interviews, which you can see in the numerous examples from our End-to-End Secrets Program. 

Align early, align often

Always try to reach and maintain a consensus with co-workers and your boss, from the most mundane tasks to the largest projects.

Nobody wants to spend a whole week building a model that the team doesn’t need; it’s a huge waste of time and resources. As such, consultants have this aligning habit very early and often – a little time spent on reaching an agreement now will save a lot of trouble later.

Remember to align in case interviews as well – at the start of the case, and every important step.

Consultants are very action-oriented people who always think about the next step.

Every meeting, phone call, even random catch-up must end with everybody being explicitly and absolutely clear about what to do next.

So what’s YOUR next step, after reading this guidebook?

Six types of charts in case interview are: Bar/Column chart, Line chart, Percentage chart, Mekko chart, Scatter plot chart, Waterfall chart.

Business knowledge is not a mandatory condition to become a consultant. Nevertheless, it still has specific obligations and advantages for consultants.

There are 9 type of questions that mostly used in actual case interviews. Each type has a different solution, but you can rely on the a 4-step guide to answer

Related product

Case Interview End-to-End Secrets Program

Elevate your case interview skills with a well-rounded preparation package

McKinsey Problem Solving: Six steps to solve any problem and tell a persuasive story

The McKinsey problem solving process is a series of mindset shifts and structured approaches to thinking about and solving challenging problems. It is a useful approach for anyone working in the knowledge and information economy and needs to communicate ideas to other people.

Over the past several years of creating StrategyU, advising an undergraduates consulting group and running workshops for clients, I have found over and over again that the principles taught on this site and in this guide are a powerful way to improve the type of work and communication you do in a business setting.

When I first set out to teach these skills to the undergraduate consulting group at my alma mater, I was still working at BCG. I was spending my day building compelling presentations, yet was at a loss for how to teach these principles to the students I would talk with at night.

Through many rounds of iteration, I was able to land on a structured process and way of framing some of these principles such that people could immediately apply them to their work.

While the “official” McKinsey problem solving process is seven steps, I have outline my own spin on things – from experience at McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group. Here are six steps that will help you solve problems like a McKinsey Consultant:

Step #1: School is over, stop worrying about “what” to make and worry about the process, or the “how”

When I reflect back on my first role at McKinsey, I realize that my biggest challenge was unlearning everything I had learned over the previous 23 years. Throughout school you are asked to do specific things. For example, you are asked to write a 5 page paper on Benjamin Franklin — double spaced, 12 font and answering two or three specific questions.

In school, to be successful you follow these rules as close as you can. However, in consulting there are no rules on the “what.” Typically the problem you are asked to solve is ambiguous and complex — exactly why they hire you. In consulting, you are taught the rules around the “how” and have to then fill in the what.

The “how” can be taught and this entire site is founded on that belief. Here are some principles to get started:

Step #2: Thinking like a consultant requires a mindset shift

There are two pre-requisites to thinking like a consultant. Without these two traits you will struggle:

• A healthy obsession looking for a “better way” to do things
• Being open minded to shifting ideas and other approaches

In business school, I was sitting in one class when I noticed that all my classmates were doing the same thing — everyone was coming up with reasons why something should should not be done.

As I’ve spent more time working, I’ve realized this is a common phenomenon. The more you learn, the easier it becomes to come up with reasons to support the current state of affairs — likely driven by the status quo bias — an emotional state that favors not changing things. Even the best consultants will experience this emotion, but they are good at identifying it and pushing forward.

Key point : Creating an effective and persuasive consulting like presentation requires a comfort with uncertainty combined with a slightly delusional belief that you can figure anything out.

Step #3: Define the problem and make sure you are not solving a symptom

Before doing the work, time should be spent on defining the actual problem. Too often, people are solutions focused when they think about fixing something. Let’s say a company is struggling with profitability. Someone might define the problem as “we do not have enough growth.” This is jumping ahead to solutions — the goal may be to drive more growth, but this is not the actual issue. It is a symptom of a deeper problem.

Consider the following information:

• Costs have remained relatively constant and are actually below industry average so revenue must be the issue
• Revenue has been increasing, but at a slowing rate
• This company sells widgets and have had no slowdown on the number of units it has sold over the last five years
• However, the price per widget is actually below where it was five years ago
• There have been new entrants in the market in the last three years that have been backed by Venture Capital money and are aggressively pricing their products below costs

In a real-life project there will definitely be much more information and a team may take a full week coming up with a problem statement . Given the information above, we may come up with the following problem statement:

Problem Statement : The company is struggling to increase profitability due to decreasing prices driven by new entrants in the market. The company does not have a clear strategy to respond to the price pressure from competitors and lacks an overall product strategy to compete in this market.

Step 4: Dive in, make hypotheses and try to figure out how to “solve” the problem

Now the fun starts!

There are generally two approaches to thinking about information in a structured way and going back and forth between the two modes is what the consulting process is founded on.

First is top-down . This is what you should start with, especially for a newer “consultant.” This involves taking the problem statement and structuring an approach. This means developing multiple hypotheses — key questions you can either prove or disprove.

Given our problem statement, you may develop the following three hypotheses:

• Company X has room to improve its pricing strategy to increase profitability
• Company X can explore new market opportunities unlocked by new entrants
• Company X can explore new business models or operating models due to advances in technology

As you can see, these three statements identify different areas you can research and either prove or disprove. In a consulting team, you may have a “workstream leader” for each statement.

Once you establish the structure you you may shift to the second type of analysis: a bottom-up approach . This involves doing deep research around your problem statement, testing your hypotheses, running different analysis and continuing to ask more questions. As you do the analysis, you will begin to see different patterns that may unlock new questions, change your thinking or even confirm your existing hypotheses. You may need to tweak your hypotheses and structure as you learn new information.

A project vacillates many times between these two approaches. Here is a hypothetical timeline of a project:

Step 5: Make a slides like a consultant

The next step is taking the structure and research and turning it into a slide. When people see slides from McKinsey and BCG, they see something that is compelling and unique, but don’t really understand all the work that goes into those slides. Both companies have a healthy obsession (maybe not to some people!) with how things look, how things are structured and how they are presented.

They also don’t understand how much work is spent on telling a compelling “story.” The biggest mistake people make in the business world is mistaking showing a lot of information versus telling a compelling story. This is an easy mistake to make — especially if you are the one that did hours of analysis. It may seem important, but when it comes down to making a slide and a presentation, you end up deleting more information rather than adding. You really need to remember the following:

Data matters, but stories change hearts and minds

Here are four quick ways to improve your presentations:

Tip #1 — Format, format, format

Both McKinsey and BCG had style templates that were obsessively followed. Some key rules I like to follow:

• Make sure all text within your slide body is the same font size (harder than you would think)
• Do not go outside of the margins into the white space on the side
• All titles throughout the presentation should be 2 lines or less and stay the same font size
• Each slide should typically only make one strong point

Tip #2 — Titles are the takeaway

The title of the slide should be the key insight or takeaway and the slide area should prove the point. The below slide is an oversimplification of this:

Even in consulting, I found that people struggled with simplifying a message to one key theme per slide. If something is going to be presented live, the simpler the better. In reality, you are often giving someone presentations that they will read in depth and more information may make sense.

To go deeper, check out these 20 presentation and powerpoint tips .

Tip #3 — Have “MECE” Ideas for max persuasion

“MECE” means mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive — meaning all points listed cover the entire range of ideas while also being unique and differentiated from each other.

An extreme example would be this:

• Slide title: There are seven continents
• Slide content: The seven continents are North America, South America, Europe, Africa Asia, Antarctica, Australia

The list of continents provides seven distinct points that when taken together are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive . The MECE principle is not perfect — it is more of an ideal to push your logic in the right direction. Use it to continually improve and refine your story.

Applying this to a profitability problem at the highest level would look like this:

Goal: Increase profitability

2nd level: We can increase revenue or decrease costs

3rd level: We can increase revenue by selling more or increasing prices

Each level is MECE. It is almost impossible to argue against any of this (unless you are willing to commit accounting fraud!).

Tip #4 — Leveraging the Pyramid Principle

The pyramid principle is an approach popularized by Barbara Minto and essential to the structured problem solving approach I learned at McKinsey. Learning this approach has changed the way I look at any presentation since.

Here is a rough outline of how you can think about the pyramid principle as a way to structure a presentation:

As you build a presentation, you may have three sections for each hypothesis. As you think about the overall story, the three hypothesis (and the supporting evidence) will build on each other as a “story” to answer the defined problem. There are two ways to think about doing this — using inductive or deductive reasoning:

If we go back to our profitability example from above, you would say that increasing profitability was the core issue we developed. Lets assume that through research we found that our three hypotheses were true. Given this, you may start to build a high level presentation around the following three points:

These three ideas not only are distinct but they also build on each other. Combined, they tell a story of what the company should do and how they should react. Each of these three “points” may be a separate section in the presentation followed by several pages of detailed analysis. There may also be a shorter executive summary version of 5–10 pages that gives the high level story without as much data and analysis.

Step 6: The only way to improve is to get feedback and continue to practice

Ultimately, this process is not something you will master overnight. I’ve been consulting, either working for a firm or on my own for more than 10 years and am still looking for ways to make better presentations, become more persuasive and get feedback on individual slides.

The process never ends.

The best way to improve fast is to be working on a great team . Look for people around you that do this well and ask them for feedback. The more feedback, the more iterations and more presentations you make, the better you will become. Good luck!

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll get a kick out of all the free lessons I’ve shared that go a bit deeper. Check them out here .

Do you have a toolkit for business problem solving? I created Think Like a Strategy Consultant as an online course to make the tools of strategy consultants accessible to driven professionals, executives, and consultants. This course teaches you how to synthesize information into compelling insights, structure your information in ways that help you solve problems, and develop presentations that resonate at the C-Level. Click here to learn more or if you are interested in getting started now, enroll in the self-paced version ($497) or hands-on coaching version ($997). Both versions include lifetime access and all future updates.

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15+ Interview Questions for Consultants [+ Sample Responses]

Published: April 04, 2023

When people think of consulting interviews, they immediately think of case study questions . You know the ones: you're given a hypothetical problem and asked to analyze a situation and recommend a solution.

However, solving cases is only half the battle. You also need to answer behavioral questions that assess your experience, skills, and fit for the job.

Here, we'll cover 15+ questions that will likely come up in consulting interviews — and discuss best practices for nailing them.

How to Answer Behavioral Questions

The best way to answer behavioral questions is with stories. They demonstrate your impact in an engaging way and have the power to stick in your interviewer's mind long after the interview is over.

However, these questions are not an invitation to go on lengthy tangents about your professional life. You still need structure.

One way to add structure is by using the STAR method . STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. Here's how it works:

• Situation: Start by describing the situation. Give adequate details about the setting, the people involved, and any relevant background information.
• Task: Next, describe the task or challenge at hand. For instance, what was your main objective? What obstacles did you face?
• Action: Describe the specific actions you took to address the situation. Don't be vague here. Explain your thought process and decision-making.
• Result: Lastly, describe the outcome of your actions. Be sure to focus on the positive results. You can also address any challenges along the way.

It's also important to tailor your stories to the specific job. For example, if the role requires you to work independently, prepare some examples of when you mastered a project solo.

Common Interview Questions for Consultants

Fit Questions

Leadership Questions

Industry Questions

Experience and Background Questions

Conflict Resolution Questions

Fit Questions for Consultants

1. tell me about yourself..

If there's one question you're bound to encounter during an interview, it's "Tell me about yourself."

Because the question is so open-ended, it can be difficult to know where to start. To get the ball rolling, here's a good "formula" to structure your answer:

• Describe who you are
• Describe why you're qualified
• Describe why you're here

Let's look at an example:

"My name is [Your Name], and I've been a consultant for [Number of Years]. I specialize in [Area of Expertise], which includes [Specific Area 1] and [Specific Area 2]. My clients typically come to me for help with [Problem or Challenge]. For example, I recently worked with a software company to [Achievement 1] and [Achievement 2]. I really enjoy [Specific Part of Job], and I'm excited to bring the experience I've gained to the team at [Company]."

2. Why do you want to work for our company?

Before the interview, research the types of projects the company takes on, as well as its values, culture, and mission. In your answer, highlight the specific aspect that resonates with you. The more specific you can be, the better.

For instance, "I'm excited about the opportunity to work for [Company Name] because of its reputation for (or commitment to) [Specific Quality]. I've been following the company's work closely, and I've been impressed by [Achievement 1] and [Achievement 2]. I'm also eager to work for a company that prioritizes [Culture Callout 1], [Culture Callout 2], and [Culture Callout 3]. These are values that align with my own professional goals, and I'm excited about the opportunity to work with a team that shares these values."

3. Why consulting?

Consulting is a highly competitive field, and firms are looking for people who have a "spark" for this type of work. By asking, "Why consulting?" interviewers can identify candidates who have a genuine interest in the industry and are willing to put in the effort to learn, grow, and develop their skills.

When answering this question, focus on two or three aspects of consulting you enjoy most.

For example, "I like tackling tough issues and developing new solutions. But, ultimately, I'm motivated by knowing that the work I do has a meaningful impact. In one of my first jobs, I helped to develop a digital marketing campaign for a small business that grew its revenue by 15% within eight months. Accomplishments like that really motivate me to do my best."

4. Why are you the best person for this position? / What can you bring to this role?

This question is similar to an elevator pitch. It's also when you really need to sell yourself and your skills.

Identify one or two relevant examples demonstrating your ability to meet the expectations outlined in the job description. These may include specific projects you worked on, accomplishments you achieved, or skills you developed.

Then, think about the strengths and skills that make you stand out as a candidate. Focus on the ones that are most relevant to the position.

For example, "My expertise in carbon management, along with my desire to work on tough problems, makes me a strong candidate for this position. I have a proven track record of helping clients develop practical and sustainable solutions that consider cost-benefit."

And remember, always finish your answer by expressing enthusiasm for the position — such as, "Overall, I am confident that my skills and experience make me the ideal candidate for this position, and I look forward to the opportunity to make a positive impact in this role."

Leadership Questions for Consultants

5. what is your leadership style.

This question allows the interviewer to assess your leadership style and determine if it aligns with the organization's culture.

For instance, if you describe your leadership style as, say, authoritarian, you may not fare well at a company that prioritizes collaboration and community.

When answering this question, start by describing your leadership philosophy and follow it with an example of how you've put that philosophy into action. Take a look at the example below:

"I would describe my leadership style as collaborative and empowering. I believe in building strong relationships with team members and empowering them to take ownership of their work. For example, in my last position, I successfully [Achievement]. I did this by [Describe Process]. I believe these elements create a positive and productive working environment."

6. Describe a time you had to lead a team through a difficult challenge.

This is a common behavioral question that consultants face in an interview. It's designed to test how you perform in times of difficulty and uncertainty.

Pick a relevant example and explain why the problem was challenging and how you overcame it. Don't be vague here. List out the steps you took and the reasoning behind them. This will help the interviewer understand your problem-solving process.

"A few years ago, I was working for a client in the [Specific Industry]. The client was facing several challenges related to [Main Issue], which was causing [Describe Symptoms]. One of the biggest challenges was [Insert Challenge]. To address the root cause of the issue, I [Describe Steps]. Then, I developed a strategy that involved [Describe Remedy Plan]. Ultimately, we were able to [End Result], which led to [Positive Outcome]."

Industry Questions for Consultants

7. what are the biggest challenges facing this industry.

This question is an opportunity to flex your knowledge and passion for your industry. However, you don't need to overwhelm the interviewer with a detailed analysis of its greatest problems. Instead, narrow your focus to one or two challenges.

For instance, a marketing consultant may say, "One of the biggest challenges I see is that consumers want more personalization. With so many brands vying for their attention, marketers need to create campaigns that stand out, are highly personalized, and make a meaningful impact."

Conclude your answer with a positive spin by describing how you're approaching these challenges — or developing certain skills to keep up with these changes.

For example, "I work with clients to develop unique value propositions and messaging that sets them apart from the competition. I do this by using data and analytics to learn more about customer behavior and preferences. I'm also experimenting with artificial intelligence to see how we can deliver personalized experiences at scale. I'm excited to see where that goes."

8. What are the biggest opportunities facing this industry?

This question is designed to test your knowledge of the industry and where you see potential growth.

For instance: "One area that comes to mind is the emergence of AI. I think it presents a huge opportunity to optimize marketing campaigns — especially with customer segmentation and targeting. We can now use AI to analyze vast amounts of data on customer behavior. This allows us to segment our audiences more accurately and target them with more personalized messaging. I'm already testing different AI tools, and I'm excited to see how this technology can help my clients streamline their marketing efforts."

Experience and Background Questions for Consultants

9. what types of consulting projects do you have experience working on.

Here, the interviewer is gauging whether your experience aligns with the position's requirements. However, this isn't an invitation to recite every bullet point on your resume. Instead, aim to share two to three projects that are relevant to the job posting.

For instance, if you're applying to an IT consulting position, you might say, "I've had the opportunity to work on a variety of IT consulting projects during my career. Specifically, I've worked on projects relating to [Area of Expertise 1] and [Area of Expertise 2]. For example, I recently collaborated on a project for a large financial services company where I led a team in implementing a new customer relationship management system. The project involved.…"

10. Tell me about a time you made a recommendation that significantly improved a particular process.

In the world of consulting, problem-solving is the name of the game. During the interview, you need to demonstrate your ability to analyze complex issues and arrive at effective solutions.

It's important to find a relevant example, explain it clearly, and highlight the impact of your recommendation (preferably backed by stats). Let's take a look at an example from an HR consultant.

"At a previous company, the HR department was struggling to attract and retain talent. My task was to identify the root causes and develop a recommendation that would help improve employee engagement and retention. I conducted several focus groups to gather feedback from employees about their experience working for the company. Based on the data, I identified several areas for improvement, including better communication from leadership, more opportunities for professional development, and a more inclusive workplace culture. I recommended several changes, such as leadership training and a mentoring program. I worked with the HR team to develop and implement these changes, and I presented the new strategy to the senior leadership team. Within seven months, employee satisfaction scores increased by 20%, and turnover rates decreased by 15%."

11. Describe a time when you worked within a cross-functional team to complete a project.

It's typical for consultants to work in teams, especially on larger projects. For instance, you may work cross-functionally with different departments or have multiple stakeholders to manage.

The interviewer is looking for insight into your ability to collaborate, communicate, and work effectively with others. You'll want to pick an example demonstrating your ability to work successfully with a team.

Here's an example: "I was part of a consulting project for a retail company that aimed to improve their supply chain management. The project involved several departments, including logistics, finance, and IT. My role was to lead the data analysis phase of the project. I collaborated closely with members from each department, ensuring that everyone was aligned and aware of their responsibilities. I also worked with our project manager to develop a detailed plan that kept us on track with deadlines. Our work resulted in a streamlined supply chain process that reduced costs by 22%."

12. What methods do you use to identify your clients' needs? How do you solve those needs?

Consultants are known as problem solvers. So, it's common for interviewers to inquire about your process for identifying, diagnosing, and solving problems.

When answering this question, describe your own process for gathering information, such as:

• Conducting interviews
• Analyzing customer feedback
• Performing market research
• Surveys and focus groups
• Data analytics

Then, explain how you use this information to address your clients' specific challenges or to achieve a goal or objective.

Conflict Resolution Questions for Consultants

13. tell me about a time in which you disagreed with someone. how did you handle it, and what did you learn from the experience.

The goal of this question is to assess your conflict resolution skills. It also provides an opportunity to highlight your problem-solving abilities, leadership qualities, and emotional intelligence.

Answering this question by saying you avoid conflict — or become aggressive and defensive when it happens — isn't the right approach. After all, conflict is commonplace at work, and you need the right skills to handle it. Instead, think of an example demonstrating your ability to handle conflict in a productive, healthy manner.

For instance, "One example that comes to mind is when I was working with a client who wanted to [X]. However, I disagreed with the approach and felt that a different strategy would be more effective at [Ideal Outcome]. To handle the situation, I scheduled a meeting with the client and presented [Alternative Solution]. I also took the time to listen to the client's perspective and concerns. We had a constructive discussion, and ultimately, we were able to come up with [Final Solution] that incorporated both our ideas. From this experience, I learned the importance of being able to present and justify my recommendations, while maintaining open and constructive communication with my clients."

14. Tell me about a time you solved a difficult problem.

By asking this question, the interviewer can understand how you approach challenges, roadblocks, and unexpected obstacles. It also offers a glimpse into your problem-solving process.

Start by describing the situation as clearly as possible. Make sure your story is linear and concise. For instance, "I was once hired by a client struggling to improve their cash flow management. After conducting a financial analysis, I identified several key areas where improvements could be made. One of the most pressing issues was the client's accounts receivable process, which was causing a significant delay in cash inflows."

Then, emphasize the actions you took to overcome the challenge. Don't rush through this part. For instance, "I developed a collections strategy that included a clear process for following up with customers, incentives for early payment, and regular reporting on performance. Throughout the project, I faced several challenges, such as internal disagreements about the best approach to take. However, I was able to overcome these challenges by maintaining open communication with the client, collaborating with their team, and staying focused on the project goals."

Finally, end your answer on a positive note: "As a result, the client was able to reduce their accounts receivable balance by 30% within the first three months of implementing the new strategy."

15. Tell me about a time when you struggled to meet a deadline.

The ability to meet deadlines is critical to a consultant's job. That said, consulting projects can be complex and involve multiple stakeholders, creating challenges and potential delays.

By asking this question, the interviewer can assess your ability to handle these situations. Like the question above, pick an example demonstrating your ability to find solutions when unexpected problems arise.

For instance, "I was once working on a project that involved [Describe Project Details]. The project had a tight deadline, with only [# of Weeks/Months] to complete all aspects of the campaign. Despite our best efforts to organize the project timeline, we faced several unexpected setbacks that made it challenging to meet the deadline. One of the key setbacks was [Main Setback]. This impacted our ability to [Describe Roadblock]. To address these challenges, we first [Solution 1]. We also implemented [Solution 2]. Ultimately, while we didn't meet the original deadline, we were able to [Positive Outcome] within a [X]-week extension period."

Back to You

There's no way around it: to nail your next consulting interview, you need to practice and prepare. Start with the questions in this article, and tailor your responses to the specific job and company you're interviewing for. By doing the necessary legwork, you can position yourself as a top candidate.

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Hypothesis-Driven Approach: Crack Your Case Like a Consultant

• Last Updated June, 2023

A hypothesis-driven approach in consulting is a structured method of problem-solving. Consultants formulate a hypothesis for the solution to a business problem, then gather data to support or disprove it. 

Cracking a case interview can be a daunting task, with a wide range of potential solutions and approaches to consider. However, using a hypothesis-driven approach is a systematic and effective problem-solving method. It will impress your interviewer and demonstrate your readiness for a career in consulting.

In this article, we will talk about:

• The definitions of a hypothesis and a hypothesis-driven approach
• The differences between a hypothesis-driven approach and a non-hypothesis-driven approach
• An example of how to solve a case using both approaches
• Our 5-step process for using a hypothesis-driven approach to solve consulting cases

Let’s get started!

What Is a Hypothesis & a Hypothesis-Driven Approach?

Differences between a hypothesis-driven approach vs. non-hypothesis-driven approach, our 5-step process for using the hypothesis-driven mindset to solve cases, other consulting tools that will strengthen your problem-solving.

In the realm of science, the term “hypothesis” is used to describe a proposed explanation for a question or phenomenon, based on limited evidence, as a starting point for further investigation. Similarly, consultants act as scientists or as doctors solving their clients’ business problems, constantly forming and testing hypotheses to identify the best solutions. 

The key phrase here is “starting point,” as a hypothesis is an educated guess at the solution, formed from currently available information. As more data is gathered, the hypothesis may be adjusted or even discarded entirely.

Nail the case & fit interview with strategies from former MBB Interviewers that have helped 89.6% of our clients pass the case interview.

Hypothesis-Driven Approach

Consultants are engaged to efficiently and effectively solve their clients’ problems and assist in making critical business decisions. With the vast amount of data available and an array of options to consider, it can be overwhelming to examine everything. Time constraints on projects make it imperative that consultants avoid getting bogged down in excessive analysis and questioning, without making meaningful progress toward a recommendation.

Instead, consultants begin by forming a hypothesis after gaining an understanding of the client’s problem and high-level range of possibilities. Then, they gather data to test the initial hypothesis. If the data disproves the hypothesis, the consultants repeat the process with the next best hypothesis. This method of problem-solving is commonly used by top consulting firms, such as McKinsey.

A non-hypothesis-driven approach is the opposite of a hypothesis-driven approach. Instead of forming a hypothesis, the individual makes a recommendation only after thoroughly evaluating all data and possibilities. This approach may rely on intuition, trial and error, or exhaustively exploring all options to solve the problem. This is not an efficient method for a case interview, where time is limited.

An analogy that illustrates the distinction between the two methods is to look at problem-solving as trying to find a needle in a haystack. A non-hypothesis-driven approach would involve randomly searching through the entire stack without any clear strategy. 

On the other hand, a hypothesis-driven approach would involve dividing the haystack into smaller piles, and systematically searching through one section at a time. The searcher would gather information from the person who lost the needle, such as their location when it was lost, to identify the most likely pile to search first. This not only saves time but also increases the likelihood of finding the needle. If the needle is not found in the initial pile, the search can then move on to the next most probable pile.

Solving a Case Interview Using the Hypothesis-Driven Approach vs. the Non-Hypothesis-Driven Approach

To further illustrate the advantages of a hypothesis-driven approach, let’s examine two different approaches to the same case interview example. We’ll compare and contrast these approaches, highlighting the key distinctions between them. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of the benefits of using a hypothesis-driven approach in problem-solving. 

The client is SnackCo, a consumer goods company that manufactures and sells trail mixes in the United States. Over the past decade, SnackCo has seen significant growth following the launch of premium trail mix products, capitalizing on the trend toward healthier snacking options. Despite this success, the company’s operations have remained unchanged for the past decade. SnackCo is asking for your help to improve its bottom line.

Let’s look at how two candidates, Alex and Julie, solve the same case.

The Non-Hypothesis-Driven Approach

After hearing this prompt, Alex jumps right into listing possible questions related to how to improve the bottom line.

Alex: I understand SnackCo wants to improve profitability. Here are some questions I want to look into. Has SnackCo’s retail prices remained the same in recent years?

Interviewer: No, SnackCo has adjusted prices quite closely to what competitive products are selling at.

Alex: Oh interesting. Are consumers willing to pay more for premium trail mix? Do we know if we are underpricing?

Interviewer: SnackCo’s Director of Sales strongly believes that they should not change product prices. He believes the consumers love the product and it is priced fairly. 

Alex: Got it. Has the client’s market share decreased?

Interviewer: No, the market share has increased over the years.

Alex: In that case, it seems like our growth is fine. Have the costs increased?

Interviewer: SnackCo has not made many changes to its costs and operations in the last decade. What are some ways we can help them look at their cost savings opportunities?

Although Alex is making progress and may eventually solve the case, his communication style gives the impression that he is randomly guessing at the sources of the problem, rather than using logical reasoning and structure to pinpoint the solution.

The Hypothesis-Driven Approach

Julie has prepared for her case interviews with My Consulting Offer’s coaches so she is well-versed in the hypothesis-driven approach. 

After hearing the same prompt, she takes a moment to write down the key issues she wants to dig into to solve this case and organizes her thoughts. 

Julie: For the goal of improving profitability, we could look at how to improve revenue or decrease costs. For revenue, we could look at if prices or volumes have changed. Since the client said they haven’t made any changes to the business operations in the last decade, I would like to start with a better understanding of their costs. However, before we begin, I want to confirm if there have been any changes to prices or volumes recently.

Interviewer: SnackCo’s Director of Sales strongly believes that they should not change product prices. They also believe the volumes have grown well as SnackCo is one of the market leaders now. 

Julie: Great. That confirms what I was thinking. It’s likely a cost problem. We could look at their variable costs, such as ingredients, or fixed costs, such as manufacturing facilities. Given that this is an established business, I would assume their fixed costs are likely consistent. Therefore, let’s start with their variable costs.

Interviewer: How should we think about variable costs?

Julie: Variable costs for SnackCo likely include ingredients, packaging, and freight. The levers they could pull to reduce these costs would be through supplier relationships or changing the product composition. 

Julie quickly identifies that variable costs are likely the problem and has a structured approach to understanding which opportunities to explore. 

Key Differences

The interviewer is looking for candidates with strong problem-solving and communication skills, which are the qualities of a good consultant. Let’s look at how the two candidates performed.

Problem-Solving

Alex’s approach to solving the client’s problem was haphazard, as he posed a series of seemingly unrelated questions in no particular order. This method felt more like a rapid-fire Q&A session rather than a structured problem-solving approach. 

On the other hand, Julie takes a structured and analytical approach to address profitability concerns. She quickly realizes that while revenue is one factor of profitability, it is likely costs that are the main concern, as they haven’t changed much in the last decade. She then breaks down the major cost categories and concludes that variable costs are the most likely opportunity for cost reduction. Julie is laser-focused on the client’s goal and efficiently gets to a solution.

Communication

Alex is not making a positive initial impression. If this were an actual client interaction, his questioning would appear disorganized and unprofessional. 

On the other hand, Julie appears more organized through her clear communication style. She only considers the most pertinent issues at hand (i.e., the client’s business operations and costs) and avoids going down irrelevant rabbit holes.

• Understand the client’s problem; ask clarifying questions if needed.
• Formulate an issue tree to break down the problem into smaller parts.
• State the initial hypothesis and key assumptions to be tested.
• Gather and analyze information to prove or disprove the hypothesis; do not panic if the hypothesis is disproven.
• Pivot the hypothesis if necessary and repeat step 4. Otherwise, make your recommendation on what the client can do to solve their problem. 

Other helpful tips to remember when using the hypothesis-driven approach:

• Stay focused on the client’s problem and remember what the end goal is.
• Think outside the box and consider new perspectives beyond traditional frameworks. The basic case interview frameworks are useful to understand but interviewers expect candidates to tailor to the specific client situation.
• Clearly communicate assumptions and implications throughout the interview; don’t assume the interviewer can read your mind.

A hypothesis-driven approach is closely tied to other key consulting concepts, such as issue trees, MECE, and 80/20. Let’s take a closer look at these topics and how they relate.

• Issue Trees

Issue trees, also known as decision trees, are visual tools that break down complex business problems into smaller, more manageable parts. In a consulting interview, candidates use the issue tree to outline key issues and potential factors in the client’s problem, demonstrating their understanding of the situation. This structure is then used to guide the case discussion, starting with the candidate’s best hypothesis, represented as one branch of the issue tree. For more information and examples of issue trees, check out our i ssue tree post. 

During the interview process, consulting firms look for candidates who can demonstrate a MECE (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive) approach to problem-solving, which involves breaking down complex issues into distinct, non-overlapping components. 

A MECE approach in case interviews involves identifying all potential paths to solving a client’s problem at a high level. This allows the candidate to form an initial hypothesis with confidence that no potential solutions have been overlooked. To gain a deeper understanding, read our comprehensive guide on the MECE case structure .

Consultants use the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, to prioritize their efforts and focus on the most important things. This principle states that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes, which means a small number of issues often drive a large portion of the problem. By identifying and focusing on the key issues, consultants can achieve significant results with relatively minimal resources.

By following these tips and developing a solid understanding of the hypothesis-driven approach to case-solving, you will have the necessary tools to excel in your case interview. For more interview resources, check out Our Ultimate Guide to Case Interview Prep . 

– – – – –

In this article, we’ve covered:

• Explanations of a hypothesis and hypothesis-driven approach
• Comparison between a hypothesis-driven approach and a non-hypothesis-driven approach
• Examples of the same case using both approaches and the key differences
• Practical tips on how to develop a hypothesis-driven mindset to ace the case

Still have questions?

If you have more questions about the best degrees for a career in consulting, leave them in the comments below. One of My Consulting Offer’s recruiters will answer them.

Other people preparing to apply to consulting firms found the following pages helpful:

• Our Ultimate Guide to Case Interview Prep
• Types of Case Interviews
• Case Frameworks
• Hypothesis Trees

Help with Your Consulting Application

Thanks for turning to My Consulting Offer for advice on the best majors for consulting. My Consulting Offer has helped almost 89.6% of the people we’ve worked with to get a job in management consulting. We want you to be successful in your consulting interviews too. For example, here is how Misha was able to get his offer from BCG.

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3 Top Strategies to Master the Case Interview in Under a Week

We are sharing our powerful strategies to pass the case interview even if you have no business background, zero casing experience, or only have a week to prepare.

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How to master the seven-step problem-solving process

In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast , Simon London speaks with Charles Conn, CEO of venture-capital firm Oxford Sciences Innovation, and McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin about the complexities of different problem-solving strategies.

Podcast transcript

Simon London: Hello, and welcome to this episode of the McKinsey Podcast , with me, Simon London. What’s the number-one skill you need to succeed professionally? Salesmanship, perhaps? Or a facility with statistics? Or maybe the ability to communicate crisply and clearly? Many would argue that at the very top of the list comes problem solving: that is, the ability to think through and come up with an optimal course of action to address any complex challenge—in business, in public policy, or indeed in life.

Looked at this way, it’s no surprise that McKinsey takes problem solving very seriously, testing for it during the recruiting process and then honing it, in McKinsey consultants, through immersion in a structured seven-step method. To discuss the art of problem solving, I sat down in California with McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin and also with Charles Conn. Charles is a former McKinsey partner, entrepreneur, executive, and coauthor of the book Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything [John Wiley & Sons, 2018].

Charles and Hugo, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Hugo Sarrazin: Our pleasure.

Charles Conn: It’s terrific to be here.

Simon London: Problem solving is a really interesting piece of terminology. It could mean so many different things. I have a son who’s a teenage climber. They talk about solving problems. Climbing is problem solving. Charles, when you talk about problem solving, what are you talking about?

Charles Conn: For me, problem solving is the answer to the question “What should I do?” It’s interesting when there’s uncertainty and complexity, and when it’s meaningful because there are consequences. Your son’s climbing is a perfect example. There are consequences, and it’s complicated, and there’s uncertainty—can he make that grab? I think we can apply that same frame almost at any level. You can think about questions like “What town would I like to live in?” or “Should I put solar panels on my roof?”

You might think that’s a funny thing to apply problem solving to, but in my mind it’s not fundamentally different from business problem solving, which answers the question “What should my strategy be?” Or problem solving at the policy level: “How do we combat climate change?” “Should I support the local school bond?” I think these are all part and parcel of the same type of question, “What should I do?”

I’m a big fan of structured problem solving. By following steps, we can more clearly understand what problem it is we’re solving, what are the components of the problem that we’re solving, which components are the most important ones for us to pay attention to, which analytic techniques we should apply to those, and how we can synthesize what we’ve learned back into a compelling story. That’s all it is, at its heart.

I think sometimes when people think about seven steps, they assume that there’s a rigidity to this. That’s not it at all. It’s actually to give you the scope for creativity, which often doesn’t exist when your problem solving is muddled.

Simon London: You were just talking about the seven-step process. That’s what’s written down in the book, but it’s a very McKinsey process as well. Without getting too deep into the weeds, let’s go through the steps, one by one. You were just talking about problem definition as being a particularly important thing to get right first. That’s the first step. Hugo, tell us about that.

Hugo Sarrazin: It is surprising how often people jump past this step and make a bunch of assumptions. The most powerful thing is to step back and ask the basic questions—“What are we trying to solve? What are the constraints that exist? What are the dependencies?” Let’s make those explicit and really push the thinking and defining. At McKinsey, we spend an enormous amount of time in writing that little statement, and the statement, if you’re a logic purist, is great. You debate. “Is it an ‘or’? Is it an ‘and’? What’s the action verb?” Because all these specific words help you get to the heart of what matters.

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Simon London: So this is a concise problem statement.

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah. It’s not like “Can we grow in Japan?” That’s interesting, but it is “What, specifically, are we trying to uncover in the growth of a product in Japan? Or a segment in Japan? Or a channel in Japan?” When you spend an enormous amount of time, in the first meeting of the different stakeholders, debating this and having different people put forward what they think the problem definition is, you realize that people have completely different views of why they’re here. That, to me, is the most important step.

Charles Conn: I would agree with that. For me, the problem context is critical. When we understand “What are the forces acting upon your decision maker? How quickly is the answer needed? With what precision is the answer needed? Are there areas that are off limits or areas where we would particularly like to find our solution? Is the decision maker open to exploring other areas?” then you not only become more efficient, and move toward what we call the critical path in problem solving, but you also make it so much more likely that you’re not going to waste your time or your decision maker’s time.

How often do especially bright young people run off with half of the idea about what the problem is and start collecting data and start building models—only to discover that they’ve really gone off half-cocked.

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah.

Charles Conn: And in the wrong direction.

Simon London: OK. So step one—and there is a real art and a structure to it—is define the problem. Step two, Charles?

Charles Conn: My favorite step is step two, which is to use logic trees to disaggregate the problem. Every problem we’re solving has some complexity and some uncertainty in it. The only way that we can really get our team working on the problem is to take the problem apart into logical pieces.

What we find, of course, is that the way to disaggregate the problem often gives you an insight into the answer to the problem quite quickly. I love to do two or three different cuts at it, each one giving a bit of a different insight into what might be going wrong. By doing sensible disaggregations, using logic trees, we can figure out which parts of the problem we should be looking at, and we can assign those different parts to team members.

Simon London: What’s a good example of a logic tree on a sort of ratable problem?

Charles Conn: Maybe the easiest one is the classic profit tree. Almost in every business that I would take a look at, I would start with a profit or return-on-assets tree. In its simplest form, you have the components of revenue, which are price and quantity, and the components of cost, which are cost and quantity. Each of those can be broken out. Cost can be broken into variable cost and fixed cost. The components of price can be broken into what your pricing scheme is. That simple tree often provides insight into what’s going on in a business or what the difference is between that business and the competitors.

If we add the leg, which is “What’s the asset base or investment element?”—so profit divided by assets—then we can ask the question “Is the business using its investments sensibly?” whether that’s in stores or in manufacturing or in transportation assets. I hope we can see just how simple this is, even though we’re describing it in words.

When I went to work with Gordon Moore at the Moore Foundation, the problem that he asked us to look at was “How can we save Pacific salmon?” Now, that sounds like an impossible question, but it was amenable to precisely the same type of disaggregation and allowed us to organize what became a 15-year effort to improve the likelihood of good outcomes for Pacific salmon.

Simon London: Now, is there a danger that your logic tree can be impossibly large? This, I think, brings us onto the third step in the process, which is that you have to prioritize.

Charles Conn: Absolutely. The third step, which we also emphasize, along with good problem definition, is rigorous prioritization—we ask the questions “How important is this lever or this branch of the tree in the overall outcome that we seek to achieve? How much can I move that lever?” Obviously, we try and focus our efforts on ones that have a big impact on the problem and the ones that we have the ability to change. With salmon, ocean conditions turned out to be a big lever, but not one that we could adjust. We focused our attention on fish habitats and fish-harvesting practices, which were big levers that we could affect.

People spend a lot of time arguing about branches that are either not important or that none of us can change. We see it in the public square. When we deal with questions at the policy level—“Should you support the death penalty?” “How do we affect climate change?” “How can we uncover the causes and address homelessness?”—it’s even more important that we’re focusing on levers that are big and movable.

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Simon London: Let’s move swiftly on to step four. You’ve defined your problem, you disaggregate it, you prioritize where you want to analyze—what you want to really look at hard. Then you got to the work plan. Now, what does that mean in practice?

Hugo Sarrazin: Depending on what you’ve prioritized, there are many things you could do. It could be breaking the work among the team members so that people have a clear piece of the work to do. It could be defining the specific analyses that need to get done and executed, and being clear on time lines. There’s always a level-one answer, there’s a level-two answer, there’s a level-three answer. Without being too flippant, I can solve any problem during a good dinner with wine. It won’t have a whole lot of backing.

Simon London: Not going to have a lot of depth to it.

Hugo Sarrazin: No, but it may be useful as a starting point. If the stakes are not that high, that could be OK. If it’s really high stakes, you may need level three and have the whole model validated in three different ways. You need to find a work plan that reflects the level of precision, the time frame you have, and the stakeholders you need to bring along in the exercise.

Charles Conn: I love the way you’ve described that, because, again, some people think of problem solving as a linear thing, but of course what’s critical is that it’s iterative. As you say, you can solve the problem in one day or even one hour.

Charles Conn: We encourage our teams everywhere to do that. We call it the one-day answer or the one-hour answer. In work planning, we’re always iterating. Every time you see a 50-page work plan that stretches out to three months, you know it’s wrong. It will be outmoded very quickly by that learning process that you described. Iterative problem solving is a critical part of this. Sometimes, people think work planning sounds dull, but it isn’t. It’s how we know what’s expected of us and when we need to deliver it and how we’re progressing toward the answer. It’s also the place where we can deal with biases. Bias is a feature of every human decision-making process. If we design our team interactions intelligently, we can avoid the worst sort of biases.

Simon London: Here we’re talking about cognitive biases primarily, right? It’s not that I’m biased against you because of your accent or something. These are the cognitive biases that behavioral sciences have shown we all carry around, things like anchoring, overoptimism—these kinds of things.

Both: Yeah.

Charles Conn: Availability bias is the one that I’m always alert to. You think you’ve seen the problem before, and therefore what’s available is your previous conception of it—and we have to be most careful about that. In any human setting, we also have to be careful about biases that are based on hierarchies, sometimes called sunflower bias. I’m sure, Hugo, with your teams, you make sure that the youngest team members speak first. Not the oldest team members, because it’s easy for people to look at who’s senior and alter their own creative approaches.

Hugo Sarrazin: It’s helpful, at that moment—if someone is asserting a point of view—to ask the question “This was true in what context?” You’re trying to apply something that worked in one context to a different one. That can be deadly if the context has changed, and that’s why organizations struggle to change. You promote all these people because they did something that worked well in the past, and then there’s a disruption in the industry, and they keep doing what got them promoted even though the context has changed.

Simon London: Right. Right.

Hugo Sarrazin: So it’s the same thing in problem solving.

Charles Conn: And it’s why diversity in our teams is so important. It’s one of the best things about the world that we’re in now. We’re likely to have people from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and national backgrounds, each of whom sees problems from a slightly different perspective. It is therefore much more likely that the team will uncover a truly creative and clever approach to problem solving.

Simon London: Let’s move on to step five. You’ve done your work plan. Now you’ve actually got to do the analysis. The thing that strikes me here is that the range of tools that we have at our disposal now, of course, is just huge, particularly with advances in computation, advanced analytics. There’s so many things that you can apply here. Just talk about the analysis stage. How do you pick the right tools?

Charles Conn: For me, the most important thing is that we start with simple heuristics and explanatory statistics before we go off and use the big-gun tools. We need to understand the shape and scope of our problem before we start applying these massive and complex analytical approaches.

Simon London: Would you agree with that?

Hugo Sarrazin: I agree. I think there are so many wonderful heuristics. You need to start there before you go deep into the modeling exercise. There’s an interesting dynamic that’s happening, though. In some cases, for some types of problems, it is even better to set yourself up to maximize your learning. Your problem-solving methodology is test and learn, test and learn, test and learn, and iterate. That is a heuristic in itself, the A/B testing that is used in many parts of the world. So that’s a problem-solving methodology. It’s nothing different. It just uses technology and feedback loops in a fast way. The other one is exploratory data analysis. When you’re dealing with a large-scale problem, and there’s so much data, I can get to the heuristics that Charles was talking about through very clever visualization of data.

You test with your data. You need to set up an environment to do so, but don’t get caught up in neural-network modeling immediately. You’re testing, you’re checking—“Is the data right? Is it sound? Does it make sense?”—before you launch too far.

Simon London: You do hear these ideas—that if you have a big enough data set and enough algorithms, they’re going to find things that you just wouldn’t have spotted, find solutions that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of. Does machine learning sort of revolutionize the problem-solving process? Or are these actually just other tools in the toolbox for structured problem solving?

Charles Conn: It can be revolutionary. There are some areas in which the pattern recognition of large data sets and good algorithms can help us see things that we otherwise couldn’t see. But I do think it’s terribly important we don’t think that this particular technique is a substitute for superb problem solving, starting with good problem definition. Many people use machine learning without understanding algorithms that themselves can have biases built into them. Just as 20 years ago, when we were doing statistical analysis, we knew that we needed good model definition, we still need a good understanding of our algorithms and really good problem definition before we launch off into big data sets and unknown algorithms.

Simon London: Step six. You’ve done your analysis.

Charles Conn: I take six and seven together, and this is the place where young problem solvers often make a mistake. They’ve got their analysis, and they assume that’s the answer, and of course it isn’t the answer. The ability to synthesize the pieces that came out of the analysis and begin to weave those into a story that helps people answer the question “What should I do?” This is back to where we started. If we can’t synthesize, and we can’t tell a story, then our decision maker can’t find the answer to “What should I do?”

Simon London: But, again, these final steps are about motivating people to action, right?

Charles Conn: Yeah.

Simon London: I am slightly torn about the nomenclature of problem solving because it’s on paper, right? Until you motivate people to action, you actually haven’t solved anything.

Charles Conn: I love this question because I think decision-making theory, without a bias to action, is a waste of time. Everything in how I approach this is to help people take action that makes the world better.

Simon London: Hence, these are absolutely critical steps. If you don’t do this well, you’ve just got a bunch of analysis.

Charles Conn: We end up in exactly the same place where we started, which is people speaking across each other, past each other in the public square, rather than actually working together, shoulder to shoulder, to crack these important problems.

Simon London: In the real world, we have a lot of uncertainty—arguably, increasing uncertainty. How do good problem solvers deal with that?

Hugo Sarrazin: At every step of the process. In the problem definition, when you’re defining the context, you need to understand those sources of uncertainty and whether they’re important or not important. It becomes important in the definition of the tree.

You need to think carefully about the branches of the tree that are more certain and less certain as you define them. They don’t have equal weight just because they’ve got equal space on the page. Then, when you’re prioritizing, your prioritization approach may put more emphasis on things that have low probability but huge impact—or, vice versa, may put a lot of priority on things that are very likely and, hopefully, have a reasonable impact. You can introduce that along the way. When you come back to the synthesis, you just need to be nuanced about what you’re understanding, the likelihood.

Often, people lack humility in the way they make their recommendations: “This is the answer.” They’re very precise, and I think we would all be well-served to say, “This is a likely answer under the following sets of conditions” and then make the level of uncertainty clearer, if that is appropriate. It doesn’t mean you’re always in the gray zone; it doesn’t mean you don’t have a point of view. It just means that you can be explicit about the certainty of your answer when you make that recommendation.

Simon London: So it sounds like there is an underlying principle: “Acknowledge and embrace the uncertainty. Don’t pretend that it isn’t there. Be very clear about what the uncertainties are up front, and then build that into every step of the process.”

Hugo Sarrazin: Every step of the process.

Simon London: Yeah. We have just walked through a particular structured methodology for problem solving. But, of course, this is not the only structured methodology for problem solving. One that is also very well-known is design thinking, which comes at things very differently. So, Hugo, I know you have worked with a lot of designers. Just give us a very quick summary. Design thinking—what is it, and how does it relate?

Hugo Sarrazin: It starts with an incredible amount of empathy for the user and uses that to define the problem. It does pause and go out in the wild and spend an enormous amount of time seeing how people interact with objects, seeing the experience they’re getting, seeing the pain points or joy—and uses that to infer and define the problem.

Simon London: Problem definition, but out in the world.

Hugo Sarrazin: With an enormous amount of empathy. There’s a huge emphasis on empathy. Traditional, more classic problem solving is you define the problem based on an understanding of the situation. This one almost presupposes that we don’t know the problem until we go see it. The second thing is you need to come up with multiple scenarios or answers or ideas or concepts, and there’s a lot of divergent thinking initially. That’s slightly different, versus the prioritization, but not for long. Eventually, you need to kind of say, “OK, I’m going to converge again.” Then you go and you bring things back to the customer and get feedback and iterate. Then you rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. There’s a lot of tactile building, along the way, of prototypes and things like that. It’s very iterative.

Simon London: So, Charles, are these complements or are these alternatives?

Charles Conn: I think they’re entirely complementary, and I think Hugo’s description is perfect. When we do problem definition well in classic problem solving, we are demonstrating the kind of empathy, at the very beginning of our problem, that design thinking asks us to approach. When we ideate—and that’s very similar to the disaggregation, prioritization, and work-planning steps—we do precisely the same thing, and often we use contrasting teams, so that we do have divergent thinking. The best teams allow divergent thinking to bump them off whatever their initial biases in problem solving are. For me, design thinking gives us a constant reminder of creativity, empathy, and the tactile nature of problem solving, but it’s absolutely complementary, not alternative.

Simon London: I think, in a world of cross-functional teams, an interesting question is do people with design-thinking backgrounds really work well together with classical problem solvers? How do you make that chemistry happen?

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah, it is not easy when people have spent an enormous amount of time seeped in design thinking or user-centric design, whichever word you want to use. If the person who’s applying classic problem-solving methodology is very rigid and mechanical in the way they’re doing it, there could be an enormous amount of tension. If there’s not clarity in the role and not clarity in the process, I think having the two together can be, sometimes, problematic.

The second thing that happens often is that the artifacts the two methodologies try to gravitate toward can be different. Classic problem solving often gravitates toward a model; design thinking migrates toward a prototype. Rather than writing a big deck with all my supporting evidence, they’ll bring an example, a thing, and that feels different. Then you spend your time differently to achieve those two end products, so that’s another source of friction.

Now, I still think it can be an incredibly powerful thing to have the two—if there are the right people with the right mind-set, if there is a team that is explicit about the roles, if we’re clear about the kind of outcomes we are attempting to bring forward. There’s an enormous amount of collaborativeness and respect.

Simon London: But they have to respect each other’s methodology and be prepared to flex, maybe, a little bit, in how this process is going to work.

Hugo Sarrazin: Absolutely.

Simon London: The other area where, it strikes me, there could be a little bit of a different sort of friction is this whole concept of the day-one answer, which is what we were just talking about in classical problem solving. Now, you know that this is probably not going to be your final answer, but that’s how you begin to structure the problem. Whereas I would imagine your design thinkers—no, they’re going off to do their ethnographic research and get out into the field, potentially for a long time, before they come back with at least an initial hypothesis.

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Hugo Sarrazin: That is a great callout, and that’s another difference. Designers typically will like to soak into the situation and avoid converging too quickly. There’s optionality and exploring different options. There’s a strong belief that keeps the solution space wide enough that you can come up with more radical ideas. If there’s a large design team or many designers on the team, and you come on Friday and say, “What’s our week-one answer?” they’re going to struggle. They’re not going to be comfortable, naturally, to give that answer. It doesn’t mean they don’t have an answer; it’s just not where they are in their thinking process.

Simon London: I think we are, sadly, out of time for today. But Charles and Hugo, thank you so much.

Charles Conn: It was a pleasure to be here, Simon.

Hugo Sarrazin: It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Simon London: And thanks, as always, to you, our listeners, for tuning into this episode of the McKinsey Podcast . If you want to learn more about problem solving, you can find the book, Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything , online or order it through your local bookstore. To learn more about McKinsey, you can of course find us at McKinsey.com.

Charles Conn is CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation and an alumnus of McKinsey’s Sydney office. Hugo Sarrazin is a senior partner in the Silicon Valley office, where Simon London, a member of McKinsey Publishing, is also based.

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Mastering the Consulting Behavioral Interview: Key Questions and Answers

Ace the consulting behavioral interview. Covers skills, sample questions/answers, preparation tips and follow-up advice.

Introduction

Welcome to the comprehensive guide to mastering the behavioral interview. This introduction aims to provide essential insights into the importance of behavioral interviews in consulting roles , offer a brief introduction to the top management consulting firms: McKinsey, Bain, and BCG (famously listed as MBB), and shine light on the vital role-specific skills play in the life of successful consultants.

We've spent years as senior leaders, hiring managers, and interviewers in some of the world's most coveted companies (e.g. Amazon, Apple, P&G, Diageo) that use behavioral interviews to determine candidates' cultural fit. We've also coached over 2000 candidates on how to prepare for these interviews. This guide is based on our insights.

Understanding the importance of behavioral interviews in consulting roles

In the highly competitive consulting world, attaining a top-firm role means excelling in behavioral interviews in addition to your case interviews. These interviews are crucial to the hiring process as they provide an in-depth look at a candidate's behavior in specific situations, helping predict how they might behave in future scenarios. They offer a platform for candidates to showcase essential qualities such as leadership, problem-solving, teamwork and communication skills. They allow consulting firms to gauge whether candidates align with their culture and values.

Brief overview of top consulting firms: McKinsey, Bain, and BCG (MBB)

Referred to collectively as MBB, McKinsey, Bain, and BCG are among the top echelons in management consulting firms. With a worldwide presence, they have carved a defining niche, setting trends and creating standards for the consulting industry. Garnering a role in these firms means being a part of a high-performing, innovative team focused on solving challenges for the world's leading organizations. However, their high selectivity and rigorous interview process make the journey to success demanding, underscoring the importance of preparation and performance in behavioral interviews.

The significance of specific skills for successful consultants

As a part of such renowned firms, consultants must possess and demonstrate unique skills . These include problem-solving, clarity of focus, analytical and numerical abilities, effective communication, client relationship management, demonstrated leadership, entrepreneurial drive, and an aptitude for teamwork and collaboration. The inherent demanding nature of a consultant's job means the need for these skills is not limited to the interview phase but continues to impact their consulting career, influencing client relationships, project outcomes, and personal growth within the company.

Insight into McKinsey, Bain, and BCG (MBB)

Management consulting is often dominated by a triumvirate known as MBB, an acronym for McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. These top management consulting firms are recognized globally for their reputation and selective hiring process, attracting a pool of highly talented and ambitious candidates.

Reputation and Selectivity of These Firms

MBB firms hold a reputation of prestige and high standards, which is reflected in their stringent and selective hiring processes. McKinsey, for instance, receives over a million applications annually but hires less than 1% of them . A similar scenario can be observed at Bain and BCG, intensifying the competition for aspirants to enter the consulting field.

The Rigorous Interview Process

The interview process at MBB firms is meticulously designed to assess a broad range of skills. The interview phase often involves multiple rounds, including rigorous case interviews and behavioral or fit interviews, which can be both challenging and stimulating for the candidates. It intensely tests their analytical abilities, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills.

High Demand for Specific Skills

MBB firms are known for their high demand for unique skills. Besides academic excellence, these firms seek clarity of focus , analytical and numerical skills, effective communication, client relationship management, leadership capabilities, and entrepreneurial drive. Owning and demonstrating these skills in your job interviews significantly improves your success.

Limited Positions and Intense Competition

These firms have specific hiring targets and don’t maintain a ‘hire-all-talented’ policy. They are known for a limited number of positions targeted at selecting the best of the best. Hence, it is true that only those who stand out in a crowd of talented participants receive an offer. This situation makes some roles more competitive than others.

Strategies to Increase Chances of Success

Though entering MBB firms has always been a challenge, candidates can increase their chances of success by developing the required skills and effectively navigating the application and interview process. Networking with current employees, preparing for the consulting interview, solving case studies, and being abreast of the latest industry trends could give candidates an upper hand in the recruitment process.

In summary, becoming a part of the McKinsey, Bain, or BCG workforce requires diligent preparation and an excellent skill set sprinkled with luck. However, the fruit of your labor is rewarding as it presents numerous opportunities to carve out a successful career in the consulting industry.

Importance of Behavioral Interviews in Consulting Roles

In the management consulting industry, particularly in top management consulting firms like Bain, McKinsey, and BCG (MBB), leveraging behavioral interviews as part of the recruitment process is prevalent for five reasons.

Behavioral interviews as predictors of future performance

Firstly, MBB firms, like other consulting firms, use behavioral interviews to predict future performance. Behavioral interviews focus on a candidate's past experiences and behavior in specific situations, which can provide a sound basis for predicting their future performance in comparable scenarios. This technique assists the consultancy in selecting candidates most likely to excel in challenging situations that often arise during consulting projects.

Assessing essential qualities of candidates

Secondly, in management consulting behavioral interviews, questions are orientated towards assessing several essential qualities such as problem-solving abilities, leadership skills, and teamwork traits. These qualities are vital for consultants to succeed in the demanding environment that characterizes most consulting roles. It's worth noting these assessments are usually executed as part of fit interviews within the broader interview phase.

Evaluating communication skills

Thirdly, the behavioral interview questions allow recruitment teams to gauge candidates' proficiency in communication. Communication skills are essential in the consulting industry. The effectiveness with which candidates answer questions and share personal experiences during interviews can showcase their abilities to deliver clear, logical, and persuasive arguments. These skills are notoriously imperative in consulting roles that often demand substantial interactions with clients, team members, and key stakeholders.

Determining cultural fit

Fourthly, behavioral interviews serve as a way to determine whether a candidate fits the consulting firm's culture and values. The candidate and the consulting firm must ensure a good cultural fit as it directly influences the candidate's potential for success and the overall team environment. Consulting firms' culture and values can usually be derived from their value proposition, mission, and past track record, among other influential factors.

Identifying well-rounded candidates

Finally, behavioral interview questions in consulting interviews also facilitate the identification of well-rounded candidates. By asking candidates to describe a time when they dealt with particular challenges, the consultancy can ascertain whether a candidate boasts a diverse mix of necessary skills and traits that will allow them to excel in the consultant role. For example, in management consulting interviews, answering behavioral questions may involve detailing past experiences where the candidate showed initiative, demonstrated problem-solving skills, or worked collaboratively in a team environment despite limited resources.

Overall, consulting behavioral interviews bridge the gap between a candidate's experience on paper and their potential performance at the consulting firm, providing critical insights essential to the recruitment process.

Understanding the Skills Evaluated in MBB Interviews

Top management consulting firms, such as McKinsey, Bain, and BCG (MBB) , are known for their rigorous selection process and high standards. Their interviews, especially the behavioral ones, aim to evaluate the skills necessary for a successful consulting career rigorously. These skills include clarity of focus, problem-solving, analytical and numerical skills, communication, client relationship management, leadership, entrepreneurial drive, teamwork, and collaboration. Let's take a closer look at these key skills:

Clarity of Focus

In the overwhelming sea of data and information, a consultant's ability to prioritize the right things and navigate effectively is invaluable. This aspect, known as clarity of focus , is something that MBB firms evaluate from the get-go. Candidates must demonstrate a solid sense of direction, an understanding of critical objectives, and the capacity to focus on what matters most ( McKinsey ).

Problem-Solving

An inherent part of the consulting job, problem-solving skills are critical. Consultants must be capable of analyzing complex situations, developing innovative solutions, and navigating through ambiguities. MBB firms value candidates who can demonstrate adaptiveness, creativity, and resilience when faced with challenging tasks ( BCG ).

Analytical and Numerical Skills

Owing to the consulting industry's heavily data-driven nature, having strong analytical and numerical skills is a must. Consultants must be proficient in data analysis, financial valuations, cost savings analysis, and more, to make informed and strategic decisions ( Bain ).

Communication

Efficient communication is another necessary skill for consultants. It involves presenting findings and recommendations clearly and compellingly to clients and teams. Besides verbal communication, it also includes active listening and effective questioning, which are vital components of a consultant's toolbox ( Sharma, 2020 ).

Client Relationship Management

Much of a consultant's role revolves around building and maintaining strong client relationships. Therefore, skills in client relationship management , including empathy, understanding client's needs, and fostering trust, are considered vitally important by MBB firms. Successful client relationships often lead to successful project outcomes ( RocketBlocks ).

Consultants often need to steer teams, manage projects, and sometimes even guide key stakeholders. Thus, strong leadership skills and a knack for influential management are what MBB firms often look for in candidates. This also includes inspiring confidence and promoting an environment conducive to high performance ( McKinsey ).

Entrepreneurial Drive

The demanding environment of management consulting requires individuals with a strong entrepreneurial drive . MBB firms seek candidates who strongly desire to achieve, welcome challenges, and demonstrate resilience in the face of setbacks ( Careerwise by Minnesota State ).

Teamwork and Collaboration

Finally, consulting is a team-based profession; thus, working well with others and contributing to a positive team dynamic is fundamental. Besides cooperative teamwork, this also entails understanding a team’s dynamics and handling interpersonal challenges at the workplace ( The Balance Careers ).

These competencies aren't just evaluated during the interview phase; they form the foundation of a consultant's growth and success throughout their career at the firm. Therefore, understanding, developing, and demonstrating these skills can significantly improve a candidate’s chances of breaking into management consulting.

Sample Behavioral Interview Questions and Best Answers

In management consulting behavioral interviews, each question aims to evaluate specific competencies. Here are a few sample questions and possible responses covering the key skills McKinsey, Bain, and BCG required. Note these are shortened versions of what you'd normally offer in a consulting behavioral interview (to learn how to ace cultural fit behavioral interviews for any global Fortune 500 business, check out our Job Interview Whizz course).

Questions and Answers Highlighting 'Clarity of Focus'

A common consulting behavioral interview question examining clarity of focus might be: "Can you describe a time when you had to prioritize multiple important tasks? How did you handle it?"

An ideal answer to illustrate your clarity of focus can include: "In my previous role as a project manager, there were times when I managed multiple high-priority projects. In one such instance, instead of tackling everything simultaneously, I broke each project down into key deliverables and targeted deadlines. I used the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to decide the importance and urgency of each task and delegated some tasks to trusted team members. This method allowed me to maintain clarity of focus and meet all timelines without compromising quality."

Questions and Answers Highlighting 'Problem Solving'

A behavioral interview question assessing problem-solving skills could be: "Describe a situation where you found an innovative solution to a challenging problem."

An example answer can follow this format: "During a past consulting project, we found that the client's sales were dramatically falling, but could not determine the core reason. I conducted an in-depth sales funnel analysis and found a massive drop-off at the onboarding stage in the app. However, gut instinct wasn't enough; I needed data to back it up. I initiated a customer survey focused on understanding their onboarding experience, and soon enough, the problem was evident. The onboarding was overly lengthy and complex. With this insight, I led my team to design a simplified onboarding process. After implementing our solution, the client's sales conversion improved by 30%."

Questions and Answers Highlighting 'Analytical and Numerical Skills'

A typical question to evaluate your analytical and numerical skills might be: "Provide an example of a time when you used data analysis to inform a business decision."

A possible answer to this question might be: "In my previous role as a financial analyst, I used data analysis to guide strategic business decisions consistently. Our company was considering a significant investment in one of two emerging markets. I was tasked with conducting a thorough financial and risk analysis of each potential market. Using Python, I automated data gathering from various sources and performed in-depth data analysis. My analysis revealed that while both markets showed potential, Market A had a better risk-adjusted return. My findings guided the company's decision to invest in Market A, resulting in solid returns and risk mitigation."

Questions and Answers Highlighting 'Communication'

A common question to assess your communication skills could be: "Can you describe a time when your ability to communicate effectively helped you manage a difficult situation?"

A sample answer could be: "While working as a client service executive, I once handled a major client who was upset with a delay in our deliverables. I scheduled a face-to-face meeting with them, explained the reasons behind the delay, assured them about our commitment to maintaining quality, and laid out a plan to expedite completion without compromising standards. My open and honest communication helped reassure the client, retain their business, and strengthen our relationship."

Questions and Answers Highlighting 'Client Relationship Management'

A question assessing your client relationship management skills can be as follows: "How have you managed a difficult client relationship in the past?"

Consider this answer: "As a consultant at XYZ firm, I worked with a client who was hard to please because of their high expectations and shifting requirements. Instead of getting frustrated, I regularly communicated with them to understand their changing needs while explaining the impacts of such changes on timelines and costs. I also ensured I could answer their queries, which helped establish trust. With persistence and patience, we transformed the initially difficult relationship into a successful long-term partnership" with a link to additional information on consulting skills .

Questions and Answers Highlighting 'Leadership'

A standard question to determine your leadership skills and personal experience interview would be: "Can you provide an example of a time where you led a team to achieve a significant goal?"

A likely response could be: "While leading a project team in my previous company, we were challenged to deliver a project within tight deadlines. I began by aligning the team on the project's importance and our strategy. I ensured each team member was clear about their role and deadlines. I also kept communication channels open by regularly scheduling meetings to discuss progress and challenges. Under my leadership , the team completed the project on time and exceeded the client's expectations."

Questions and Answers Highlighting 'Entrepreneurial Drive'

An interview question gauging your entrepreneurial drive could be: "Describe a time when you identified an opportunity and took the initiative to turn it into a reality."

A good response might be: "Working as a sales specialist in my previous role, I noticed several inefficiencies in our sales process. Despite not being part of my job description, I took the initiative to analyze our entire sales pipeline and identified bottlenecks. After gaining approval, I led a small team to implement a more efficient CRM system, resulting in a 20% increase in sales and a 30% reduction in time spent on administrative tasks. This experience showcased my entrepreneurial drive to seek opportunities and implement improvements for the company's benefit."

Questions and Answers Highlighting 'Teamwork and Collaboration'

In demonstrating your teamwork skills, a behavioral interview question could be: "Can you tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team to achieve a specific outcome?"

An ideal answer is this: "In my last consulting role, I was part of a diverse team assigned to a challenging project. Initially, we faced difficulties due to diverse working styles and viewpoints. Recognizing the problem, I suggested we devote time to understanding each other's work methods and strengths. As we began appreciating our diversity, we collaborated more effectively, leading to successful project completion and strong team relationships beyond the project."

How to Prepare for a Behavioral Interview for Consulting Roles

Prepping effectively for a behavioral interview can enhance your chances of securing a job with top management consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG (MBB). It's less about memorizing answers and more about articulating your personal experiences and lessons learned compelling yet concisely. Here are some guidelines to help you prepare, with further information available here .

Tips to Demonstrate the Required Skills

MBB firms value specific skills such as clarity of focus, problem-solving, analytical and numerical skills, communication, client relationship management, leadership, entrepreneurial drive, and teamwork. Here are some tips to demonstrate these:

• Use examples: Be prepared to provide examples from your experiences that evidence each skill. For instance, in demonstrating your problem-solving skills , you could share a past instance where you had to devise an innovative solution to a complex challenge.
• Contextualize your achievements: When discussing your accomplishments, provide context on their significance. This could mean discussing the challenges overcome, the impact of the achievement , or the skills developed as a result.
• Highlight teamwork: Consulting projects largely depend on team collaboration. Therefore, share experiences where you worked effectively within a team environment or even led a group to success.

How to Structure Your Responses to Behavioral Questions

Structuring your responses clearly and logically is important when answering behavioral questions. The STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method can help. This approach allows you to demonstrate your problem-solving and decision-making skills effectively:

• Situation: Start by setting the context of your story. What were the circumstances? Who were the key stakeholders?
• Task: What were your responsibilities? What did you need to accomplish?
• Action: Describe the specific steps you took to address the task.
• Result: Share the results of your actions, including what you learned. Don't avoid discussing a partial failure as long as you can demonstrate learnings and growth .

Mistakes to Avoid During a Behavioral Interview

While there are many things you can do right in a behavioral interview, there are also common pitfalls to avoid:

• Vague storytelling: Avoid being vague when discussing past experiences. The interviewer's question is an opportunity to demonstrate concrete examples of how you applied the necessary skills in a given situation.
• Talking too much: Being detailed is good, but overloading the interviewer with information can distract from your key points. Balance detail with brevity to maintain engagement.
• Neglecting soft skills: While showcasing your problem-solving and strategic skills, don't forget about soft skills like team cohesion, leadership, and empathy. After all, consulting is a people-centric profession .

Proper preparation can build your confidence and help demonstrate that you would be a valuable addition to the firm. It can also provide an opportunity to assess your fit with the firm's values and culture, which can be equally beneficial.

How to Follow Up After a Behavioral Interview

A proficiently handled consulting behavioral interview is only the first step in securing your dream position in a top management consulting firm. The steps you take after that equally hold great importance. Throughout the interview phase, it's crucial to leave a lasting impression on your interviewers, and sending a thoughtful follow-up message is one way to affirm your interest in the consulting job.

Appropriate Actions to Take Post-Interview

After a behavioral interview with a consulting firm, showing professionalism and conscientiousness is crucial. Quick follow-up actions are necessary and can be broken down into three steps:

• Review your performance: As soon as possible, note what you think went well during the interview. Did the interviewer seem impressed by your personal impact story? Were there any questions you found challenging? This reflection will help you prepare for future interviews .
• Thank your interviewers: A brief thank-you note not only shows courtesy, it also reinforces your interest in the consulting firm and the available role. This should be done within 24 hours of your interview.
• Maintain communication: Establishing continuous communication shows your genuine interest in the consulting job. However, avoid being too persistent as this might work against you. Leave enough time between follow-ups, typically between one to two weeks.

How to Write a Follow-up Email

The follow-up email should be concise, well-written, and tailored to your interview experience. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you:

• Start with a professional greeting: Use the interviewer's name if you know it. If not, use a general term like "Interview Team".
• Express your appreciation: Thank the interviewers for the opportunity to interview for the consulting role and your appreciation for their time and insight. It's appropriate to mention details about the interview, such as a topic you discussed or something new you learned about the consulting firm.
• Affirm your interest: Reiterate your excitement about the position and the consulting industry. You can also specify why you would fit the role well.
• Mention follow-up: Politely mention that you look forward to any updates. But be patient, don't rush them.
• End professionally: Close your email with a professional closing line like, "Sincerely" or "Best regards", followed by your name.

What to Do if You Don't Hear Back

Sometimes you may not hear back from the consulting firm as soon as expected, which can be stressful. Here's general advice on what you can do:

• Give it some time: Some companies take longer to respond than others, so it's essential to be patient and provide the company with ample time.
• Send a follow-up email: After a reasonable amount of time (usually a week or two), send a professionally crafted, polite email to ask for an update on the recruitment process.
• Stay professional: Regardless of how long it takes, always maintain professionalism in your communications.
• Continue your job search: Don't put your job search on hold while waiting to hear back. Continue applying and interviewing for other positions.

Remember, a well-crafted follow-up can make a significant difference in the highly competitive world of management consulting. It could be the deciding factor between receiving a consulting offer or not. So, make every effort to follow up effectively every time.

Mastering behavioral interview questions is crucial to landing a position in top management consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. This article has provided comprehensive insights into the behavioral interview process, offering examples of key behavioral question types and detailed responses demonstrating essential consulting skills.

Our guide has shown that demonstrating clarity of focus, strong problem-solving abilities, analytical and numerical aptitudes, exceptional communication, empathetic client relationship management, leadership qualities, and teamwork spirit are crucial for success in consulting roles.

Remember that the structure of your response matters as much as the content. You’ll want to be clear and concise during your interview, giving specific experiences highlighting your ability to excel as a consultant. Also, be aware of common pitfalls, such as providing generic responses or failing to answer the question directly.

Your preparation should involve answering potential behavioral interview questions and rehearsing responses to ensure you effectively communicate your skills. It's also valuable to prepare questions for your interviewer, demonstrating your interest in understanding the role, the firm, and the consulting industry.

While the interview process at consulting firms can be intense, remember that each step is an opportunity to show the firm why you would make an exceptional consultant. Remember that the firm assesses your knowledge and skills, cultural fit, and how well you align with the company’s values.

Indeed, the journey to becoming a management consultant at an elite firm like MBB can be challenging and competitive. However, each interview is a stepping stone towards your career goals. Stay committed, confident, and authentic during your consulting interview. Good luck on your path to success in the management consulting realm!

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Top 20 Problem Solving Interview Questions (Example Answers Included)

Mike Simpson 0 Comments

By Mike Simpson

When candidates prepare for interviews, they usually focus on highlighting their leadership, communication, teamwork, and similar crucial soft skills . However, not everyone gets ready for problem-solving interview questions. And that can be a big mistake.

Problem-solving is relevant to nearly any job on the planet. Yes, it’s more prevalent in certain industries, but it’s helpful almost everywhere.

Regardless of the role you want to land, you may be asked to provide problem-solving examples or describe how you would deal with specific situations. That’s why being ready to showcase your problem-solving skills is so vital.

If you aren’t sure who to tackle problem-solving questions, don’t worry, we have your back. Come with us as we explore this exciting part of the interview process, as well as some problem-solving interview questions and example answers.

What Is Problem-Solving?

When you’re trying to land a position, there’s a good chance you’ll face some problem-solving interview questions. But what exactly is problem-solving? And why is it so important to hiring managers?

Well, the good folks at Merriam-Webster define problem-solving as “the process or act of finding a solution to a problem.” While that may seem like common sense, there’s a critical part to that definition that should catch your eye.

What part is that? The word “process.”

In the end, problem-solving is an activity. It’s your ability to take appropriate steps to find answers, determine how to proceed, or otherwise overcome the challenge.

Being great at it usually means having a range of helpful problem-solving skills and traits. Research, diligence, patience, attention-to-detail , collaboration… they can all play a role. So can analytical thinking , creativity, and open-mindedness.

But why do hiring managers worry about your problem-solving skills? Well, mainly, because every job comes with its fair share of problems.

While problem-solving is relevant to scientific, technical, legal, medical, and a whole slew of other careers. It helps you overcome challenges and deal with the unexpected. It plays a role in troubleshooting and innovation. That’s why it matters to hiring managers.

How to Answer Problem-Solving Interview Questions

Okay, before we get to our examples, let’s take a quick second to talk about strategy. Knowing how to answer problem-solving interview questions is crucial. Why? Because the hiring manager might ask you something that you don’t anticipate.

Problem-solving interview questions are all about seeing how you think. As a result, they can be a bit… unconventional.

These aren’t your run-of-the-mill job interview questions . Instead, they are tricky behavioral interview questions . After all, the goal is to find out how you approach problem-solving, so most are going to feature scenarios, brainteasers, or something similar.

So, having a great strategy means knowing how to deal with behavioral questions. Luckily, there are a couple of tools that can help.

First, when it comes to the classic approach to behavioral interview questions, look no further than the STAR Method . With the STAR method, you learn how to turn your answers into captivating stories. This makes your responses tons more engaging, ensuring you keep the hiring manager’s attention from beginning to end.

Now, should you stop with the STAR Method? Of course not. If you want to take your answers to the next level, spend some time with the Tailoring Method , too.

With the Tailoring Method, it’s all about relevance. So, if you get a chance to choose an example that demonstrates your problem-solving skills, this is really the way to go.

We also wanted to let you know that we created an amazing free cheat sheet that will give you word-for-word answers for some of the toughest interview questions you are going to face in your upcoming interview. After all, hiring managers will often ask you more generalized interview questions!

Click below to get your free PDF now:

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Top 3 Problem-Solving-Based Interview Questions

Alright, here is what you’ve been waiting for: the problem-solving questions and sample answers.

While many questions in this category are job-specific, these tend to apply to nearly any job. That means there’s a good chance you’ll come across them at some point in your career, making them a great starting point when you’re practicing for an interview.

So, let’s dive in, shall we? Here’s a look at the top three problem-solving interview questions and example responses.

1. Can you tell me about a time when you had to solve a challenging problem?

In the land of problem-solving questions, this one might be your best-case scenario. It lets you choose your own problem-solving examples to highlight, putting you in complete control.

When you choose an example, go with one that is relevant to what you’ll face in the role. The closer the match, the better the answer is in the eyes of the hiring manager.

EXAMPLE ANSWER:

“While working as a mobile telecom support specialist for a large organization, we had to transition our MDM service from one vendor to another within 45 days. This personally physically handling 500 devices within the agency. Devices had to be gathered from the headquarters and satellite offices, which were located all across the state, something that was challenging even without the tight deadline. I approached the situation by identifying the location assignment of all personnel within the organization, enabling me to estimate transit times for receiving the devices. Next, I timed out how many devices I could personally update in a day. Together, this allowed me to create a general timeline. After that, I coordinated with each location, both expressing the urgency of adhering to deadlines and scheduling bulk shipping options. While there were occasional bouts of resistance, I worked with location leaders to calm concerns and facilitate action. While performing all of the updates was daunting, my approach to organizing the event made it a success. Ultimately, the entire transition was finished five days before the deadline, exceeding the expectations of many.”

2. Describe a time where you made a mistake. What did you do to fix it?

While this might not look like it’s based on problem-solving on the surface, it actually is. When you make a mistake, it creates a challenge, one you have to work your way through. At a minimum, it’s an opportunity to highlight problem-solving skills, even if you don’t address the topic directly.

When you choose an example, you want to go with a situation where the end was positive. However, the issue still has to be significant, causing something negative to happen in the moment that you, ideally, overcame.

“When I first began in a supervisory role, I had trouble setting down my individual contributor hat. I tried to keep up with my past duties while also taking on the responsibilities of my new role. As a result, I began rushing and introduced an error into the code of the software my team was updating. The error led to a memory leak. We became aware of the issue when the performance was hindered, though we didn’t immediately know the cause. I dove back into the code, reviewing recent changes, and, ultimately, determined the issue was a mistake on my end. When I made that discovery, I took several steps. First, I let my team know that the error was mine and let them know its nature. Second, I worked with my team to correct the issue, resolving the memory leak. Finally, I took this as a lesson about delegation. I began assigning work to my team more effectively, a move that allowed me to excel as a manager and help them thrive as contributors. It was a crucial learning moment, one that I have valued every day since.”

3. If you identify a potential risk in a project, what steps do you take to prevent it?

Yes, this is also a problem-solving question. The difference is, with this one, it’s not about fixing an issue; it’s about stopping it from happening. Still, you use problem-solving skills along the way, so it falls in this question category.

If you can, use an example of a moment when you mitigated risk in the past. If you haven’t had that opportunity, approach it theoretically, discussing the steps you would take to prevent an issue from developing.

“If I identify a potential risk in a project, my first step is to assess the various factors that could lead to a poor outcome. Prevention requires analysis. Ensuring I fully understand what can trigger the undesired event creates the right foundation, allowing me to figure out how to reduce the likelihood of those events occurring. Once I have the right level of understanding, I come up with a mitigation plan. Exactly what this includes varies depending on the nature of the issue, though it usually involves various steps and checks designed to monitor the project as it progresses to spot paths that may make the problem more likely to happen. I find this approach effective as it combines knowledge and ongoing vigilance. That way, if the project begins to head into risky territory, I can correct its trajectory.”

17 More Problem-Solving-Based Interview Questions

In the world of problem-solving questions, some apply to a wide range of jobs, while others are more niche. For example, customer service reps and IT helpdesk professionals both encounter challenges, but not usually the same kind.

As a result, some of the questions in this list may be more relevant to certain careers than others. However, they all give you insights into what this kind of question looks like, making them worth reviewing.

Here are 17 more problem-solving interview questions you might face off against during your job search:

• How would you describe your problem-solving skills?
• Can you tell me about a time when you had to use creativity to deal with an obstacle?
• Describe a time when you discovered an unmet customer need while assisting a customer and found a way to meet it.
• If you were faced with an upset customer, how would you diffuse the situation?
• Tell me about a time when you had to troubleshoot a complex issue.
• Imagine you were overseeing a project and needed a particular item. You have two choices of vendors: one that can deliver on time but would be over budget, and one that’s under budget but would deliver one week later than you need it. How do you figure out which approach to use?
• Your manager wants to upgrade a tool you regularly use for your job and wants your recommendation. How do you formulate one?
• A supplier has said that an item you need for a project isn’t going to be delivered as scheduled, something that would cause your project to fall behind schedule. What do you do to try and keep the timeline on target?
• Can you share an example of a moment where you encountered a unique problem you and your colleagues had never seen before? How did you figure out what to do?
• Imagine you were scheduled to give a presentation with a colleague, and your colleague called in sick right before it was set to begin. What would you do?
• If you are given two urgent tasks from different members of the leadership team, both with the same tight deadline, how do you choose which to tackle first?
• Tell me about a time you and a colleague didn’t see eye-to-eye. How did you decide what to do?
• Describe your troubleshooting process.
• Tell me about a time where there was a problem that you weren’t able to solve. What happened?
• In your opening, what skills or traits make a person an exceptional problem-solver?
• When you face a problem that requires action, do you usually jump in or take a moment to carefully assess the situation?
• When you encounter a new problem you’ve never seen before, what is the first step that you take?

Putting It All Together

At this point, you should have a solid idea of how to approach problem-solving interview questions. Use the tips above to your advantage. That way, you can thrive during your next interview.

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Co-Founder and CEO of TheInterviewGuys.com. Mike is a job interview and career expert and the head writer at TheInterviewGuys.com.

His advice and insights have been shared and featured by publications such as Forbes , Entrepreneur , CNBC and more as well as educational institutions such as the University of Michigan , Penn State , Northeastern and others.

Learn more about The Interview Guys on our About Us page .

About The Author

Mike simpson.

Co-Founder and CEO of TheInterviewGuys.com. Mike is a job interview and career expert and the head writer at TheInterviewGuys.com. His advice and insights have been shared and featured by publications such as Forbes , Entrepreneur , CNBC and more as well as educational institutions such as the University of Michigan , Penn State , Northeastern and others. Learn more about The Interview Guys on our About Us page .

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22 Consulting Interview Questions & Sample Answers

Knowing the type of consulting interview questions to expect can help you feel more prepared on the big day. Consulting firms ask various questions to assess your skills, professional experience, and overall fit for their workplace.

This article will review some of the most common consulting interview questions to help you feel more prepared for your upcoming interviews.

What are employers and hiring managers looking for when interviewing people for a consultant?

Knowing which skills and experience employers and hiring managers are looking for when interviewing candidates can help you ensure you’re the right fit for the job. Generally, employers and hiring managers look for the following skills when hiring a consultant.

Problem-Solving Skills

The first skill employers look for in a consultant is problem-solving. The ability to think critically and come up with solutions to complex problems is invaluable in the consulting field, as consultants are often called upon to troubleshoot urgent matters or provide innovative advice.

Leadership Skills

Leadership skills are also essential when it comes to consulting. You should demonstrate the ability to lead teams and manage projects from start to finish effectively. Strong communication skills are also crucial, so prepare for questions about teamwork and group dynamics.

Achieving Mentality

Employers want consultants with an achieving mentality—having the drive to work hard and succeed no matter the obstacles. Employers will likely ask you questions about how you handle failure and adversity, as well as questions about your most significant achievements.

Technical Skills

Many consulting positions require a certain amount of technical knowledge. Employers will typically assess whether or not you have the necessary technical skills for the role by asking related questions such as “How do you stay up to date on industry trends?” or “Describe your experience with X software.”

Time-Management Skills

Time management is essential for consultants, especially those in project management roles. It would be best if you were prepared to answer questions about prioritizing tasks and managing deadlines efficiently.

Project-Management Skills

Project management is essential to many consulting jobs, so you’ll need to demonstrate your understanding of project management principles.

Employers will likely ask questions about your experience with developing and implementing projects and how you stay organized and on track while managing multiple tasks at once.

By familiarizing yourself with these common consulting interview questions, you can give yourself a better chance of success during your upcoming interviews.

22 Consulting Interview Questions and Sample Answers

Let’s now explore the various consulting interview questions you may be asked during your upcoming interviews.

For each question, we’ll explain why the question is essential as well as provide you with a model answer you can use to help craft your unique response.

1. How would you describe yourself?

This question is meant to assess how you self-assess yourself and whether or not your qualities are a match for the role. While it’s essential to showcase your strengths, don’t be afraid to highlight areas of development that you can work on in the future.

Sample Answer:

I’m ambitious and passionate about consulting and helping clients succeed. I’m highly organized and driven and possess strong communication skills, making me an ideal candidate for this role. I’m always looking to expand my knowledge base, so I strive to learn new techniques and technologies whenever possible.

Additionally, I have a proven track record of leveraging my problem-solving capabilities to create efficient and effective client solutions. These qualities make me an excellent fit for this role.

2. Could you please explain the contents of your resume to me?

This question is meant to assess your understanding of the qualifications and experiences you’ve listed on your resume and gauge your overall enthusiasm for the role.

I have a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from ABC University, and I’ve worked in the consulting industry for five years. During my tenure, I have provided consultancy services to various clients across multiple sectors, including tech, finance, healthcare, and manufacturing.

My expertise lies in developing strategies that enable clients to meet their business goals while staying within budget constraints. Furthermore, I’m an experienced consulter who has successfully managed numerous projects from start to finish.

Most recently, I worked with a financial services firm to develop an automated system that improved customer engagement by 10%.

3. What attracts you to the consulting field and what makes it an ideal career choice for you?

This question will assess your motivations and passions in the consulting field.

Consulting has always been an attractive prospect for me since I understood what it entailed. Using my problem-solving skills, creativity, and strategic thinking to help clients from different industries achieve their goals is incredibly appealing.

Additionally, this career choice is even more ideal for me because I can develop a network with professionals from various sectors, allowing for knowledge exchange and learning opportunities.

As someone who values growth and development, consulting is the perfect opportunity to expand my skill set while making meaningful contributions as part of a larger team. Overall, it’s the combination of these factors that have made consulting an ideal career choice for me.

4. What would you say are your most notable attributes?

This question seeks to gain insight into your professional qualities and strengths.

I believe that my most notable attributes are my problem-solving mindset, excellent communication skills, and strategic thinking abilities. I can quickly identify areas of improvement in a system and develop efficient solutions to address those issues.

Furthermore, I can break down complex concepts and present them in simple terms, allowing for easier understanding.

Additionally, I possess the necessary knowledge and expertise to think strategically when finding suitable client solutions. These qualities have enabled me to contribute positively to every role I’ve held thus far.

5. In what ways do you believe that your current performance could be enhanced?

This question is meant to assess your commitment to self-improvement and development.

I’m constantly looking for ways to improve my performance and develop my skills further. When it comes to hard skills, I plan on honing my data analysis and research abilities while gaining a better understanding of financial modeling techniques.

On the soft skills side, I strive to become more efficient at time management and develop stronger interpersonal relationships with colleagues. Additionally, I’m always striving to stay ahead of industry trends to provide the best possible advice to clients.

Beyond these measures, I’m also open to any additional feedback or guidance from management to further enhance my current performance.

6. How do you respond in tense situations?

This question assesses your ability to remain calm and composed under pressure.

In tense situations, I first focus on understanding the problem before responding. I maintain an objective perspective and analyze the situation from different angles to come up with a solution that meets everyone’s needs.

Additionally, I’m mindful of my communication with the other parties involved to avoid further escalating the issue. By following these steps, I can remain professional and level-headed even when faced with challenging circumstances, allowing for a more effective resolution process.

7. What is the most significant professional accomplishment that you are most proud of?

This question seeks to gain insight into your experience and the success that you have achieved in the past.

My most significant professional accomplishment is a project I worked on while consulting for a Fortune 500 company. I was tasked with creating an innovative framework that allowed the company to measure better and analyze key performance metrics.

After months of hard work, research, and effort, my team and I successfully developed this sophisticated model, which enabled the client to gain more significant insights into their operations.

This result not only positively impacted our client’s organization but also opened doors for other exciting opportunities in the industry for me. Overall, this was my proudest professional accomplishment as it showcased my skills as a consultant and problem solver.

8. What strategies do you use to successfully lead and motivate your team?

This question will gauge your leadership skills and understand how you manage a team.

As a leader, I believe in fostering trust within my team by actively listening to their ideas and creating an open environment where everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves. I also ensure that all team members have clear objectives and expectations while providing regular feedback on individual performance.

I also motivate my team by recognizing their contributions and celebrating success whenever possible. With these strategies in place, I can empower my team to reach new heights while supporting each other throughout the journey.

9. What would your past colleagues or managers say about you and your professional style?

This question is meant to gain insight into the impression you make on others and how they view your work.

My past colleagues and managers have greatly appreciated my commitment to excellence, strong work ethic, and communication skills. They often remark on my ability to remain organized even when presented with multiple tasks and my dedication to helping others and providing solutions.

They also appreciate my leadership style, which focuses on developing team members and creating an atmosphere of mutual respect, collaboration, and trust.

10. What makes this organization the ideal employer choice over other consulting firms?

This question is meant to understand why you believe this specific organization is the right fit for you.

This organization stands out due to its commitment to fostering a culture of excellence that encourages growth and learning. The company prides itself on offering competitive compensation packages, attractive benefits, and opportunities for professional development.

I am also impressed with the focus placed on diversity, inclusion, and corporate social responsibility initiatives, which are the organization’s core values. Lastly, the flexible working hours coupled with cutting-edge technology allow team members to work in a highly collaborative environment.

11. Why should we choose you over other candidates?

This question explains why the interviewer should select you over other applicants.

I am the ideal candidate for this role due to my extensive consulting experience, problem-solving skills, and ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment. I have worked on numerous projects, both large and small scale, where I was able to deliver successful results through strategic planning and effective communication.

Additionally, I possess strong technical skills that allow me to quickly learn new systems and processes while utilizing existing resources. With these qualities, combined with my enthusiasm, commitment, and drive to succeed, I would be an asset to your organization.

12. What are you hoping to gain from this role?

This question is meant to understand what you expect to gain from the position and how it can benefit your career.

Model Answer:

I hope to gain valuable consulting experience and expand my skills and knowledge in this field. I want to contribute significantly in a meaningful way while developing relationships with clients, colleagues, and partners.

Furthermore, I believe this role will allow me to use my expertise and creativity to solve complex problems and create innovative solutions for the company. Ultimately, I look forward to taking on new challenges, learning new ideas, and growing professionally.

13. Where do you envision yourself in five years?

This question is meant to understand where you see yourself after working at this organization.

In five years, I hope to be in a leadership role where I manage projects and oversee client relationships. Additionally, I hope to have gained more experience in strategy and business development as well as honed my skills as a consultant.

Moreover, I also want to utilize my knowledge to help mentor and train new team members so that they can reach their full potential. Ultimately, within five years, I would have significantly contributed to the company’s growth through innovative solutions and happy clients.

14. What ambitions do you have for the future of your consulting business?

This question is meant to understand what goals you would like to achieve with your consulting business.

My ambition for the future of my consulting business is to expand its reach and develop long-term partnerships with clients. I want to create an environment that encourages collaboration and creativity, where client feedback is highly valued so that services can be tailored specifically to their needs. 

Additionally, I plan to continue investing in cutting-edge technology and training new team members to provide high-quality consulting services with fast turnaround times.

Ultimately, my goal is to make my business a trusted partner for our clients, providing them with valuable insights and solutions that bring value to their organization.

15. What have you learned from your previous experiences that have equipped you for this role?

This question is meant to understand how your previous experiences have prepared you for the role.

From my previous experiences, I have learned how to think analytically and critically while working on complex problems. I have developed strong communication skills that allow me to effectively present ideas and collaborate with colleagues from all levels of an organization.

Additionally, I have become highly organized, managing multiple projects simultaneously and staying on track even when faced with unexpected challenges. These skills and qualities will be invaluable in this role as a consultant and help ensure successful completion.

16. Could you provide me with an overview of your background in proposal writing?

This question helps employers understand your proposal writing background.

I have worked in the proposal writing industry for over five years. During that time, I have developed a strong understanding of creating compelling and persuasive proposals that meet client needs and expectations.

My experience includes developing comprehensive RFPs, creating compelling narratives for funding applications, and streamlining complex bidding processes.

Through this work, I have gained an eye for detail and honed my research and organizational skills, which are essential when preparing successful proposals.

17. Can you describe an occasion when you collaborated with other departments to finish a project successfully?

This question is meant to understand your ability to collaborate to complete projects on time and within budget.

I created a marketing strategy for a client during a recent project. To do so effectively, I had to work closely with the design team to develop an eye-catching visual presentation and collaborate with the research department to collect accurate data.

Through this collaboration process, we efficiently created a comprehensive marketing plan that met the client’s needs and goals. This project showed me how important it is to have effective communication and teamwork when working on complex projects.

18. In what consulting projects have you cultivated expertise? On which type of project do you typically dedicate most of your time?

This question allows employers to understand the projects candidates are best suited for.

I have cultivated expertise in various consulting projects, including market research and analysis, strategic planning, and project management. My primary focus is developing successful marketing strategies that help businesses grow their customer base and increase brand awareness.

I typically dedicate most of my time to assisting clients in establishing cohesive marketing campaigns that reach the right target audience with the right message.

19. How do you simplify a technical issue when dealing with a client?

This question allows employers to understand your ability to communicate complex concepts effectively.

When dealing with a client, it’s essential to explain complex technical issues in plain language so they can easily understand what’s happening. To do this, I break down the problem into easily digestible pieces and provide a step-by-step explanation of each element. Additionally, I use visuals to illustrate my point and ensure that all questions are answered understandably.

20. To thrive in the consulting industry, what characteristics and abilities do you think are essential?

This question enables employers to assess your knowledge of critical qualities needed for success.

Solid communication skills, an analytical mindset, and multitasking capabilities are essential for thriving in the consulting industry. Individuals must express their ideas effectively while keeping track of numerous details simultaneously.

Excellent organizational and problem-solving skills are necessary to keep projects on track and manage unexpected obstacles. Additionally, having a creative edge can allow you to craft unique solutions that meet client demands and stand out from the competition.

Overall, success in consulting requires dedication, strong interpersonal skills, and an ability to think outside the box.

21. In your opinion, what are this industry’s most pressing current issues?

This question allows employers to assess your knowledge and understanding of the consulting industry.

One of the most pressing issues in the consulting industry is the increasing complexity of projects. As technology advances, project demands are becoming more intricate, requiring consultants to have more profound expertise and knowledge.

Additionally, customer expectations continue to rise as companies strive for innovative solutions that can set them apart from their competition. Lastly, finding qualified personnel has become an issue as there is a high demand for experienced professionals with specialized skill sets.

22. Suppose I told you that Company X is facing the challenge of low customer engagement. How would you go about helping this company address its issue?

This question allows employers to evaluate your problem-solving skills.

To help Company X address their issue of low customer engagement, I would start by assessing the current situation and gathering data about its audience. Then, I would develop a tailored strategy to reach the target demographic with relevant content.

This could include creating engaging social media posts and leveraging email marketing campaigns. Additionally, I would monitor key performance metrics such as website visits, conversions, and time on site to identify what’s working and make improvements where needed.

Finally, I recommend experimenting with different tactics until positive results are achieved. From this process, Company X would be able to get an understanding of what methods work best for their specific customer base and use that knowledge to continue improving engagement.

Questions for You to Ask in a Consulting Job Interview

Knowing which questions to ask in a consulting interview is critical for setting yourself up for success.

Here are a few of the top questions to consider.

How soon are you aiming to bring someone aboard?

This is an important question to ask to get a better idea of the timeline and expectations of the hiring process. It is also essential to establish whether this position is considered a priority for the company.

To whom will I be accountable?

This question allows you to gain insight into the reporting structure of the role and who your primary contact would be in case of any queries or issues arise. Knowing who makes up your team can also give you a better understanding of what type of environment you’ll be working in. Additionally, it’s helpful to know who will evaluate your performance regularly.

Could you please explain the steps and procedures of your training process for new employees?

This question is essential to understand how you will be onboarded into the company, what resources are available to assist with your development, and who will guide the learning process. It also demonstrates that you value professional growth and are invested in becoming a successful team member.

How often do you evaluate employee performance?

This question allows employers to assess whether or not you are determined to develop yourself professionally within the organization. Knowing how frequently your performance will be reviewed is essential, as this can help set expectations and guide motivation levels.

What effective project management software and tools do you regularly use to optimize your workflow?

It is essential to know about the various software programs and technologies used for project management. Asking this question will give employers an indication of your tech-savviness and comfort level with working in digital spaces.

What is the leadership approach of this department?

This question allows you to gain insight into the organizational culture. Understanding the type of environment you’ll be working in can help prepare you for any challenges or changes that may arise. Additionally, knowing how decisions are made within the organization will help ensure clarity around expectations and objectives.

What qualifications are you searching for in the perfect candidate to fill this role?

Asking this question lets you get a clear picture of the candidate profile the employer is looking for. It also shows your interest in ensuring you have what it takes to succeed in the role and understand its professional expectations.

Tips For Preparing for a Consulting Job Interview

When preparing for a consulting interview, there are several tips you should keep in mind to ensure your success.

Research the company

First and foremost, it is essential to research the company ahead of time. This will give you insight into the organization’s values, culture, services offered, and more. Knowing what the company stands for will help you frame your answers in a way that resonates with its values and mission.

Additionally, researching the team you’ll be interviewing with is also helpful so that you can better understand their roles and responsibilities within the organization.

Second, it is essential to practice beforehand. Rehearsing common questions out loud can help build confidence and familiarize yourself with interview etiquette.

It’s also important to remember that body language plays an integral part in an interview – make sure to sit up straight, maintain eye contact where appropriate, and use hand gestures to emphasize points when speaking.

Third, prepare specific examples or experiences that demonstrate your strengths and highlight how they align with the role you’re applying for. This will show employers that you are qualified and that your skill sets are tailored to their needs.

Additionally, come prepared with thoughtful questions about the role and company – this shows employers that you have researched and expressed genuine interest in the position.

Certifications

Finally, don’t forget to bring any materials that may be requested, such as copies of your resume or portfolio pieces. Dress professionally for the occasion – although attire varies depending on the industry, there is no harm in erring caution by dressing formally for any meeting or interview setting.

Finally, thank all parties involved after each step in the hiring process – it demonstrates reliability and respectfulness, which can leave a lasting impression on potential employers.

Consulting Interview Questions FAQ

What are the primary consulting skills.

Consulting requires a wide range of skills, depending on the nature and scope of the job. Successful consultants should have excellent problem-solving skills, think strategically and analytically, possess strong interpersonal, organizational, presentation, and communication skills, understand business processes, have financial acumen, and know how to use technology effectively.

Additionally, they should be adept in negotiation, business process design and improvement, risk management, and customer service.

How do you stand out in a consulting interview?

Standing out in a consulting interview takes preparation. Before your interview, you should research the company’s clients, projects, and services to understand their needs.

When answering questions, focus on the organization’s needs and how you can help them solve their problems. Show that you are a team player who can effectively collaborate with others and an independent thinker who can develop innovative solutions.

Additionally, demonstrate your ability to think critically and present data clearly and concisely. Finally, remember to show enthusiasm for consulting by expressing your passion for working on challenging projects.

Acing a consulting interview is no mean feat; it takes a lot of practice to become familiar with the process.

However, you can set yourself up for success by taking some time to understand what is expected from you during the interview, preparing possible answers ahead of time, and demonstrating an overall enthusiasm for the position. 

Finally, always remember to remain focused on how your skills and experience make you uniquely qualified for the job.

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