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Corporate Development Recruiting: The Definitive Guide

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• A lot of confused questions and contradictory answers.
• Disagreements about what to expect in interviews, case studies, and even the process itself.
• And debates about exit opportunities and how they compare with the ones offered by investment banking.

We’ve published quite a few interviews from readers who broke into corporate development from all backgrounds: straight out of undergrad , Master’s in Finance degrees , consulting , investment banking , corporate finance , valuation , and yes, even data science .

This article will summarize the key points from those stories and give you an idea of what to expect in the recruiting process – no matter your background and the types of companies you’re applying to:

Corporate Development Definition: What Is It?

Corporate development teams at companies focus on acquisitions and divestitures, including deal sourcing and execution, as well as on joint venture (JV) deals and partnerships.

They also spend time doing competitive research, creating “market maps” of companies in different sectors, and determining which markets their companies should enter.

Much of it is similar to the work you do on buy-side M&A deals at an investment bank , but the key difference is that you work at one single company and contribute to that company’s growth over the long term.

You do not represent clients, but instead complete acquisitions and other deals that help your company grow.

Also, you may spend more time on integration following the close of deals, though that varies by firm and team.

Many other groups have “corporate” or “development” in their names, so here’s a full comparison:

• Business Development: You focus on sales, marketing, and partnerships rather than M&A. The goal is to boost the company’s growth via organic means.
• Corporate Strategy : This is like management consulting, but internal to the company. You plan the company’s big-picture strategy, solve specific operational problems, and complete competitive analysis.
• Corporate Finance : You plan the company’s budget, work with auditors, complete monthly reports, and manage cash and cash flow. This role is more about day-to-day and month-to-month tasks and has nothing to do with JV or M&A deals.
• Corporate Banking : This one is completely different because it only exists at banks. Corporate bankers are like the “hub in the wheel” for clients who need to access the bank’s products and services, and they provide credit, cash management, trade finance, liquidity management, and other services.

If you are in corporate development at a large company (e.g., a Fortune 100 firm), then you will focus on M&A deals and you won’t need to do much sourcing since you’ll get so much deal flow from bankers and other parties.

If you’re at a smaller company or a startup, the role will often be more “random,” and you’ll spend more time on sourcing and tasks that might fall under the business development or corporate strategy categories at larger firms.

Why Corporate Development?

Corporate development is a good option if:

• You want to work on transactions, primarily M&A deals and joint ventures;
• You don’t mind the fact that, as in PE and other buy-side roles, most of the deals will go nowhere;
• You want to stick with one company over the long term and help it grow;
• You want a better lifestyle and hours than you would get in investment banking or private equity; and
• You don’t mind significantly lower compensation and slower advancement.

Obviously, you should not mention points #2, #4, or #5 in response to the “Why corporate development?” question in interviews – you should focus on #1 and #3.

Corporate Development Recruiting: Who Wins Interviews and Offers?

Corporate development (CD) teams want candidates who:

• Have deal experience working on joint ventures, acquisitions, and other deals;
• Know the industry and the specific company in-depth so they can come up with meaningful ideas; and
• Can run deals by themselves.

In practice, this means that CD teams prefer to hire investment bankers who have worked in matching industry groups .

They do also hire consultants, especially for roles that are less M&A-focused, as well as professionals from strategy teams and Big 4 valuation and transaction advisory teams.

Unlike many private equity and hedge fund roles, corporate development is open to more than just elite boutique and bulge bracket bankers .

You could easily work at a boutique or middle market firm and still get into corporate development; in fact, that’s often one of the top exit opportunities from such banks .

Another difference is that it’s more feasible for post-MBA bankers and consultants to get in – the “exit opportunity window” doesn’t close as much as it does for PE/HF roles .

You could also potentially get into corporate development coming from a job in private equity, such as Private Equity Analyst .

You do not have a great shot at corporate development roles if you’ve worked in a “public markets” group/firm like equity research or asset management since you won’t have deal experience.

Corporate development teams sometimes hire internal candidates, such as ones who are in corporate finance rotational or data science roles .

These candidates often know the industry and company well, but lack formal deal experience – but since they’re internal hires, that may not be a deal breaker.

It is very rare for students to get into corporate development straight out of undergrad .

It’s even rarer than winning a PE or HF role out of undergrad – with those, some firms increasingly recruit undergrads who want to skip banking.

But in corporate development recruiting, teams rarely do this because professionals need more of a “real-world” skill set, including the ability to wrangle information out of bureaucratic organizations and win agreement from different departments.

By contrast, you could do well at a hedge fund if you can sit in a room, do a ton of research and analysis, and come up with insights.

If you want to start in corporate development, you should target smaller, higher-growth firms, such as startups with a few hundred people (but not, say, a few thousand).

These types of companies sometimes hire recent grads for their “fresh mindsets” and unbiased views, and they might view internships as providing sufficient industry knowledge.

Finally, keep in mind that there are far fewer corporate development jobs than there are IB/PE/HF jobs.

To have a corporate development division, the company must already be fairly large – 10-person startups don’t have teams dedicated to M&A.

So, while a wider variety of candidates have access to corporate development recruiting, it can be challenging to find positions or companies that are hiring.

The Corporate Development Recruiting Process

If the private equity recruiting process in North America is early, highly structured, and driven by headhunters, then corporate development recruiting is more like off-cycle private equity recruiting :

• The timing is very random, and firms do not fill roles 1-2 years in advance as PE firms do. There might be a lead time of several months.
• Initial interviews often come from referrals and your own networking rather than headhunters.
• There is some structure, but nothing like PE interviews where all the big firms send modeling tests to candidates, interview them, and make decisions in a single weekend.

Headhunters have less power than they do in PE recruiting because large companies have plenty of ways to find candidates on their own; it’s easy when you can ask 10,000 employees for recommendations.

Some PE-owned companies may still use headhunters if they need to hire someone ASAP, but most CD teams skip headhunters and rely on referrals and internal candidates.

If you win a referral to a CD team that is hiring, you’ll usually go through a phone screen, complete a few phone interviews, and then meet everyone in the group for in-person interviews.

If it’s a bigger company with over a dozen people in the group, then you may not meet everyone – just those with hiring power.

If you’re in investment banking or consulting right now and you want to move into corporate development, you should start by asking for referrals from the senior staff in your group – assuming it’s the type of culture where junior employees are expected to leave after 2-3 years.

Keep your requests open-ended because your MD probably can’t help if you want “corporate development roles at fin-tech companies in the crowdfunding space in London with over 1,000 employees.”

Again, it’s the opposite of how you deal with PE/HF headhunters , where specificity is key.

If you cannot win referrals from the senior staff, then the next best option is to find companies that have posted corporate development positions on job sites.

Then, look up those companies on LinkedIn, find professionals in the CD team, and email them to introduce yourself and ask about opportunities at the firm.

Because of the relative scarcity of CD roles, you should not be too picky.

Yes, you should go for companies that match your current industry, but you don’t want to be as specific as the example above.

Corporate Development Interview Questions and Answers

The main interview topics in corporate development recruiting include:

• Your deal experience.
• Technical questions similar to the ones in IB interviews.
• “Fit” questions similar to the ones in IB interviews.
• “Why corporate development?” and similar questions about the job.
• Industry knowledge and ideas for acquisitions and JVs.
• Case studies and modeling tests.

The questions vary significantly because CD professionals have very different backgrounds, and so do the candidates.

For example, a single team could have former bankers, former Big 4 professionals, a former software engineer or biochemist, a former data scientist, and a former integration consultant.

Each person has different concerns and looks for different qualities.

In many teams, the most important qualities are industry background and fit – especially if it is something specialized or technical, such as pharmaceuticals or biotech.

You would have a huge advantage at that type of company if, in addition to deal experience, you also knew about the drug lifecycle, the government approval process, clinical trials, the business models of generics vs. branded drugs, and so on.

If the company is in an unusual location (e.g., far outside major cities or in an emerging market), then local connections to the area can be quite important because they want to see that you’re committed for the long term.

Here’s what to expect in each question category above:

Your Deal Experience

We covered the key points about your deal experience in the article on investment banking deal sheets , and everything there applies to corporate development recruiting as well.

The main differences are:

• You must be much more critical about each deal because corporate development is, effectively, a buy-side role. So, in addition to your key contributions and the transaction rationale, you should develop your own view of each deal as well (i.e., should the buyer have done it or not done it, and why).

There’s a good example of how to do that in this article on middle-market private equity recruiting .

• If you do not have M&A deal experience, you must spin whatever you do have into sounding like deal experience. For example, if you held a corporate finance role before this, you could point out how a major project required collaboration across the entire company, which is similar to deal processes since you need to coordinate large groups in both.

There’s an example of this strategy in the data science to corporate development article .

You’re most likely to get a lot of questions in this category if you’ve had 2+ years of experience working on deals.

Technical Questions

You should take a look at the article on investment banking interview questions and answers because all the technical questions there apply here as well.

Unlike in corporate finance, where questions beyond accounting are unlikely, anything could come up in corporate development recruiting since you value companies and model transactions.

Even LBO models are fair game because you’ll often compete with financial sponsors to win deals, so you need to understand how they think about potential targets’ values as well. If you don’t already know how they work, check out our simple LBO model tutorial.

“Fit” Questions

In corporate development recruiting, these should be quite similar to the fit questions in investment banking interviews , so refer to that previous article.

The main difference is that CD professionals are less likely to play “bad cop” and probe you on points that might be deal breakers in IB – such as being too old, not going to a target school, or having a GPA that’s below their cutoff.

Those topics could come up, but interviewers are not going to spend 30 minutes grilling you about a bad grade in a 1 st year accounting class, whereas a banker going through a mid-life crisis could easily do that.

Why Corporate Development? Questions

Especially if you’re moving in from investment banking, you’re likely to get a lot of questions about your knowledge of the group; they want to make sure that corporate development recruiting is not just your “Plan B” or “Plan C” after private equity did not work out.

Questions in this category might include:

“Why corporate development?”

Focus on the long-term nature of the job and how you want to stay with one company to grow its business year after year rather than switching between different companies/clients.

“What are the key challenges in corporate development compared with the ones in investment banking?”

Winning buy-in from all the relevant parties is much harder in corporate development because certain departments are averse to deals; the challenge isn’t connecting a buyer and seller, but getting everyone on your side to agree. Integration also tends to be more difficult than execution, which is something you’re not exposed to in IB.

“How much do you know about the deal process here?”

Take a look at the articles on M&A deals and CIMs to get some ideas.

“How are JVs or partnership deals different from M&A deals?”

The main difference is that there’s less due diligence and more deal analysis since you’re not acquiring another company – but the details of a JV deal can be very complicated, much more so than the average M&A deal.

For example, there might be an upfront payment, commissions for back-end or subscription sales, bonus incentives if certain goals are met, penalties for underperformance, and so on.

Industry Knowledge and Acquisition/JV Ideas

There isn’t a fast or efficient preparation method for these questions in corporate development recruiting because you need to take the time to learn the industry and figure out the company’s goals.

A few tips to prepare:

• Start with our article on How to Learn an Industry and follow the suggestions there on doing rather than passively reading.
• If the company is public, read its past few earnings call transcripts and look at what the CEO, CFO, and other executives are saying. Also, review transcripts from its closest competitors.
• Look up the company’s past acquisitions and avoid any industries in which it has recorded write-downs and impairments from these past deals.
• If you’re interviewing with a PE-owned company, you should research the sponsor to understand their deals and portfolio companies.

Once you have some ideas, pitching an acquisition or JV is similar to pitching a stock , but with a different focus because of the long-term nature of corporate development.

For example, you could point out why a target company is undervalued, but it would be better to point out how the acquisition would boost your company’s metrics and make it more valuable over time (e.g., a “value creation analysis”).

Also, in many cases, you cannot do much to mitigate the risk factors with 100% acquisitions.

There are some options, such as earn-outs for private companies , but if it’s a large, public company, your choices are more limited.

So, most of these pitches will take the form:

“We could acquire XYZ Company for Price A, which is a good deal, and it would boost our business by improving metrics C, D, and E; furthermore, there’s a strong team/cultural fit, and XYZ Company would allow us to move us into higher-growth markets.”

The Corporate Development Interview Case Study: What to Expect

There are four main types of case studies you can expect in corporate development recruiting, ranked below from most common to least common:

• Most Common: An on-site, 30-60-minute test where they give you a potential acquisition target and ask you to recommend for or against the deal and if you’re in favor of the deal, the price you would pay. You may also have to present your findings and answer questions from the team afterward.
• Less Common: A take-home case study where you have a few days up to a week to analyze a target company’s financial statements, value it, and explain how much it might be worth to the company you’re interviewing with.
• Even Less Common: No case study or modeling test at all – they’ll just ask for work samples, presentations, and deal documents you’ve worked on, with sensitive information deleted.
• Least Common: A partnership or JV model that includes upfront payments, incentive fees above certain performance goals, and other terms. For example, one company in the JV might be penalized if the other company’s sales fall, but it might receive a bonus if combined sales volume rises by a certain percentage.

With the on-site, 30-60-minute tests, avoid over-complicating the case study and get to a quick answer.

For example, project the company’s cash flows, calculate the IRR at different purchases prices, and build a simple DCF.

You could look at something like our Uber valuation and simplify that to get an idea of what to expect (as it’s far more complicated than what you’d be expected to complete in a short, on-site test).

You don’t need an LBO model, full 3-statement projections, or anything fancy if you have only 30-60 minutes.

With take-home case studies, you still want to keep the models relatively simple, but you should go above and beyond with your market research.

For example, instead of stopping at a deal recommendation, research the market and present another few acquisitions that might make more sense than the original idea and give rough valuation ranges.

And with JV/partnership models, the key is to enter the Excel formulas competently and efficiently and use functions like MIN/MAX and INDEX/MATCH correctly.

This one is more of an Excel practice test than a financial modeling or investment analysis test because you’re simply trying to calculate the correct numbers.

If you want to practice these types of case studies, we include 17 examples with full solutions in the IB Interview Guide (plus, technical questions, fit questions, deal discussions, and more).

And if you want to learn the fundamentals from the ground up, including the key Excel functions and shortcuts and the concepts behind all the models, check out the Core Financial Modeling course:

Core Financial Modeling

Learn accounting, 3-statement modeling, valuation/DCF analysis, M&A and merger models, and LBOs and leveraged buyout models with 10+ global case studies.

When Will You Hear Back in the Corporate Development Recruiting Process?

As usual, if you hear back quickly – within a day or two – then it’s almost always good news.

If not, however, you can’t necessarily conclude that the interview went poorly because CD teams tend to be small and resource-constrained.

As a result, they sometimes get busy with deals and have to put interview processes on hold for 1-2 months.

So, follow up every week or two until you’ve heard back, and understand that since the process is more random, you may not get an answer right away.

Corporate Development: What Next?

That’s it for our overview of corporate development recruiting.

Coming up next, we’ll delve into what to expect on the job, including daily tasks, compensation, exit opportunities, and more.

Corporate Development Series:

• Part 1 – Corporate Development Recruiting
• Part 2 – Corporate Development Careers

Further Reading

You might be interested in:

• Wealth Management vs. Investment Banking: Career Deathmatch
• Capital Markets vs. Investment Banking: Deals, Careers, Recruiting, Exits, and Offer Decisions
• The Investment Banking Career Path: The Complete Guide
• Corporate Finance vs Corporate Strategy: The Never-Ending Debate?

About the Author

Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street . In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.

Free Exclusive Report: 57-page guide with the action plan you need to break into investment banking - how to tell your story, network, craft a winning resume, and dominate your interviews

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31 thoughts on “ Corporate Development Recruiting: The Definitive Guide ”

Hi Brian – I’m curious about MBA-level corporate development recruiting (for internships). Do you know how this process works (i.e., structure, process, timing, etc.) – is it similar to the recruiting timeline for investment banking MBA internships?

Sorry, I have no information on this. I would imagine it is slower and less competitive than IB recruiting because CD roles pay less and have worse exit opportunities, and they’re not open to as many candidates. It is also probably a bit less structured. But no direct information on this topic one way or another.

Hello Brian,

Thanks for the awesome article. Would someone working in IB Leveraged Finance be able to exit into Corporate Development?

Asking because, from my understanding, corporate development seems closely tied to M&A and strong industry groups. Thank you.

Thanks. Yes, you could probably exit from LevFin into Corp Dev, though you are correct that your chances are probably higher coming from a strong industry group. Any industry that uses significant debt could still be a good target coming from LevFin.

Hi Brian, Great article as always. I notice that the “data science to corporate development” article seems to have been taken down? Where can I find the content? Thanks!

Thanks. Yes, we deleted that article because it didn’t generate much traffic, and pretty much everything in it was covered and summarized in this overview article instead.

With a lot of the interviews on this site, people say pretty much the same things over and over, so we prefer to consolidate the insights and takeaways into single articles covering one specific career or recruiting process.

Got it that makes sense. I am particularly interested in how the data science interviewee spin his/her experience into sounding like deal experience and broke into CD, but this article skips over the details. Would you mind sharing more details about that example? Thanks a lot.

Relevant parts of the interview:

“Q: But how did you meet those criteria [deal experience, know the industry and company in-depth, and can run deals by themselves]?

You had no deal experience, and you had never run a deal by yourself.

A: No, but I had run projects across the entire company before.

Data science ties into all the other departments, so I said, “While I may not have run M&A deals before, I’ve done something similar with Projects X, Y, and Z, where I had to disseminate information, work with senior executives, and speak with all departments at the company to win project approval.”

I argued that “deals” were similar to the “projects” I had been working on; in both, you act as the central communicator.

And since I had performed well at the company already, the corporate development team had more faith in my technical skills than banks.

Q: OK. What about the process itself?

A: I spoke with two Associates, three VPs, and one MD, all on the same day. It took about 3-4 hours total.

We have a pretty big deal team – over 15 people – since this is a Fortune 100 company. So, I spoke with ~1/3 of the team during interviews.

They asked me:

-Technical questions similar to the ones you might receive in IB interviews – depending on the interviewer.

-Pitches for acquisition or joint-venture ideas for the company, which took a lot of time to research.

-Questions about why I wanted to move into corporate development and how much I knew about the deal process.

They also gave me a 30-minute written test at the end, but it was pretty simple: They showed me a potential acquisition target, presented the revenue and cost synergies, and asked how much I would recommend paying for the company.

If you’ve ever built a merger model or valuation, it was not difficult to answer.”

Thank you Brian!

From my group, I have the option to enter into either Corporate Development (F100), MM Infrastructure PE Fund, Real Estate PE, however i am not sure which option to choose. I have networked extensively in these fields to try find what my interests lie more towards, however am still having a very hard time trying to decide.

I feel as though because both are equally “good” options for me, i should just take the one that has higher pay? Would you agree with this? If so, which career overall do you think pays better? (Though also understand that it depends on many things, but would be great to get your opinion in general)

The PE options will tend to pay more than corporate development. If you want to earn more but have a worse lifestyle, infra PE or RE PE are better. You will also be more specialized in both of those. If you want more of a relaxed lifestyle but at the expense of lower pay, and you want to be more of a generalist, the CD offer is better.

Hey Brian – just submitted a case study for a corp dev position where they asked me to put a brief together for a strategic partnership (so not necessarily M&A e.g. could also be a product development between 2 companies which is what I did). I did the above but did not include a sensitivity table in the deck due to hitting their required page limit – instead I wrote a bullet in the “proposed next steps” page that I would run sensitivity analysis sensitizing X assumptions by Y reasons. Do you think not including an actual sensitivity table would ding me even though I acknowledged what I would do if I were to run a sensitivity? Or I guess more broadly, what is it that the case studies are usually judged on / how important critical are they to getting the job e.g. if one sensitivity is not included but the rest of the case is ok, would you get dinged.

I don’t think the lack of a sensitivity table will hurt you, especially if you mentioned that you would also create one with more time/space. They mostly want to see if you can think logically and present coherent arguments for or against a deal.

Thank you for all of the great content, huge fan of M&I. I have landed a corporate development role and was curious about potential exit opportunities. My team is a bit unique in that in addition to M&A i have made seed – series A investments within an internal “fund”. Curious to how this type of deal experience would lend itself to IB, PE, VC, or other CD roles given the early stage investment deal experience. Deliberately being somewhat vague, but i am pre-MBA and lack deep M&A experience.

I think it would work well for VC roles, but it would be tough to use that experience to get into PE because they normally want to see more traditional M&A experience. You might be able to use it to get into IB because bankers sometimes don’t go into a ton of detail on what you did, exactly, in each deal.

Hi Brian – great article, thank you.

Within the interview case study section, you said: “For example, project the company’s cash flows, calculate the IRR at different purchases prices, and build a simple DCF.”

What would the “investor proceed” metric be within each year of the IRR formula? For example, year 0 would contain the company’s market cap (the purchase price we’ll likely sensitize, also assuming it was a 100% stake purchase).

In the final year (eg. year 10) of the IRR, assuming it’s a strategic buyer, would we assume a theoretical “exit” multiple (even though strategics would probably hold for a much longer time period than the projected period) or Terminal Value via multiples method (I guess technically the same thing), both ending up as an “exit” market cap via the EV to EqV Bridge?

What about investor proceeds within years 1 through 9? Would you treat these period’s investor proceeds like you did in the 7 Days Inn case study, make them all 0? Would these periods contain their respective cash flows you just calculated: maybe take the unlevered FCF you calculated for the DCF, factor in interest payments and mandatory debt repayments by creating a debt schedule and arriving at levered FCF for each of the periods (so your using apples to apples with market cap purchase and exit values?) Maybe have levered FCF in the final year too instead of/with the theoretical exit market cap talked about above?

Maybe these “in between” periods only contain dividends that would be issued due to a high cash balance remaining after debt servicing would make up the investor proceeds (also requiring a debt and cash schedule with a minimum balance?)

Maybe it should be as simple as Atlassian’s Growth Equity IRR analysis, only purchase and exit market caps?

Apologies for the information dump! Looking forward to your response.

We cannot answer technical questions of this level on this free site. If you are a coaching client or have a BIWS account, please leave a comment with your questions on the site or contact us via email for answers to these questions.

A full 3 way model wasnt required for this either so definitely agree with you on the unlikelyhood of a full merger model. The reviewer was just trying to see where my knowledge was at and how well i could lay out a model that was logical to follow. Doing your courses was definitely a big help

Thanks, glad to hear it and thanks for sharing. Good luck!

I appreciate the article. I have been interested in CD for a while. It seems much better to me than the investment banking road. I’m willing to trade the prestige of having an IB job & pay for better hours and still have the opportunity to work on deals/due diligence.

My question is for those of us without IB experience (I am an auditor with a CPA), do you think it’d be better to go to a company in say their FP&A department and look to transfer to CD within the company later on or would I be better off going to like a Big 4 valuation position and wait 1-2 years?

Either one could work, it just depends on where you have the easiest transition. If you can move into the valuation group at your current firm more easily, that’s probably a better option because you will then do work that is more relevant. But if it’s difficult or they don’t accept many transfers, then it probably makes more sense to go for a corporate finance role and move in like that.

Thanks for this Brian. Could you provide some information in regards to: -Top Companies for CD -Career Progression and salary at each stage

Oops did not read the last paragraph my bad.

Yes, we are covering these topics in the next article in this series, but it’s hard to say what the “top companies” are because it depends on how you’re using the role. If you’re using it to potentially move into IB, the biggest companies (Fortune 100) are best because you’ll do more relevant work and get a better brand name. But if you’re using Corp Dev as your path into the industry and a first job, then it’s better to aim for smaller companies that are more open to hiring you without a lot of deal experience.

All-in compensation starts at around $120-$160K for Associates and ranges up to $350K – $400K at the Director level. Figures will be lower than that outside of major financial centers and at smaller companies. And it takes a long time to make it to the Director level, longer than the equivalent role/title in IB, because turnover in CD is quite low compared to banking.

Thank you for the explanation, Brian.

Many thanks for this article, very insightful as always. I am currently in the process for a CD internship next year within a very large Financial Institution (BB), and have made it successfully to the last round, where I will meet the head of the CD Team. It seems to me more like a “confirm the hire by the top guy” type interview since I already had interviews with 4 team members and a case study, but in your experience what should I expect from this interview? I suppose it will revolve around my knowledge of the team/role and usual fit questions, but I would very much value your input.

Best and thank you for this amazing website

Thanks. Yes, it sounds like they just want to confirm your hiring, so I would expect a fit-focused interview where it’s more about your background and how well you’ll do in the team rather than specific technical knowledge. Senior interviewers tend to care more about that and usually leave technical questions to the junior interviewers.

Hi, thanks for the write up.

I have a 2 hour case modelling test soon for Corp dev in a private company. Just wondering on the likelihood of having to build a merger model? Or would that be too little time? Since it is longer than 30-60 minutes just wondering what else to expect.

It’s very unlikely that you will have to build a full merger model. At most, maybe something where you combine just the IS and simplified CFS. And a valuation case study is still more likely in most cases. There might just be more information to review (or more questions at the end), but the actual model will not necessarily be more complex just because it’s 2 hours.

Just wanted to give you all an update on this, but for my modelling test I received an LBO test which took me a bit by surprise

Thanks for the update. An LBO test isn’t too surprising since it’s really just a variation of a 3-statement model, and those are common in all case studies. But yes, LBOs and LBO models are definitely fair game. I still think a full 3-statement merger model would be unlikely due to time constraints.

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• Beautify case interview (McKinsey website)
• Diconsa case interview (McKinsey website)
• Electro-light case interview (McKinsey website)
• GlobaPharm case interview (McKinsey website)
• National Education case interview (McKinsey website)
• Talbot Trucks case interview (McKinsey website)
• Shops Corporation case interview (McKinsey website)
• Conservation Forever case interview (McKinsey website)
• McKinsey case interview guide (by IGotAnOffer)
• McKinsey live case interview extract (by IGotAnOffer) - See below

2. BCG case interview examples

• Foods Inc and GenCo case samples  (BCG website)
• Chateau Boomerang written case interview  (BCG website)
• BCG case interview guide (by IGotAnOffer)
• Written cases guide (by IGotAnOffer)
• BCG live case interview with notes (by IGotAnOffer)
• BCG mock case interview with ex-BCG associate director - Public sector case (by IGotAnOffer)
• BCG mock case interview: Revenue problem case (by IGotAnOffer) - See below

3. Bain case interview examples

• CoffeeCo practice case (Bain website)
• FashionCo practice case (Bain website)
• Associate Consultant mock interview video (Bain website)
• Consultant mock interview video (Bain website)
• Written case interview tips (Bain website)
• Bain case interview guide   (by IGotAnOffer)
• Digital transformation case with ex-Bain consultant
• Bain case mock interview with ex-Bain manager (below)

4. Deloitte case interview examples

• Engagement Strategy practice case (Deloitte website)
• Recreation Unlimited practice case (Deloitte website)
• Strategic Vision practice case (Deloitte website)
• Retail Strategy practice case  (Deloitte website)
• Finance Strategy practice case  (Deloitte website)
• Talent Management practice case (Deloitte website)
• Enterprise Resource Management practice case (Deloitte website)
• Footloose written case  (by Deloitte)
• Deloitte case interview guide (by IGotAnOffer)

5. Accenture case interview examples

• Case interview workbook (by Accenture)
• Accenture case interview guide (by IGotAnOffer)

6. OC&C case interview examples

• Leisure Club case example (by OC&C)
• Imported Spirits case example (by OC&C)

7. Oliver Wyman case interview examples

• Wumbleworld case sample (Oliver Wyman website)
• Aqualine case sample (Oliver Wyman website)
• Oliver Wyman case interview guide (by IGotAnOffer)

8. A.T. Kearney case interview examples

• Promotion planning case question (A.T. Kearney website)
• Consulting case book and examples (by A.T. Kearney)
• AT Kearney case interview guide (by IGotAnOffer)

9. Strategy& / PWC case interview examples

• Presentation overview with sample questions (by Strategy& / PWC)
• Strategy& / PWC case interview guide (by IGotAnOffer)

10. L.E.K. Consulting case interview examples

• Case interview example video walkthrough   (L.E.K. website)
• Market sizing case example video walkthrough  (L.E.K. website)

11. Roland Berger case interview examples

• Transit oriented development case webinar part 1  (Roland Berger website)
• Transit oriented development case webinar part 2   (Roland Berger website)
• 3D printed hip implants case webinar part 1   (Roland Berger website)
• 3D printed hip implants case webinar part 2   (Roland Berger website)
• Roland Berger case interview guide   (by IGotAnOffer)

12. Capital One case interview examples

• Case interview example video walkthrough  (Capital One website)
• Capital One case interview guide (by IGotAnOffer)

13. Consulting clubs case interview examples

• Berkeley case book (2006)
• Columbia case book (2006)
• Darden case book (2012)
• Darden case book (2018)
• Duke case book (2010)
• Duke case book (2014)
• ESADE case book (2011)
• Goizueta case book (2006)
• Illinois case book (2015)
• LBS case book (2006)
• MIT case book (2001)
• Notre Dame case book (2017)
• Ross case book (2010)
• Wharton case book (2010)

Practice with experts

Using case interview examples is a key part of your interview preparation, but it isn’t enough.

At some point you’ll want to practise with friends or family who can give some useful feedback. However, if you really want the best possible preparation for your case interview, you'll also want to work with ex-consultants who have experience running interviews at McKinsey, Bain, BCG, etc.

If you know anyone who fits that description, fantastic! But for most of us, it's tough to find the right connections to make this happen. And it might also be difficult to practice multiple hours with that person unless you know them really well.

Here's the good news. We've already made the connections for you. We’ve created a coaching service where you can do mock case interviews 1-on-1 with ex-interviewers from MBB firms . Start scheduling sessions today!

The IGotAnOffer team

• Career Advice
• Job Search & Interview
• Productivity
• Public Speaking and Presentation
• Social & Interpersonal Skills
• Professional Development
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Eggcellent Work

How to ace your next corporate development interview: questions and answers  .

Corporate Development, also known as Corp Dev, refers to the group within an organization that is responsible for strategic decisions to expand and restructure the business.

You have decided you are ready to join a Corporate Development team so you can identify and execute opportunities for the company. These include helping with initiatives such as mergers and acquisitions and divestitures. You understand that your role is critical to key business objectives of:

• Improving the enterprise’s financial and operating performance.
• Outperforming company competitors.

As a unit of the enterprise intended to create and execute innovative strategies to leverage competitive advantages, Corporate Development also focuses on establishing strategic partnerships and looks for opportunities for the corporation to achieve organizational excellence.

You want to know what to expect when it comes to being chosen to join a Corporate Development group, including the types of corporate development interview questions you can expect and how best to answer them. These issues and more are discussed here.

Table of Contents

What does a Corporate Development do?

Corporate Development operates on two levels simultaneously: internally and externally.

Internally, Corporate Development is essential to the enterprise, identifying gaps in geographic market reach and in the company’s product portfolio.

Externally, Corporate Development’s role is essential for the organization, helping to create partnerships and deals that will help the enterprise monetize and increase valuable assets. In this function, Corporate Development works to help innovate and create business partnerships and deals that can bring value to the enterprise.

While Corporate Development is most commonly known for its role in assisting with mergers and acquisitions (M&A), there is more to Corporate Development. In fact, M&As is one of the riskier tasks that Corporate Development teams handle. According to the Harvard Business Review,  more than 70% of acquisitions fail .

That increases the importance of other tasks that Corporate Development teams participate in that serve the enterprise’s business objectives, including:

• Analyzing and investing in new strategic initiatives, which are not just mergers and acquisitions, but also include strategic divestitures.
• Assisting with the creation of forecast models and budgets that will determine the enterprise’s allocation of assets and maintain oversight of the company’s performance.
• Serving as the enterprise’s liaison with government and industry regulators.
• Monitoring and ensuring capital adequacy.
• Helping the enterprise achieve operational excellence.
• Taking responsibility for identifying and managing assets that are not core business assets.
• Improving the client and customer experience.
• Striving to optimize firm productivity and agility.
• Serving as a company representative in financial conferences, investor gatherings and shareholder meetings.
• Helping the company communicate its strategy to shareholders after earnings releases.
• Participating in product development, market analysis and market penetration.
• Managing the enterprise’s portfolio.
• Comprehending the main drivers of the enterprise’s revenues and expenses
• Identifying critical Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to evaluate and measure the company’s performance.

What can I expect from a corporate development interview?

In addition to some fairly common corporate development interview questions, you can expect a discussion of your professional background as it relates to corporate development, financing, valuation, consulting and financial modeling.

Depending on whether your interviewer has a consulting or banking background, you may be asked to consider case studies or you may be asked your opinion about particular investments in business units.

Corporate Development groups seek candidates with experience working on acquisitions, joint ventures and deals. You may be asked about the size of deals you have participated in and to describe your role and experience in those deals.

Corporate Development teams also seek independent workers who can handle deals by themselves.

How do I prepare for a corporate development interview?

You can expect corporate development interview questions to include a request to detail your work experience, including projects you led or participated in previously.

Your answer should offer a brief discussion of that experience, but it also should be crafted in a way that shows you understand the industry in which the enterprise operates.

This is particularly important if you do not have prior experience in the industry or did not cover the industry if you previously served as a consultant or analyst.

The importance of modeling

Some corporate development interview questions also focus on modeling, according to Corporate Development team members who shared their experiences on the Wall Street Oasis (WSO) forums.

This is usually brought up with candidates who have advanced beyond the initial round of interviews. In some cases, you may receive a case study where you are asked to develop a financial model and a formal presentation.

When it comes to M&A cases, you may be asked to walk through how you would expect the process to unfold, from identifying merger or acquisition targets to the expected closing of the transaction. In some cases, interviewers may ask you to comment on the possibility of the enterprise acquiring a specific company.

While you should not feel as if you need to offer advice on such a transaction, be prepared to discuss hard valuation methods, particular synergies (i.e. market share and talent and cost reduction), and integration issues that may surface.

You will likely be asked by some interviewers to perform an M&A modeling test, particularly if, as a consultant, you did not appear to have a significant amount of experience with this exercise.

Do not ignore the basic decision that many corporations must ask themselves when considering M&A: Is this something that should be built or something that should be bought?

The enterprise clearly has an interest in expanding its operations and market share, but should this be done through acquisition or through internal development?

Your answer can discuss the pros and cons of these options, or at least how you would calculate these when considering the options.

Know the company and the industry

As you discuss your thinking and methodologies related to these factors, take this opportunity to show your knowledge of the industry and the company that is considering you for the position. As investor Mark Cuban says, “Know your business and industry better than anyone else in the world.”

Your answer should begin with a 30,000-foot overview of the industry and the company’s place in that industry. You can note your understanding of why the company is in the position to consider M&A in this context. Then offer some insight into how you think the target company fits into this dynamic.

More than anything, your answer relating to potential M&A must include a solid understanding of the company and its position in the market relative to top competitors. You can likely argue the case either way for or against M&A. This is because the top driver of any M&A is corporate strategy.

Any discussion about options must include a strong understanding of the corporate strategy and how M&A fits into that.

Buy or Build

Discuss the question you would pose if buying, such as, how does this purchase represent the best use of capital? Is there an argument to reinvest in the existing business?

For example, if the enterprise’s core business represents low growth and low profitability, buying a smaller competitor that is seeking to disrupt your business might make sense in that case.

You can also note some of the negatives that stem from corporate M&As, such as the potential adverse impact on shareholder value and possible conflict with ongoing integration from previous acquisitions.

It is also possible that the enterprise’s disappointing history with M&As and recently announced deals by key competitors can affect the enterprise’s decision. There are instances when M&A should not be considered, so your answer should indicate that you appreciate there are situations where that is a factor.

Know the interviewer

In addition to Corporate Development Interview Questions, you should know something about the people who are interviewing you. What is their background, consulting or banking?

If they were consultants at one point, chances are they would focus more on a case study during the interview process. They may ask for your opinion about particular investments within business units and they could ask you to develop an investment thesis around them. This is a good time to offer insights about the potential for products in the market.

If they have an investment banking background, expect more discussion about financing. That’s particularly true if you also come from an investment banking background.

Expect questions that test your knowledge of Corporate Development. For example, you could be asked, why Corporate Development? Your answer can emphasize the long-term nature of helping a company grow its business versus bouncing from client to client in investment banking.

You also may be asked about the differences between Corporate Development and investment banking when it comes to key challenges.

You can highlight the importance of aligning interests within your organization when it comes to making deals in Corporate Development, as opposed to connecting a buyer and a seller in investment banking.

You can also discuss the difficulties that integration can pose, which is a challenge you didn’t experience in investment banking.

• Work Assignments During The Job Interview Process: Here’s How To Handle This Request
• Best C-Suite Interview Questions And How To Answer Them With Ease
• What To Expect During an Interview With a Japanese Employer (And How To Crush It!)
• How To Spots Companies That Interview With No Intention Of Hiring You
• How To Become A Corporate Raider – Here’s All You Need To Know
• Applying For A Job At A Client Company: 4 Things To Consider  

Jenny Palmer

Founder of Eggcellentwork.com. With over 20 years of experience in HR and various roles in corporate world, Jenny shares tips and advice to help professionals advance in their careers. Her blog is a go-to resource for anyone looking to improve their skills, land their dream job, or make a career change.

Further Reading...

When Is the Best Time to Look for a Job in Singapore?

How To Reply To An Interview Email (With Examples)

What To Do While Waiting On A Background Check After A Job Offer  

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How To Handle Interview Question "Tell Me A Joke" (And How Not To Overdo It) 

How to identify a false or unfair performance improvement plan (and how to respond)  .

The Ultimate Guide to the Consulting Case Interview – With Examples

This guide, written by a former McKinsey consultant and Wharton MBA, breaks down the management consulting case interview into comprehensible parts with relevant, realistic examples at every turn.

By  Tracy V.

Posted March 12, 2024

Featuring Alex S.

De-Mystifying the McKinsey Interview

Wednesday, may 15.

10:00 PM UTC · 45 minutes

Table of Contents

While the consulting case study interview may seem daunting at first, most cases follow a typical song-and-dance. Once you get a hang of it, prepping feels much more manageable. The first part of this guide will give a broad overview of the case interview. The second part will break out the typical structure of an interviewee-led case. The last part will dive into each component, with tips and suggestions for preparing. Note that some firms may have their own specific case interview style. Be sure to familiarize yourself with your target firms’ interview processes before the time comes to recruit.

Case interviews involve tackling a business issue or problem faced by a company (the client). These interviews allow consulting firms to gauge candidates’ ability to perform the job. Specifically, firms are testing whether candidates can:

• Think in a structured and creative way
• Analyze and interpret new information
• Communicate persuasively and succinctly

Most firms conduct interviewee-led cases, as outlined in the guide below. In these cases, the candidate is expected to drive the case forward by asking the interviewer for data or information relevant to forming the recommendation. A few firms, most notably McKinsey, are interviewer-led, meaning that the interviewer will be the one guiding the discussion.

Below are a few common types of cases that you can expect to receive. Some cases can be several types all in one (lucky you!):

• Profitability - Determine cause for profit decline and / or ideas for increasing profit; you will rarely get a standalone profitability case – It will usually be rolled up in another case type
• Growth - consider strategies for company growth; could be through sales or market share
• Market Entry / New Business - Assess attractiveness of entering new geography / business / sector and method for entering
• Due Diligence / M&A - Assess attractiveness of purchasing / acquiring a company or business; client can be another company or a financial sponsor
• Competitive Response - Address a competitor’s recent action (e.g., new acquisition, change in pricing strategy)
• Non-Traditional - Similar to the other cases but the client (non-profit, NGO, education-focused entity) has different objectives than a typical corporate company

Case Interview Components

• Prompt: Interviewer reads aloud the case while the interviewee takes notes
• Recap: Interviewee provides a high-level summary of the case and confirms accuracy of information written
• Clarifying Questions: Interviewee asks 2-3 high-level questions
• Structuring (<2 minutes): Interviewee takes a few minutes create a roadmap for approaching the case
• Framework Presentation (2-3 minutes): Interviewee reviews the structure with the interviewer, who may have follow-up questions. Interviewee then moves the case forward by asking for additional information
• Brainstorming: Interviewee is expected to list out several solutions or ideas (e.g., cost drivers for an industry, ways to increase sales)
• Exhibits: Interviewee will be given data in forms such as graphs or charts and expected to provide high-level insights
• Math: Interviewee will be asked to perform a calculation with the new information or using data from the exhibits. Oftentimes, interviewee is not given enough information and must ask for the relevant data
• Synthesis and Recommendation (2-3 minutes) : Interviewee provides the answer first, then supporting facts from the case, and finally risks and next steps

Setup (2-3 minutes)

Prompt : The interviewer may be giving you A LOT of information - don’t write down everything verbatim. Jot down facts and figures, the client name, and the objective(s). If you miss something or don’t remember what a number means, you can ask after your recap.

• Prep: Have a friend read you several different case interview prompts and practice taking down notes. Create your own shorthand and learn how to recognize extraneous pieces of information

Recap : I always reference the client by name and start my recap with the objective(s) first, since this is the most important part of the case. The recap should be summarized, not verbatim, and you should be checking that the figures you wrote down are correct.

• Prep: Practice summarizing your notes out loud instead of repeating the case verbatim. Time yourself to make sure it’s <1 minute.

Clarifying Questions : Very detailed questions should be saved for the case. Clarifying questions are meant to help you with your structure or alleviate any confusion. Keep these at 2-3 questions. I usually ask questions pertaining to:

• Language/terminology - The interviewer won’t expect you to know the nuances of every industry or practice area. It is better you start off the case on the right footing by asking for clarifying definitions
• Goals/objectives - I always ask if there are other goals the company has in mind and, if relevant, specific financial targets or timeframe. Sometimes, the objective given is vague, so I will ask the interviewer to be more specific.
• Business model or geography - Very helpful for cases in niche industries; understanding geography can also prompt you to think about factors like labor cost or global competition
• Scope - To save you time from considering every possibility, you can ask whether the company is leaning towards one option or excluding a set of options completely
• Prep: Have a friend read you case prompts and then practice asking 2-3 clarifying questions on the fly. Try to think of them as you’re taking down notes and giving the recap. Are they helping you with your structuring or are you asking the first thing that pops into your head? Are they broad enough or overly detailed? Are there types of questions you should be asking but keep forgetting?

Framework (4-5 minutes)

Structuring (<2 minutes) : Do not use the word “framework” during the interview. I ask if I could have time to “gather my thoughts” when I am structuring. In your structure, you should have at least three but no more than five “buckets.” These are areas that you want to explore in order to solve the case. In each bucket, there should be at least three sub-bullets. Make sure there is no overlap between the buckets.

• Prep: Time yourself structuring your roadmaps. Be comfortable with recalling the different buckets you should be considering for each type of case and brainstorming sub-bullets for those buckets. It’s okay to go over two minutes when you first start, but as you get comfortable, make sure you are becoming more efficient. For example, as you become more familiar with the buckets, you don’t need to write down every example for the sub-bullets, they will become muscle memory as you recite them out loud. Review the suggested frameworks for the case and take note of whether there are vital topics you keep forgetting or whether there are unnecessary buckets you keep adding. There is no one “right” answer, but your roadmap should enable you to uncover the necessary information to make your recommendation.

Presenting: Introduce the high-level buckets first before diving into each one. You will want to “customize” your framework to the specific case you’re working on. This does not mean creating a custom framework for every single case. You can use the same topics for similar types of cases (but ensure that those topics are relevant - some cases sneakily rule out an entire topic to see if you are paying attention), but you need to make sure that you are using case-specific language and examples when you present. This shows that you are thinking about the specific problem, not just recycling a generic framework. After going through the structure, pause and ask if the interviewer has any questions. Then, give your hypothesis and state which bucket you want to start with by asking for data pertaining to that bucket and why you want it.

• Prep: Present your structures out loud and note whether you are rambling or being case-specific in your language. If you find that your presentation is too long, consider cutting down on the examples or explanations. Be succinct and say enough to get your point across. Don’t just move on to the next case if your presentation falls short. Keep practicing until you feel satisfied and make mental notes for the next case.

Interview “Questions” (10-20 minutes)

For each type of question, you are going to be doing the same things: answering the question, providing insights, conveying how it impacts your recommendation, and driving the case forward. Every time you have “answered” a question, you want to be thinking, “ What else do I need? What’s the logical path forward ?” The only way you can prepare for this is to run through entire cases! Remember, your framework is your friend. Refer back to it often if you don’t know where to go next.

Brainstorming : You will want to structure your ideas into MECE buckets. They can be fairly simple (financials vs. non-financials, external vs. internal, etc.). Similar to your framework, you will give a preview of the buckets first before going into the details of each and you will need to ensure that it is “custom” for your case. If a structure doesn’t naturally come to you, you can create a pseudo-structure by organizing how you will present your brainstorm. For example, you can state how many ideas you have from the onset or say that you will first go through the ideas first and then the associated risks.

This is a highly debated practice, but I always ask for a few seconds so I can think of a structure (they may say no). Don’t take more than 30 seconds because you can add to your buckets as you are presenting.

For non-technical brainstorms, be creative! For example, when interviewers asked about how to increase sales for a consumer-facing retail company, I would bring up TikTok campaigns and celebrity endorsements as a few ideas. Have fun with it!

Occasionally, interviewers will prod you with, “What else?” This does not always mean you didn’t give enough ideas. Sometimes it’s the opposite – they are looking to challenge you or see how you will react. Just roll with it - if you don’t have anything else, say so.

• Prep: Practice brainstorming for different types of prompts. Collect a bank of general ideas and solutions that can be customized for use across industries. Try to think of as many ideas as you can (four to six at the very least) and exercise that creative muscle. To help you with structuring, have a list of “easy” MECE buckets that you can pull out on the fly.

Exhibits : First, give an overview of the exhibit. As an example, for graphs say what the axes represent, tie it back to the case, and give your interpretation of those axes. This gives the interviewer a chance to course-correct if you misinterpreted the exhibit. Give some insight, even if it is low-hanging fruit, and tie it back to the case. There are three levels of insights for both exhibits and math:

• What the numbers say, patterns/trends (X is smaller than anticipated, Y is the largest driver)
• What the client should do (enter the market, cancel plans, plan for launch)
• What we should do next (reconsider something specific, research more data on X, move on to Y)

Oftentimes, exhibits will tie into a calculation. If you are given an exhibit with data that can be used to calculate more insightful information, tell the interviewer that you would like to make those calculations. The interviewer will lead you down that path regardless but it is more impressive if you call it out.

• Prep: Run through different types of exhibits and see how many insights from each level you can pull out. Practice anticipating what type of data you need next in order to move ahead in the case or whether you can/should calculate anything from the data given. Don’t be too insightful though – you only have a limited amount of time to run through the case.

Math : Before you start calculating anything, it is critical for you to confirm what you are solving for and that the information you wrote down is correct. SUPER IMPORTANT – answer the question that is being asked !!  If the interviewer is asking for the incremental profit from a certain strategy, you don’t want to calculate the total profit from the strategy. Active listening is so important!

As you know by now, structure is everything. Again, I always ask for a few seconds to organize my thoughts (the worst thing they can say is no). Set up the problem before you start calculating. This allows you to identify whether there is data missing. Walk the interviewer through your method and ask for missing data. You may need to make your own assumptions or estimates – be sure you can justify them.

If your method is off, the interviewer will usually guide you back to the right path. This saves you from wasting time calculating the incorrect answer. Be sure to pay attention when the interviewer is trying to coach you.

As you are solving the problem, walk the interviewer through each calculation and use math shortcuts as much as possible. Again, if you make a math error, the interviewer can stop you before you go down the entire path. Save time by only calculating what is important for the case and understanding what you can skip.

• Prep: Practice setting up the problem, walking the interviewer through your proposed method, and verbalizing the calculations out loud. On paper, make sure your calculations are being done neatly and not all over the place. Look for different math shortcuts and try them out. Not all of them will fit your style, but you might find new tricks. Track whether you are answering the right questions. Once again, active listening is critical to your candidacy. Once you have correctly solved the problem, make sure you are thinking about the, “So what?” Determine how that number impacts your recommendation and where you should go next.

Synthesis and Recommendation (2-3 minutes)

Again, I always ask for a few seconds to collect your thoughts (<30 secs). If the “CEO is already in the elevator,” they may say no. Have a definitive stance – start with your recommendation and then provide two to three supporting facts using data from the case.

Address risks and next steps (i.e., what is the required analysis/gameplan – this is like real life where the firm is trying to sell additional projects). Your recommendation should be <2 minutes. Frankly, the interviewer has most likely made a decision on your candidacy. Don’t ramble and try to finish strong.

The hardest part of this is pulling out the supporting data in a succinct way. Throughout the case, you should be jotting down notes. I tend to circle what I believe to be relevant supporting data. When you present it, don’t be too specific or granular. You want your recommendation to be punchy.

• Prep: Run through whole cases where you are tracking the relevant supporting data along the way. Time your recommendation and practice verbalizing the information concisely. Don’t forget the risks and next steps. I usually have a list of generic risks (e.g., competitor response, regulation, inaccurate projections) that I can “customize” on the off-chance I’m scrambling to think of some. Your next steps can be collecting additional data to support your recommendation or ways to address those risks.

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Casing Drills

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Final Thoughts

• Your approach is more important than the solution – The interviewer is trying to understand how you think. Some cases have data that support recommendations in either direction. The key piece is that you are able to back your stance using the facts and data uncovered during the interview.
• Deadends are okay – There will be times when you make multiple requests for data and the interviewer does not have it. That’s perfectly fine! You can’t read the interviewer’s mind and the case could go in so many directions. Just look back at your framework to see where else you can proceed.
• Be coachable – It’s not the end of the world if your method is wrong or if you misinterpreted an exhibit. The interviewer wants to see that you are actively listening and can take feedback and improve. Don’t freak out! Stay calm! Listen to what the interviewer is trying to tell you.

This guide only scratches the surface of case interviews. The best way to prepare for case interviews is to get your reps in with entire cases. That way, you can identify your areas of weakness and be more precise with the drills. I can give you feedback and additional tips and tricks so that you are performing at your best on interview day. Book a free intro call with me on my Leland profile to discuss how we can personalize your case prep plan!

Preparing for consulting recruiting and/or case interviews? Here are some additional resources to help:

• Top 3 Tactics to Ace Your Case Interview
• A Comprehensive Guide to McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co., and Boston Consulting Group
• From No Offers to Multiple Offers - How to Take Your Casing to the Next Level
• How a Disneyland Churro Helped Me Land a Job at Bain (and 5 Pitfalls to Avoid in Market Sizing Problems)
• Five Tips to Break Into Management Consulting

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Corporate Development Interview Prep

We Give You BOTH Coaching and Top Quality Interview Prep Guides, Slides, Financial Models, and Case Studies for Corporate Development - Our 93% Success Rate Speaks For Itself

Corporate development has been a popular area to transition to for many finance professionals; the broad variety of factors such as mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy and work-life balance are attractive to many. Traditionally, corporate development hired primarily investment bankers and management consultants, similar to private equity. Fortunately, demand has never been higher for corporate development as mergers and acquisitions and roll-ups are executed at a breakneck pace, and more and more firms are also hiring candidates from non-traditional backgrounds.

Corporate development interviews typically involve 3 to 4 rounds, and usually include a case study that tests your financial modeling capabilities. They also look for professionals who have strong abilities in corporate strategy and value creation, and would thrive well in a corporate environment.

We can help you prepare for the case study by walking you through similar case studies and testing you on case studies in a variety of industries. We will also build upon existing financial modeling concepts, teach you how to walk an interviewer through a model, and help you both ask and answer the right questions from our curated list of corporate development interview questions, both technical and fit.

• Build a story that aligns your experiences with the needs of corporate M&A and strategy
• Teach you the strategic elements of corporate development, such as factors to consider before entering a new market, how to account for scale, etc.
• Help you master case studies that are more focused on operational modeling
• Analyze and build upon the various valuation methods used in corporate M&A such as precedent transactions, DCFs, accretion / dilution analysis, and LBOs
• 93% of clients receive a job offer in corporate development. We are the only service completely dedicated to your success. Our philosophy is unique: a successful client is one who gets the job of their dreams, NOT one who keeps coming back!

One Hour Coaching Session

$ 199 / Hour

• Any materials we go through will be sent to you (financial models / templates, slide decks, case studies)

Bulk Package: 3 Hours (6% off)

$ 187 / Hour

• 350 questions interview guide
• 6 slide decks covering Behaviorals, Accounting, EV / Comps, DCF, M&A, and LBO
• 2 hour LBO case study

Bulk Package: 5 Hours (13% Off)

$ 174 / Hour

• DCF case study in restaurant industry
• DCF case study in software industry
• 2 M&A accretion / dilution case studies using merger model method and earnings yield method
• IB case study with advanced M&A accretion / dilution and paper LBO
• 1 corporate development / FP&A case study

Bulk Package: 8 Hours (19% Off)

$ 162 / Hour

• Complex LBO case study in software industry with quarterly modeling required and working with ownership waterfall structures like liquidation preference
• 1 long complex LBO case studies in knife sharpening industry with 50-70 slides in CIM with PPT and Excel solutions
• 1 venture capital case study

Bulk Package: 10 Hours (25% Off)

$ 149 / Hour

• Short LBO case study in restaurant industry
• Short LBO case study in software industry
• 1 long complex LBO case studies in the sporting arena industry with 50-70 slides in CIM with PPT and Excel solutions
• Complex LBO case study in the car washing industry with Excel modeling and Word memo component with solutions
• Real estate paper LBO
• Real estate private equity case study for nursing home company
• Real estate private equity case study for retail property
• 2 corporate development / FP&A case studies

Our Coaching Methodology

Real Interview Questions - Customized Interview Questions

• Customized mock interview catering to the topics you need the most improvement on or wish to focus on

Real Case Studies

Feedback is provided after each question in order to promote learning and memory retention

Written Feedback

• Concise, written feedback will be provided afterwards addressing your strengths and areas for improvement

Our Coaches

Josh Jia (IB, PE, and Corporate Development)

• 8 years of experience
• Founded Limestone Capital
• Private Equity Analyst at Imperial Capital
• Investment Banking Analyst at BMO, Diversified Group
• Placed 100+ candidates into finance roles

Rolan Naiman (Debt)

• 4 years of experience
• Corporate Banking Associate at BMO
• Focused on P&U and infrastructure
• Investment management and trading experience
• Passionate about credit

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What our clients are saying:

Josh greatly assisted me in preparing for my Bain, BCG and McKinsey interviews. He helped to curate interviews that developed my weaknesses and helped me to identify my strengths. His cases were through, creative and challenging. Our cases were broadly focused at first but Josh was able to identify the places I needed to improve in order to advance. Josh's feedback was an asset to my improvement in the case interview circuit. He's an intelligent and highly driven finance professional who greatly assisted in achieving my interview goals and I'm confident he can do the same for you.

Management Consulting Professional

Josh has been invaluable in helping me improve my financial modeling skills and sharpen my understanding of material details in private equity transactions. Josh is a great teacher and is able to effectively communicate and pass on his experience and knowledge gained as an investment banker and private equity professional. Josh does not only teach the basics but can readily break down and simplify complex industry concepts. Josh was not only great in teaching the technical aspects of the job but also helped to develop my strategy to succeed in interviews. Overall, I am Josh has been outstanding in helping me transition from a non-traditional background in corporate law to finance.

Investment Banking Associate

Joshua Jia is probably one of the most knowledgeable and hardworking professionals you will ever meet. He has immense industry experience and also significant knowledge of the finance industry in general. I have benefited immensely through Josh’s help throughout the job searching and recruiting process in the finance industry and have landed a number of sought after roles. I hope that you will be able to benefit from this as well. Josh’s help will not only open doors for now, it will also open doors for your future career opportunities. The investment is well worthwhile.

Corporate Finance Professional

Josh is a leader in interview preparation and career development. Josh was instrumental in helping me land a job at a leading global investment bank in NYC. Josh continues to be a source of guidance and mentorship as I progress through my career. I highly recommend working with Josh to secure your next job in the financial industry.

Investment Banking Associate at Global Investment Bank in NYC

Josh greatly assisted me in preparing for my interviews in both investment banking and corporate development. He provided me with practical, actionable advice drawn from his experience interviewing with numerous employers that helped me overcome my weaknesses, highlight my strengths and tailor my message to the employer in question. He was incredibly patient with me as I went through the interview process and was very helpful throughout. If you're looking for someone to transform your interview skills, there is no better person than Josh.

Corporate Development Professional at Multinational Corporation

Josh has been a phenomenal mentor of mine since I was in first-year university. His extensive experience in investment banking and private equity made him the perfect interview prep coach, especially since he has gone through the recruiting process himself. In addition, he has a knack for giving intuitive explanations for financial concepts, ensuring that I fully understood the theory as opposed to simply memorizing the answers to a list of interview questions. His friendly disposition also made him a pleasure to interact with. In the end, I was able to secure an investment analyst position on the buy-side upon graduation. I definitely would not have been able to get there without his help, so many thanks to Josh for helping me jumpstart my career!

Investment Analyst at Leading Investment Management Firm

Josh’s personal advice were essential for me when I was looking for a job. His experiences and expertise in the finance industry allowed him to teach me some of the most practical and useful financial concepts. Moreover, Josh international experiences also helped me to explore different opportunities in regions like China and Hong Kong. Josh was very attentive throughout the whole process. He helped to improve my resume tremendously by cutting out the unnecessary materials and highlighting personal strength. Most importantly, his deep understanding of interviewers’ intentions was what really helped me. By the end of my sessions with Josh, I was not only able to receive job offers, I also gained knowledge about the industry which I believe that will able to benefit me for a lifetime.

Private Equity Associate

Josh was incredibly helpful when it came to prepping for interviews. Whether he was giving me advice technical or behavioural questions, everything he helped me with was instrumental in helping me get a job in investment banking, and then in private equity. If your goal is to break into the industry, there’s no one I would trust more than him!

Alex and Josh are both great mentors and were a crucial component of my career development early on, and the guidance they provided me on financial modeling and LBO modeling gave me a step up in both recruiting and work. They are both extremely competent with regards to teaching financial concepts for individuals both new and familiar with finance, and are always happy to share honest advice. They are both genuinely care about your success and I would recommend them to anyone interested in developing the necessary skills to pursuing a career in finance early on.

Investment Analyst at Highbridge Capital

I just wanted to take the time to thank and give much-deserved credit to Alexander. My resume review could not have gone better. Alexander was thorough and asked all the right questions in order to capture all of my highlights. He took the time to fully understand my story and position it in the best way on my resume. His knowledge of the Finance industry was evident in his suggestions which I would have never thought of. He also took the time to answer any miscellaneous questions I had in detail. The process was outstanding all around. I would definitely work with him again and recommend this service to anyone looking to transform their resume.

Sr. Finance Manager, ABB Optical Group (Florida)

Alex did a great job on my resume review. He was encouraging and offered perspective that increased my confidence with the job search. I was changing industries and was concerned I wouldn’t be able to break into investment banking, but through his encouragement and help I was able to get an investment banking analyst position within a few weeks. I received many compliments on my resume through the job search which played a huge part in me receiving the offer. I would recommend Alex’s service for any student or professional wanting to get into investment banking.

Investment Banking Analyst, Agentis (Vancouver)

Alexander was immensely helpful in getting my resume ready for my recent career search. He was extremely thoughtful, attentive, and helpful throughout our interaction. With his help I have been able to secure interviews with firms that I would not have been able to prior to him helping me refine my resume.

Analyst (Originations), White Oak Global Advisors (San Francisco)

My experience with Alexander has been more than pleasant. Alex was prompt, courteous and professional. He took the time to talk to me to truly understand my work experience and my skills. He reformatted my resume, condensed it down to 1 page while preserving the essence. He also helped me with my interview skills, potential areas I could improve on. I have received several interviews from high caliber organizations, and I attribute it all to Alexander's help.

Analyst (Data Performance & Risk), Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund Board (Edmonton)

It was 8 months before graduation that I decided to pursue a career in finance. Having worked in completely irrelevant fields, I was lost and I didn't have any guidance or exposure to the whole finance scene and struggled in figuring out how to break into finance. I knew speaking with people like Alexander who knew ins and outs of recruiting process was one of the things I could do, so I actively sought mentorship opportunities, and I stumbled upon a chance to speak with Alexander. After speaking with him and doing a mock interview, I learned exactly what I lacked in, and what strengths I have, and what direction I should take on to maximize my chances of breaking into the industry. Alexander has been tremendously helpful with my recruiting, and offered invaluable advice that played a critical role in landing interviews with reputable firms for investment banking, equity research and private equity roles. What I really appreciated was that he was very real and gave advice that were actionable in the very limited timeframe I was given. Alexander is currently mentoring me and I truly feel that having a mentorship opportunity with Alexander will help anyone aspiring to be in finance to set out a clear plan that he or she can execute on.

Private Equity Analyst, Red Oak Succession Partners (Toronto)

I had the pleasure of working with Alexander when he conducted a resume review session with me prior to the beginning of the recruiting season. One of the things that stood out to me about the session was how thorough Alexander was with his feedback. My resume was not riddled with too many errors, but Alexander provided constructive feedback for almost every line of my resume. Not only was he able to give feedback on the resume itself but also he provided his thoughts about how he felt my resume was as it relates to the roles that I intended to apply for. I'm currently in the process of recruiting and now feel more confident about my resume and have begun to receive interview opportunities for the roles that I intended to apply for.

Student, Baruch College

Alex recently helped me with my resume. The process began with a bunch of pertinent questions which formed a starting point for the review and then continued with revisions based on subsequent questions I had following the first draft. The resume looks significantly better than what I had before this process. I also learned that I was leaving off things that were perfectly good to be on the resume and stay there. Additionally, Alex was kind enough to take the time to answer some other questions I had, given his experience in the field. Overall, the process was seamless and informative and I highly recommend it if you are at all uncertain about your resume.

Senior Financial Analyst, Avenue M Advisors (Los Angeles)

Alex has the ability to hone in on specific aspects of your resume and make them shine. After a phone call and a couple pass-throughs with him, the difference in my resume is night and day. Always friendly and receptive, Alex has managed to make me impressed with my own resume. I’m heading into recruiting season more confident than ever and looking forward to staying in touch with Alex.

Marketing Manager, Xiaomi (Beijing)

Alexander provided superior service in helping me revise and critique my resume. Throughout the resume review process Alexander provided thorough and concise feedback to ensure my resume was of the highest quality to present to employers. Overall, the resume review service offered by Alexander was very professional and highly recommended!

Loan Associate, State Street (Boston)

From the moment Alexander Banh and I connected he was very professional and quick to respond to me. He offered to review my resume and give it a professional update so that I would attract more potential employers to my profile. He did a superb job with sending me a thorough questionnaire to learn more about me and my previous work experience which thus led to him generating a very polished resume for me. The process took less than a week and I was very pleased with his work. After he was done working on my resume I immediately starting filling out applications for finance positions that I was interested in. I received many call backs and in person interviews, which led me to receiving a full time job in corporate finance for a company that I love working for. I know that I wouldn’t be where I am today without his help. Thank you again Alexander, and I look forward to working with you in the future.

Wealth Mgmt. Branch Analyst, Morgan Stanley (Atlanta)

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Call structure:

After understanding your goals and background, provide you with sample mock interview questions to ascertain where you are at in your preparation

• Feedback is provided after each question in order to promote learning and memory retention

Secrets to a successful case-study interview

January 9, 2023

Prepping for (and maybe fretting) the case-study interview?

While this kind of interview may appear intimidating, consider this: The interviewer really wants you to do well.

So, shake off the nerves, relax and have fun.

Tips for standing out in the case-study interview: 

• Take your time; don't rush it.  Talk through the problem. If you can't make sense of it, take a moment and allow yourself some time to process what you've been missing. If you get stuck, get creative. Don't let yourself get bogged down; rely on your ingenuity. 
• Ask questions.  You can always ask your interviewer to define an acronym or to repeat or confirm details. If the interviewer asks, “How do we achieve success?”, don’t be afraid to ask, “What does ‘success’ mean to you? Is it turning a profit? Raising the company’s profile?” When you work on a client project, you need to ask questions to figure out what the problems might be, and the same applies here. The interviewer is your biggest asset in the room. They have the information you need to “solve the case” successfully. Use them wisely!
• Be flexible.  The focus of a case-study interview may vary. So, be prepared to participate in whatever discussion the interviewer has in mind. They may spend the first half of the interview asking about your previous experience, or they may dive right into the case study at the start. The bottom line: Be flexible, and be ready to discuss the work you do and how you do it.
• Use visual aids.  Don’t be afraid to use pen and paper, sketch out your thoughts, and talk through the problem at hand if it helps you get your ideas across. What matters most is demonstrating that you can solve problems.
• Focus on impact.  Inventory the information you have, and then dive in where you can have the most impact. Don’t forget to discuss your thought process and explain your assumptions.
• Tell a story.  Your experience has helped you progress in your career and education; use that experience. For example, in a business case study, you could bring your experience as a traveler to a case about a hypothetical airline. Your individuality is important. Your unique insights will serve you well when you’re interviewing.
• Pay attention to cues.  If the interviewer says something, it probably means something. Don’t dismiss seemingly extraneous details. For example, the interviewer might say, “The case is about a retailer who wants to increase the value of a company it purchased, and the owner loved the brand when growing up.” The purpose of that detail is to indicate that turning around and selling the asset is not an option for making it profitable, because the owner is attached to it.

Preparing for the job you want can take time, but it’s a worthwhile investment—especially when you receive an offer.

Your ideas, ingenuity and determination make a difference. 

Find your fit  with Accenture. 

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Anaam Zamorano

RECRUITING ASSOCIATE MANAGER, HOUSTON, TEXAS

• Case Interview: A comprehensive guide
• Pyramid Principle
• Hypothesis driven structure
• Fit Interview
• Consulting math
• The key to landing your consulting job
• What is a case interview?
• Types of case interview
• How to solve cases with the Problem-Driven Structure?
• What to remember in case interviews
• Case examples or building blocks?
• How do I prepare for case interviews
• Interview day tips
• How we can help

1. The key to landing your consulting job.

Case interviews - where you are asked to solve a business case study under scrutiny - are the core of the selection process right across McKinsey, Bain and BCG (the “MBB” firms). This interview format is also used pretty much universally across other high-end consultancies; including LEK, Kearney, Oliver Wyman and the consulting wings of the “Big Four”.

If you want to land a job at any of these firms, you will have to ace multiple case interviews.

It is increasingly likely that you will also have to solve online cases given by chatbots. You might need to pass these either before making it to interview or be asked to sit them alongside first round interviews.

Importantly, case studies aren’t something you can just wing . Firms explicitly expect you to have thoroughly prepared and many of your competitors on interview day will have been prepping for months.

Don’t worry though - MCC is here to help!

This article will take you through a full overview of everything you’ll need to know to do well, linking to more detailed articles and resources at each stage to let you really drill down into the details.

As well as traditional case interviews, we’ll also attend to the new formats in which cases are being delivered and otherwise make sure you’re up to speed with recent trends in this overall part of consulting recruitment.

Before we can figure out how to prepare for a case interview, though, we will first have to properly understand in detail what exactly you are up against. What format does a standard consulting case interview take? What is expected of you? How will you be assessed?

Let's dive right in and find out!

Professional help

Before going further, if this sounds like a lot to get your head around on your own, don't worry - help is available!

Our Case Academy course gives you everything you need to know to crack cases like a pro:

Case Academy Course

To put what you learn into practice (and secure some savings in the process) you can add mock interview coaching sessions with expereinced MBB consultants:

Coaching options

And, if you just want an experienced consultant to take charge of the whole selection process for you, you can check out our comprehensive mentoring programmes:

Explore mentoring

Now, back to the article!

2. What is a case interview?

Before we can hope to tackle a case interview, we have to understand what one is.

In short, a case interview simulates real consulting work by having you solve a business case study in conversation with your interviewer.

This case study will be a business problem where you have to advise a client - that is, an imaginary business or similar organisation in need of guidance.

You must help this client solve a problem and/or make a decision. This requires you to analyse the information you are given about that client organisation and figure out a final recommendation for what they should do next.

Business problems in general obviously vary in difficulty. Some are quite straightforward and can be addressed with fairly standard solutions. However, consulting firms exist precisely to solve the tough issues that businesses have failed to deal with internally - and so consultants will typically work on complex, idiosyncratic problems requiring novel solutions.

Some examples of case study questions might be:

• How much would you pay for a banking licence in Ghana?
• Estimate the potential value of the electric vehicle market in Germany
• How much gas storage capacity should a UK domestic energy supplier build?

Consulting firms need the brightest minds they can find to put to work on these important, difficult projects. You can expect the case studies you have to solve in interview, then, to echo the unique, complicated problems consultancies deal with every day. As we’ll explain here, this means that you need to be ready to think outside the box to figure out genuinely novel solutions.

2.1. Where are case interviews in the consulting selection process?

Not everyone who applies to a consulting firm will have a case interview - far from it!

In fact, case interviews are pretty expensive and inconvenient for firms to host, requiring them to take consultants off active projects and even fly them back to the office from location for in-person interviews (although this happens less frequently now). Ideally, firms want to cut costs and save time by narrowing down the candidate pool as much as possible before any live interviews.

As such, there are some hoops to jump through before you make it to interview rounds.

Firms will typically eliminate as much as 80% of the applicant pool before interviews start . For most firms, 50%+ of applicants might be cut based on resumes, before a similar cut is made on those remaining based on aptitude tests. McKinsey currently gives their Solve assessment to most applicants, but will use their resulting test scores alongside resumes to cut 70%+ of the candidate pool before interviews.

You'll need to be on top of your game to get as far as an interview with a top firm. Getting through the resume screen and any aptitude tests is an achievement in itself! Also we need to note that the general timeline of an application can differ depending on a series of factors, including which position you apply, your background, and the office you are applying to. For example, an undergraduate applying for a Business Analyst position (the entry level job at McKinsey) will most likely be part of a recruitment cycle and as such have pretty fixed dates when they need to sit the pre-screening test, and have the first and second round interviews (see more on those below). Conversely, an experienced hire will most likely have a much greater choice of test and interview dates as well as more time at their disposal to prepare.

For readers not yet embroiled in the selection process themselves, let’s put case interviews in context and take a quick look at each stage in turn. Importantly, note that you might also be asked to solve case studies outside interviews as well…

2.1.1. Application screen

It’s sometimes easy to forget that such a large cut is made at the application stage. At larger firms, this will mean your resume and cover letter is looked at by some combination of AI tools, recruitment staff and junior consulting staff (often someone from your own university).

Only the best applications will be passed to later stages, so make sure to check out our free resume and cover letter guides, and potentially get help with editing , to give yourself the best chance possible.

2.1.2. Aptitude tests and online cases

This part of the selection process has been changing quickly in recent years and is increasingly beginning to blur into the traditionally separate case interview rounds.

In the past, GMAT or PST style tests were the norm. Firms then used increasingly sophisticated and often gamified aptitude tests, like the Pymetrics test currently used by several firms, including BCG and Bain, and the original version of McKinsey’s Solve assessment (then branded as the Problem Solving Game).

Now, though, there is a move towards delivering relatively sophisticated case studies online. For example, McKinsey has replaced half the old Solve assessment with an online case. BCG’s Casey chatbot case now directly replaces a live first round case interview, and in the new era of AI chatbots, we expect these online cases to quickly become more realistic and increasingly start to relieve firms of some of the costs of live interviews.

Our consultants collectively reckon that, over time, 50% of case interviews are likely to be replaced with these kinds of cases . We give some specific advice for online cases in section six. However, the important thing to note is that these are still just simulations of traditional case interviews - you still need to learn how to solve cases in precisely the same way, and your prep will largely remain the same.

2.1.3. Rounds of Interviews

Now, let’s not go overboard with talk of AI. Even in the long term, the client facing nature of consulting means that firms will have live case interviews for as long as they are hiring anyone. And in the immediate term, case interviews are still absolutely the core of consulting selection.

Before landing an offer at McKinsey, Bain, BCG or any similar firm, you won’t just have one case interview, but will have to complete four to six case interviews, usually divided into two rounds, with each interview lasting approximately 50-60 minutes .

Being invited to first round usually means two or three case interviews. As noted above, you might also be asked to complete an online case or similar alongside your first round interviews.

If you ace first round, you will be invited to second round to face the same again, but more gruelling. Only then - after up to six case interviews in total, can you hope to receive an offer.

2.2. Differences between first and second round interviews

Despite interviews in the first and second round following the same format, second/final round interviews will be significantly more intense . The seniority of the interviewer, time pressure (with up to three interviews back-to-back), and the sheer value of the job at stake will likely make a second round consulting case interview one of the most challenging moments of your professional life.

There are three key differences between the two rounds:

• Time Pressure : Final round case interviews test your ability to perform under pressure, with as many as three interviews in a row and often only very small breaks between them.
• Focus : Since second round interviewers tend to be more senior (usually partners with 12+ years experience) and will be more interested in your personality and ability to handle challenges independently. Some partners will drill down into your experiences and achievements to the extreme. They want to understand how you react to challenges and your ability to identify and learn from past mistakes.
• Psychological Pressure: While case interviews in the first round are usually more focused on you simply cracking the case, second round interviewers often employ a "bad cop" strategy to test the way you react to challenges and uncertainty.

2.3. What skills do case interviews assess?

Reliably impressing your interviewers means knowing what they are looking for. This means understanding the skills you are being assessed against in some detail.

Overall, it’s important always to remember that, with case studies, there are no strict right or wrong answers. What really matters is how you think problems through, how confident you are with your conclusions and how quick you are with the back of the envelope arithmetic.

The objective of this kind of interview isn’t to get to one particular solution, but to assess your skillset. This is even true of modern online cases, where sophisticated AI algorithms score how you work as well as the solutions you generate.

If you visit McKinsey , Bain and BCG web pages on case interviews, you will find that the three firms look for very similar traits, and the same will be true of other top consultancies.

Broadly speaking, your interviewer will be evaluating you across five key areas:

2.1.1.One: Probing mind

Showing intellectual curiosity by asking relevant and insightful questions that demonstrate critical thinking and a proactive nature. For instance, if we are told that revenues for a leading supermarket chain have been declining over the last ten years, a successful candidate would ask:

“ We know revenues have declined. This could be due to price or volume. Do we know how they changed over the same period? ”

This is as opposed to a laundry list of questions like:

• Did customers change their preferences?
• Which segment has shown the decline in volume?
• Is there a price war in the industry?

2.1.2. Structure

Structure in this context means structuring a problem. This, in turn, means creating a framework - that is, a series of clear, sequential steps in order to get to a solution.

As with the case interview in general, the focus with case study structures isn’t on reaching a solution, but on how you get there.

This is the trickiest part of the case interview and the single most common reason candidates fail.

We discuss how to properly structure a case in more detail in section three. In terms of what your interviewer is looking for at high level, though, key pieces of your structure should be:

• Proper understanding of the objective of the case - Ask yourself: "What is the single crucial piece of advice that the client absolutely needs?"
• Identification of the drivers - Ask yourself: "What are the key forces that play a role in defining the outcome?"

Our Problem Driven Structure method, discussed in section three, bakes this approach in at a fundamental level. This is as opposed to the framework-based approach you will find in older case-solving

Focus on going through memorised sequences of steps too-often means failing to develop a full understanding of the case and the real key drivers.

At this link, we run through a case to illustrate the difference between a standard framework-based approach and our Problem Driven Structure method.

2.1.3. Problem Solving

You’ll be tested on your ability to identify problems and drivers, isolate causes and effects, demonstrate creativity and prioritise issues. In particular, the interviewer will look for the following skills:

• Prioritisation - Can you distinguish relevant and irrelevant facts?
• Connecting the dots - Can you connect new facts and evidence to the big picture?
• Establishing conclusions - Can you establish correct conclusions without rushing to inferences not supported by evidence?

2.1.4. Numerical Agility

In case interviews, you are expected to be quick and confident with both precise and approximated numbers. This translates to:

• Performing simple calculations quickly - Essential to solve cases quickly and impress clients with quick estimates and preliminary conclusions.
• Analysing data - Extract data from graphs and charts, elaborate and draw insightful conclusions.
• Solving business problems - Translate a real world case to a mathematical problem and solve it.

Our article on consulting math is a great resource here, though the extensive math content in our MCC Academy is the best and most comprehensive material available.

2.1.5. Communication

Real consulting work isn’t just about the raw analysis to come up with a recommendation - this then needs to be sold to the client as the right course of action.

Similarly, in a case interview, you must be able to turn your answer into a compelling recommendation. This is just as essential to impressing your interviewer as your structure and analysis.

Consultants already comment on how difficult it is to find candidates with the right communication skills. Add to this the current direction of travel, where AI will be able to automate more and more of the routine analytic side of consulting, and communication becomes a bigger and bigger part of what consultants are being paid for.

So, how do you make sure that your recommendations are relevant, smart, and engaging? The answer is to master what is known as CEO-level communication .

This art of speaking like a CEO can be quite challenging, as it often involves presenting information in effectively the opposite way to how you might normally.

To get it right, there are three key areas to focus on in your communications:

• Top down : A CEO wants to hear the key message first. They will only ask for more details if they think that will actually be useful. Always consider what is absolutely critical for the CEO to know, and start with that. You can read more in our article on the Pyramid Principle .
• Concise : This is not the time for "boiling the ocean" or listing an endless number possible solutions. CEOs, and thus consultants, want a structured, quick and concise recommendation for their business problem, that they can implement immediately.
• Fact-based : Consultants share CEOs' hatred of opinions based on gut feel rather than facts. They want recommendations based on facts to make sure they are actually in control. Always go on to back up your conclusions with the relevant facts.

Being concise and to the point is key in many areas, networking being one for them. For more detail on all this, check out our full article on delivering recommendations .

Prep the right way

3. types of case interview.

While most case interviews share a similar structure, firms will have some differences in the particular ways they like to do things in terms of both the case study and the fit component.

As we’ll see, these differences aren’t hugely impactful in terms of how you prepare. That said, it's always good to know as much as possible about what you will be going up against.

3.1. Different case objectives

A guiding thread throughout this article and our approach in general will be to treat each case as a self-contained problem and not try to pigeonhole it into a certain category. Having said that, there are of course similarities between cases and we can identify certain parameters and objectives.

Broadly speaking, cases can be divided into issue-based cases and strategic decision cases. In the former you will be asked to solve a certain issue, such as declining profits, or low productivity whereas in the latter you will be ask whether your client should or should not do something, such as enter a specific market or acquire another company. The chart below is a good breakdown of these different objectives:

3.2. How do interviewers craft cases

While interviewers will very likely be given a case bank to choose from by their company, a good number of them will also choose to adapt the cases they would currently be working on to an interview setting. The difference is that the latter cases will be harder to pigeonhole and apply standard frameworks to, so a tailored approach will be paramount.

If you’ve applied for a specific practice or type of consulting - such as operational consulting, for example - it’s very likely that you will receive a case geared towards that particular area alongside a ‘generalist’ consulting case (however, if that’s the case, you will generally be notified). The other main distinction when it comes to case interviews is between interviewer-led and candidate-led.

3.3. Candidate-led cases

Most consulting case interview questions test your ability to crack a broad problem, with a case prompt often going something like:

" How much would you pay to secure the rights to run a restaurant in the British Museum? "

You, as a candidate, are then expected to identify your path to solve the case (that is, provide a structure), leveraging your interviewer to collect the data and test your assumptions.

This is known as a “candidate-led” case interview and is used by Bain, BCG and other firms. From a structuring perspective, it’s easier to lose direction in a candidate-led case as there are no sign-posts along the way. As such, you need to come up with an approach that is both broad enough to cover all of the potential drivers in a case but also tailored enough to the problem you are asked to solve. It’s also up to you to figure out when you need to delve deeper into a certain branch of the case, brainstorm or ask for data. The following case from Bain is an excellent example on how to navigate a candidate-led case.

3.4. Interviewer-led cases

This type of case - employed most famously by McKinsey - is slightly different, with the interviewer controlling the pace and direction of the conversation much more than with other case interviews.

At McKinsey, your interviewer will ask you a set of pre-determined questions, regardless of your initial structure. For each question, you will have to understand the problem, come up with a mini structure, ask for additional data (if necessary) and come to the conclusion that answers the question. This more structured format of case also shows up in online cases by other firms - notably including BCG’s Casey chatbot (with the amusing result that practising McKinsey-style cases can be a great addition when prepping for BCG).

Essentially, these interviewer-led case studies are large cases made up of lots of mini-cases. You still use basically the same method as you would for standard (or candidate-led) cases - the main difference is simply that, instead of using that method to solve one big case, you are solving several mini-cases sequentially. These cases are easier to follow as the interviewer will guide you in the right direction. However, this doesn’t mean you should pay less attention to structure and deliver a generic framework! Also, usually (but not always!) the first question will ask you to map your approach and is the equivalent of the structuring question in candidate-led cases. Sometimes, if you’re missing key elements, the interviewer might prompt you in the right direction - so make sure to take those prompts seriously as they are there to help you get back on track (ask for 30 seconds to think on the prompt and structure your approach). Other times - and this is a less fortunate scenario - the interviewer might say nothing and simply move on to the next question. This is why you should put just as much thought (if not more) into the framework you build for interviewer-led cases , as you may be penalized if you produce something too generic or that doesn’t encompass all the issues of the case.

3.5. Case and fit

The standard case interview can be thought of as splitting into two standalone sub-interviews. Thus “case interviews” can be divided into the case study itself and a “fit interview” section, where culture fit questions are asked.

This can lead to a bit of confusion, as the actual case interview component might take up as little as half of your scheduled “case interview”. You need to make sure you are ready for both aspects.

To illustrate, here is the typical case interview timeline:

• First 15-30 minutes: Fit Interview - with questions assessing your motivation to be a consultant in that specific firm and your traits around leadership and teamwork. Learn more about the fit interview in our in-depth article here .
• Next 30-40 minutes: Case Interview - solving a case study
• Last 5 minutes: Fit Interview again - this time focussing on your questions for your interviewer.

Both the Case and Fit interviews play crucial roles in the finial hiring decision. There is no “average” taken between case and fit interviews: if your performance is not up to scratch in either of the two, you will not be able to move on to the next interview round or get an offer.

NB: No case without fit

Note that, even if you have only been told you are having a case interview or otherwise are just doing a case study, always be prepared to answer fit questions. At most firms, it is standard practice to include some fit questions in all case interviews, even if there are also separate explicit fit interviews, and interviewers will almost invariably include some of these questions around your case. This is perfectly natural - imagine how odd and artificial it would be to show up to an interview, simply do a case and leave again, without talking about anything else with the interviewer before or after.

3.5.1 Differences between firms

For the most part, a case interview is a case interview. However, firms will have some differences in the particular ways they like to do things in terms of both the case study and the fit component.

3.5.2. The McKinsey PEI

McKinsey brands its fit aspect of interviews as the Personal Experience Interview or PEI. Despite the different name, this is really much the same interview you will be going up against in Bain, BCG and any similar firms.

McKinsey does have a reputation for pushing candidates a little harder with fit or PEI questions , focusing on one story per interview and drilling down further into the specific details each time. We discuss this tendency more in our fit interview article . However, no top end firm is going to go easy on you and you should absolutely be ready for the same level of grilling at Bain, BCG and others. Thus any difference isn’t hugely salient in terms of prep.

3.6. What is different in 2023?

For the foreseeable future, you are going to have to go through multiple live case interviews to secure any decent consulting job. These might increasingly happen via Zoom rather than in person, but they should remain largely the same otherwise.

However, things are changing and the rise of AI in recent months seems pretty much guaranteed to accelerate existing trends.

Even before the explosive development of AI chatbots like ChatGPT we have seen in recent months, automation was already starting to change the recruitment process.

As we mentioned, case interviews are expensive and inconvenient for firms to run . Ideally, then, firms will try to reduce the number of interviews required for recruitment as far as possible. For many years, tests of various kinds served to cut down the applicant pool and thus the number of interviews. However, these tests had a limited capacity to assess candidates against the full consulting skillset in the way that case interviews do so well.

More recently, though, the development of online testing has allowed for more and more advanced assessments. Top consulting firms have been leveraging screening tests that better and better capture the same skillset as case interviews. Eventually this is converging on automated case studies. We see this very clearly with the addition of the Redrock case to McKinsey’s Solve assessment.

As these digital cases become closer to the real thing, the line between test and interview blurs. Online cases don’t just reduce the number of candidates to interview, but start directly replacing interviews.

Case in point here is BCG’s Casey chatbot . Previously, BCG had deployed less advanced online cases and similar tests to weed out some candidates before live case interviews began. Now, though, Casey actually replaces one first round case interview.

Casey, at time of writing, is still a relatively “basic” chatbot, basically running through a pre-set script. The Whatsapp-like interface does a lot of work to make it feel like one is chatting to a “real person” - the chatbot itself, though, cannot provide feedback or nudges to candidates as would a human interviewer.

We fully expect that, as soon as BCG and other firms can train a truer AI, these online cases will become more widespread and start replacing more live interviews.

We discuss the likely impacts of advanced AI on consulting recruitment and the industry more broadly in our blog.

Here, though, the real message is that you should expect to run into digital cases as well as traditional case interviews.

Luckily, despite any changes in specific format, you will still need to master the same fundamental skills and prepare in much the same way.

We’ll cover a few ways to help prepare for chatbot cases in section four. Ultimately, though, firms are looking for the same problem solving ability and mindset as a real interviewer. Especially as chatbots get better at mimicking a real interviewer, candidates who are well prepared for case cracking in general should have no problem with AI administered cases.

3.6.1. Automated fit interviews

Analogous to online cases, in recent years there has been a trend towards automated, “one way” fit interviews, with these typically being administered for consultancies by specialist contractors like HireVue or SparkHire.

These are kind of like Zoom interviews, but if the interviewer didn’t show up. Instead you will be given fit questions to answer and must record your answer in your computer webcam. Your response will then go on to be assessed by an algorithm, scoring both what you say and how you say it.

Again, with advances in AI, it is easy to imagine these automated interviews going from fully scripted interactions, where all candidates are asked the same list of questions, to a more interactive experience. Thus, we might soon arrive at a point where you are being grilled on the details of your stories - McKinsey PEI style - but by a bot rather than a human.

We include some tips on this kind of “one way” fit interview in section six here.

4. How to solve cases with the Problem-Driven Structure?

If you look around online for material on how to solve case studies, a lot of what you find will set out framework-based approaches. However, as we have mentioned, these frameworks tend to break down with more complex, unique cases - with these being exactly the kind of tough case studies you can expect to be given in your interviews.

To address this problem, the MyConsultingCoach team has synthesized a new approach to case cracking that replicates how top management consultants approach actual engagements.

MyConsultingCoach’s Problem Driven Structure approach is a universal problem solving method that can be applied to any business problem , irrespective of its nature.

As opposed to just selecting a generic framework for each case, the Problem Driven Structure approach works by generating a bespoke structure for each individual question and is a simplified version of the roadmap McKinsey consultants use when working on engagements.

The canonical seven steps from McKinsey on real projects are simplified to four for case interview questions, as the analysis required for a six-month engagement is somewhat less than that needed for a 45-minute case study. However, the underlying flow is the same (see the method in action in the video below)

Let's zoom in to see how our method actually works in more detail:

4.1. Identify the problem

Identifying the problem means properly understanding the prompt/question you are given, so you get to the actual point of the case.

This might sound simple, but cases are often very tricky, and many candidates irretrievably mess things up within the first few minutes of starting. Often, they won’t notice this has happened until they are getting to the end of their analysis. Then, they suddenly realise that they have misunderstood the case prompt - and have effectively been answering the wrong question all along!

With no time to go back and start again, there is nothing to do. Even if there were time, making such a silly mistake early on will make a terrible impression on their interviewer, who might well have written them off already. The interview is scuppered and all the candidate’s preparation has been for nothing.

This error is so galling as it is so readily avoidable.

Our method prevents this problem by placing huge emphasis on a full understanding of the case prompt. This lays the foundations for success as, once we have identified the fundamental, underlying problem our client is facing, we focus our whole analysis around finding solutions to this specific issue.

Now, some case interview prompts are easy to digest. For example, “Our client, a supermarket, has seen a decline in profits. How can we bring them up?”. However, many of the prompts given in interviews for top firms are much more difficult and might refer to unfamiliar business areas or industries. For example, “How much would you pay for a banking license in Ghana?” or “What would be your key areas of concern be when setting up an NGO?”

Don’t worry if you have no idea how you might go about tackling some of these prompts!

In our article on identifying the problem and in our full lesson on the subject in our MCC Academy course, we teach a systematic, four step approach to identifying the problem , as well as running through common errors to ensure you start off on the right foot every time!

This is summarised here:

Following this method lets you excel where your competitors mess up and get off to a great start in impressing your interviewer!

4.2. Build your problem driven structure

After you have properly understood the problem, the next step is to successfully crack a case is to draw up a bespoke structure that captures all the unique features of the case.

This is what will guide your analysis through the rest of the case study and is precisely the same method used by real consultants working on real engagements.

Of course, it might be easier here to simply roll out one an old-fashioned framework, and a lot of candidates will do so. This is likely to be faster at this stage and requires a lot less thought than our problem-driven structure approach.

However, whilst our problem driven structure approach requires more work from you, our method has the advantage of actually working in the kind of complex case studies where generic frameworks fail - that is exactly the kind of cases you can expect at an MBB interview .

Since we effectively start from first principles every time, we can tackle any case with the same overarching method. Simple or complex, every case is the same to you and you don’t have to gamble a job on whether a framework will actually work

4.2.1 Issue trees

Issue trees break down the overall problem into a set of smaller problems that you can then solve individually. Representing this on a diagram also makes it easy for both you and your interviewer to keep track of your analysis.

To see how this is done, let’s look at the issue tree below breaking down the revenues of an airline:

These revenues can be segmented as the number of customers multiplied by the average ticket price. The number of customers can be further broken down into a number of flights multiplied by the number of seats, times average occupancy rate. The node corresponding to the average ticket price can then be segmented further.

4.2.2 Hypothesis trees

Hypothesis trees are similar, the only difference being that rather than just trying to break up the issue into smaller issues you are assuming that the problem can be solved and you are formulating solutions.

In the example above, you would assume revenues can be increased by either increasing the average ticket price or the number of customers . You can then hypothesize that you can increase the average occupancy rate in three ways: align the schedule of short and long haul flights, run a promotion to boost occupancy in off-peak times, or offer early bird discounts.

4.2.3 Other structures:structured lists

Structured lists are simply subcategories of a problem into which you can fit similar elements. This McKinsey case answer starts off by identifying several buckets such as retailer response, competitor response, current capabilities and brand image and then proceeds to consider what could fit into these categories.

Buckets can be a good way to start the structure of a complex case but when using them it can be very difficult to be MECE and consistent, so you should always aim to then re-organize them into either an issue or a hypothesis tree.

It is worth noting that the same problem can be structured in multiple valid ways by choosing different means to segment the key issues. Ultimately all these lists are methods to set out a logical hierachy among elements.

4.2.4 Structures in practice

That said, not all valid structures are equally useful in solving the underlying problem. A good structure fulfils several requirements - including MECE-ness , level consistency, materiality, simplicity, and actionability. It’s important to put in the time to master segmentation, so you can choose a scheme isn’t only valid, but actually useful in addressing the problem.

After taking the effort to identify the problem properly, an advantage of our method is that it will help ensure you stay focused on that same fundamental problem throughout. This might not sound like much, but many candidates end up getting lost in their own analysis, veering off on huge tangents and returning with an answer to a question they weren’t asked.

Another frequent issue - particularly with certain frameworks - is that candidates finish their analysis and, even if they have successfully stuck to the initial question, they have not actually reached a definite solution. Instead, they might simply have generated a laundry list of pros and cons, with no clear single recommendation for action.

Clients employ consultants for actionable answers, and this is what is expected in the case interview. The problem driven structure excels in ensuring that everything you do is clearly related back to the key question in a way that will generate a definitive answer. Thus, the problem driven structure builds in the hypothesis driven approach so characteristic of real consulting practice.

You can learn how to set out your own problem driven structures in our article here and in our full lesson in the MCC Academy course.

4.2. Lead the analysis

A problem driven structure might ensure we reach a proper solution eventually, but how do we actually get there?

We call this step " leading the analysis ", and it is the process whereby you systematically navigate through your structure, identifying the key factors driving the issue you are addressing.

Generally, this will mean continuing to grow your tree diagram, further segmenting what you identify as the most salient end nodes and thus drilling down into the most crucial factors causing the client’s central problem.

Once you have gotten right down into the detail of what is actually causing the company’s issues, solutions can then be generated quite straightforwardly.

To see this process in action, we can return to our airline revenue example:

Let’s say we discover the average ticket price to be a key issue in the airline’s problems. Looking closer at the drivers of average ticket price, we find that the problem lies with economy class ticket prices. We can then further segment that price into the base fare and additional items such as food.

Having broken down the issue to such a fine-grained level and considering the 80/20 rule(see below), solutions occur quite naturally. In this case, we can suggest incentivising the crew to increase onboard sales, improving assortment in the plane, or offering discounts for online purchases.

Our article on leading the analysis is a great primer on the subject, with our video lesson in the MCC Academy providing the most comprehensive guide available.

4.4. Provide recommendations

So you have a solution - but you aren’t finished yet!

Now, you need to deliver your solution as a final recommendation.

This should be done as if you are briefing a busy CEO and thus should be a one minute, top-down, concise, structured, clear, and fact-based account of your findings.

The brevity of the final recommendation belies its importance. In real life consulting, the recommendation is what the client has potentially paid millions for - from their point of view, it is the only thing that matters.

In an interview, your performance in this final summing up of your case is going to significantly colour your interviewer’s parting impression of you - and thus your chances of getting hired!

So, how do we do it right?

Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle elegantly sums up almost everything required for a perfect recommendation. The answer comes first , as this is what is most important. This is then supported by a few key arguments , which are in turn buttressed by supporting facts .

Across the whole recommendation, the goal isn’t to just summarise what you have done. Instead, you are aiming to synthesize your findings to extract the key "so what?" insight that is useful to the client going forward.

All this might seem like common sense, but it is actually the opposite of how we relay results in academia and other fields. There, we typically move from data, through arguments and eventually to conclusions. As such, making good recommendations is a skill that takes practice to master.

We can see the Pyramid Principle illustrated in the diagram below:

To supplement the basic Pyramid Principle scheme, we suggest candidates add a few brief remarks on potential risks and suggested next steps . This helps demonstrate the ability for critical self-reflection and lets your interviewer see you going the extra mile.

The combination of logical rigour and communication skills that is so definitive of consulting is particularly on display in the final recommendation.

Despite it only lasting 60 seconds, you will need to leverage a full set of key consulting skills to deliver a really excellent recommendation and leave your interviewer with a good final impression of your case solving abilities.

Our specific article on final recommendations and the specific video lesson on the same topic within our MCC Academy are great, comprehensive resources. Beyond those, our lesson on consulting thinking and our articles on MECE and the Pyramid Principle are also very useful.

4.5. What if I get stuck?

Naturally with case interviews being difficult problems there may be times where you’re unsure what to do or which direction to take. The most common scenario is that you will get stuck midway through the case and there are essentially two things that you should do:

• 1. Go back to your structure
• 2. Ask the interviewer for clarification

Your structure should always be your best friend - after all, this is why you put so much thought and effort into it: if it’s MECE it will point you in the right direction. This may seem abstract but let’s take the very simple example of a profitability issue: if you’ve started your analysis by segmenting profit into revenue minus costs and you’ve seen that the cost side of the analysis is leading you nowhere, you can be certain that the declining profit is due to a decline in revenue.

Similarly, when you’re stuck on the quantitative section, make sure that your framework for calculations is set up correctly (you can confirm this with the interviewer) and see what it is you’re trying to solve for: for example if you’re trying to find what price the client should sell their new t-shirt in order to break even on their investment, you should realize that what you’re trying to find is the break even point, so you can start by calculating either the costs or the revenues. You have all the data for the costs side and you know they’re trying to sell 10.000 pairs so you can simply set up the equation with x being the price.

As we’ve emphasised on several occasions, your consulting interview will be a dialogue. As such, if you don’t know what to do next or don’t understand something, make sure to ask the interviewer (and as a general rule always follow their prompts as they are trying to help, not trick you). This is especially true for the quantitative questions, where you should really understand what data you’re looking at before you jump into any calculations. Ideally you should ask your questions before you take time to formulate your approach but don’t be afraid to ask for further clarification if you really can’t make sense of what’s going on. It’s always good to walk your interviewer through your approach before you start doing the calculations and it’s no mistake to make sure that you both have the same understanding of the data. For example when confronted with the chart below, you might ask what GW (in this case gigawatt) means from the get-go and ask to confirm the different metrics (i.e. whether 1 GW = 1000 megawatts). You will never be penalised for asking a question like that.

5. What to remember in case interviews

If you’re new to case cracking you might feel a bit hopeless when you see a difficult case question, not having any idea where to start.

In fact though, cracking cases is much like playing chess. The rules you need to know to get started are actually pretty simple. What will make you really proficient is time and practice.

In this section, we’ll run through a high level overview of everything you need to know, linking to more detailed resources at every step.

5.1. An overall clear structure

You will probably hear this more than you care for but it is the most important thing to keep in mind as you start solving cases, as not only it is a key evaluation criterion but the greatest tool you will have at your disposal. The ability to build a clear structure in all aspects of the case will be the difference between breezing through a complicated case and struggling at its every step. Let’s look a bit closer at the key areas where you should be structured!

5.1.1 Structured notes

Every case interview starts with a prompt, usually verbal, and as such you will have to take some notes. And here is where your foray into structure begins, as the notes you take should be clear, concise and structured in a way that will allow you to repeat the case back to the interviewer without writing down any unnecessary information.

This may sound very basic but you should absolutely not be dismissive about it: taking clear and organized notes will allow you to navigate a case just like you would a powerpoint! While you should obviously adopt a system that you are comfortable with, what we found helps is to have separate sections for:

• The case brief
• Follow-up questions and answers
• Numerical data
• Case structure (the most crucial part when solving the case)
• Any scrap work during the case (usually calculations)

When solving the case - or, as we call it here, in the Lead the analysis step, it is highly recommended to keep on feeding and integrating your structure, so that you never get lost. Maintaining a clear high level view is one of the most critical skills in consulting: by constantly keeping track of where you are following your structure, you’ll never lose your focus on the end goal.

In the case of an interviewer-led case, you can also have separate sheets for each question (e.g. Question 1. What factors can we look at that drive profitability?). If you develop a system like this you’ll know exactly where to look for each point of data rather than rummage around in untidy notes. There are a couple more sections that you may have, depending on preference - we’ll get to these in the next sections.

5.1.2 Structured communication

There will be three main types of communication in cases:

• 1. Asking and answering questions
• 2. Walking the interviewer through your structure (either the case or calculation framework - we’ll get to that in a bit!)
• 3. Delivering your recommendation

Asking and answering questions will be the most common of these and the key thing to do before you speak is ask for some time to collect your thoughts and get organised. What you want to avoid is a ‘laundry list’ of questions or anything that sounds too much like a stream of consciousness.

Different systems work for different candidates but a sure-fire way of being organised is numbering your questions and answers. So rather than saying something like ‘I would like to ask about the business model, operational capacity and customer personas’ it’s much better to break it down and say something along the lines of ‘I’ve got three key questions. Firstly I would like to inquire into the business model of our client. Secondly I would like to ask about their operational capacity. Thirdly I would like to know more about the different customer personas they are serving’.

A similar principle should be applied when walking the interview through your structure, and this is especially true of online interviews (more and more frequent now) when the interviewer can’t see your notes. Even if you have your branches or buckets clearly defined, you should still use a numbering system to make it obvious to the interviewer. So, for example, when asked to identify whether a company should make an acquisition, you might say ‘I would like to examine the following key areas. Firstly the financial aspects of this issue, secondly the synergies and thirdly the client’s expertise’

The recommendation should be delivered top-down (see section 4.4 for specifics) and should employ the same numbering principle. To do so in a speedy manner, you should circle or mark the key facts that you encounter throughout the case so you can easily pull them out at the end.

5.1.3 Structured framework

It’s very important that you have a systematic approach - or framework - for every case. Let’s get one thing straight: there is a difference between having a problem-solving framework for your case and trying to force a case into a predetermined framework. Doing the former is an absolute must , whilst doing the latter will most likely have you unceremoniously dismissed.

We have seen there are several ways of building a framework, from identifying several categories of issues (or ‘buckets’) to building an issue or hypothesis tree (which is the most efficient type of framework). For the purpose of organization, we recommend having a separate sheet for the framework of the case, or, if it’s too much to manage, you can have it on the same sheet as the initial case prompt. That way you’ll have all the details as well as your proposed solution in one place.

5.1.4 Structured calculations

Whether it’s interviewer or candidate-led, at some point in the case you will get a bunch of numerical data and you will have to perform some calculations (for the specifics of the math you’ll need on consulting interviews, have a look at our Consulting Math Guide ). Here’s where we urge you to take your time and not dive straight into calculating! And here’s why: while your numerical agility is sure to impress interviewers, what they’re actually looking for is your logic and the calculations you need to perform in order to solve the problem . So it’s ok if you make a small mistake, as long as you’re solving for the right thing.

As such, make it easy for them - and yourself. Before you start, write down in steps the calculations you need to perform. Here’s an example: let’s say you need to find out by how much profits will change if variable costs are reduced by 10%. Your approach should look something like:

• 1. Calculate current profits: Profits = Revenues - (Variable costs + Fixed costs)
• 2. Calculate the reduction in variable costs: Variable costs x 0.9
• 3. Calculate new profits: New profits = Revenues - (New variable costs + Fixed costs)

Of course, there may be more efficient ways to do that calculation, but what’s important - much like in the framework section - is to show your interviewer that you have a plan, in the form of a structured approach. You can write your plan on the sheet containing the data, then perform the calculations on a scrap sheet and fill in the results afterward.

5.2. Common business knowledge and formulas

Although some consulting firms claim they don’t evaluate candidates based on their business knowledge, familiarity with basic business concepts and formulae is very useful in terms of understanding the case studies you are given in the first instance and drawing inspiration for structuring and brainstorming.

If you are coming from a business undergrad, an MBA or are an experienced hire, you might well have this covered already. For those coming from a different background, it may be useful to cover some.

Luckily, you don’t need a degree-level understanding of business to crack interview cases , and a lot of the information you will pick up by osmosis as you read through articles like this and go through cases.

However, some things you will just need to sit down and learn. We cover everything you need to know in some detail in our Case Academy Course course. However, some examples here of things you need to learn are:

• Basic accounting (particularly how to understand all the elements of a balance sheet)
• Basic economics
• Basic marketing
• Basic strategy

Below we include a few elementary concepts and formulae so you can hit the ground running in solving cases. We should note that you should not memorise these and indeed a good portion of them can be worked out logically, but you should have at least some idea of what to expect as this will make you faster and will free up much of your mental computing power. In what follows we’ll tackle concepts that you will encounter in the private business sector as well as some situations that come up in cases that feature clients from the NGO or governmental sector.

5.2.1 Business sector concepts

These concepts are the bread and butter of almost any business case so you need to make sure you have them down. Naturally, there will be specificities and differences between cases but for the most part here is a breakdown of each of them.

5.2.1.1. Revenue

The revenue is the money that the company brings in and is usually equal to the number of products they sell multiplied to the price per item and can be expressed with the following equation:

Revenue = Volume x Price

Companies may have various sources of revenue or indeed multiple types of products, all priced differently which is something you will need to account for. Let’s consider some situations. A clothing company such as Nike will derive most of their revenue from the number of products they sell times the average price per item. Conversely, for a retail bank revenue is measured as the volume of loans multiplied by the interest rate at which the loans are given out. As we’ll see below, we might consider primary revenues and ancillary revenues: in the case of a football club, we might calculate primary revenues by multiplying the number of tickets sold by the average ticket price, and ancillary revenues those coming from sales of merchandise (similarly, let’s say average t-shirt price times the number of t-shirts sold), tv rights and sponsorships.

These are but a few examples and another reminder that you should always aim to ask questions and understand the precise revenue structure of the companies you encounter in cases.

5.2.1.2. Costs

The costs are the expenses that a company incurs during its operations. Generally, they can be broken down into fixed and variable costs :

Costs = Fixed Costs + Variable Costs

As their name implies, fixed costs do not change based on the number of units produced or sold. For example, if you produce shoes and are renting the space for your factory, you will have to pay the rent regardless of whether you produce one pair or 100. On the other hand, variable costs depend on the level of activity, so in our shoe factory example they would be equivalent to the materials used to produce each pair of shoes and would increase the more we produce.

These concepts are of course guidelines used in order to simplify the analysis in cases, and you should be aware that in reality often the situation can be more complicated. Costs can also be quasi-fixed, in that they increase marginally with volume. Take the example of a restaurant which has a regular staff, incurring a fixed cost but during very busy hours or periods they also employ some part-time workers. This cost is not exactly variable (as it doesn’t increase with the quantity of food produced) but also not entirely fixed, as the number of extra hands will depend on how busy the restaurant is. Fixed costs can also be non-linear in nature. Let’s consider the rent in the same restaurant: we would normally pay a fixed amount every month, but if the restaurant becomes very popular we might need to rent out some extra space so the cost will increase.

5.2.1.3. Profit and profit margin

The profit is the amount of money a company is left with after it has paid all of its expenses and can be expressed as follows:

Profit = Revenue - Costs

It’s very likely that you will encounter a profitability issue in one of your cases, namely you will be asked to increase a company’s profit. There are two main ways of doing this: increasing revenues and reducing costs , so these will be the two main areas you will have to investigate. This may seem simple but what you will really need to understand in a case are the key drivers of a business (and this should be done through clarifying questions to the interviewer - just as a real consultant would question their client).

For example, if your client is an airline you can assume that the main source of revenue is sales of tickets, but you should inquire how many types of ticket the specific airline sells. You may naturally consider economy and business class tickets, but you may find out that there is a more premium option - such as first class - and several in-between options. Similarly to our football club example, there may be ancillary revenues from selling of food and beverage as well as advertising certain products or services on flights.

You may also come across the profit margin in cases. This is simply the percentage of profit compared to the revenue and can be expressed as follows:

Profit margin = Profit/Revenue x 100

5.2.1.4. Break-even point

An ancillary concept to profit, the break-even point is the moment where revenues equal costs making the profit zero and can be expressed as the following equation:

Revenues = Costs (Fixed costs + Variable costs)

This formula will be useful when you are asked questions such as ‘What is the minimum price I should sell product X?’ or ‘What quantity do I need to sell in order to recoup my investment?’. Let’s say an owner of a sandwich store asks us to figure out how many salami and cheese salami sandwiches she needs to sell in order to break even. She’s spending $4 on salami and $2 for cheese and lettuce per sandwich, and believes she can sell the sandwiches at around $7. The cost of utilities and personnel is around $5000 per month. We could lay this all out in the break-even equation:

7 x Q ( quantity ) = (4+2) x Q + 5000 ( variable + fixed costs )

In a different scenario, we may be asked to calculate the break-even price . Let’s consider our sandwich example and say our owner knows she has enough ingredients for about 5000 sandwiches per month but is not sure how much to sell them for. In that case, if we know our break-even equation, we can simply make the following changes:

P ( price ) x 5000 = (4+2) x 5000 + 5000

By solving the equation we get to the price of $7 per sandwich.

5.2.1.5. Market share and market size

We can also consider the market closely with profit, as in fact the company’s performance in the market is what drives profits. The market size is the total number of potential customers for a certain business or product, whereas the market share is the percentage of that market that your business controls (or could control, depending on the case).

There is a good chance you will have to estimate the market size in one of your case interviews and we get into more details on how to do that below. You may be asked to estimate this in either number of potential customers or total value . The latter simply refers to the number of customers multiplied by the average value of the product or service.

To calculate the market share you will have to divide the company’s share by the total market size and multiply by 100:

Note, though, that learning the very basics of business is the beginning rather than the end of your journey. Once you are able to “speak business” at a rudimentary level, you should try to “become fluent” and immerse yourself in reading/viewing/listening to as wide a variety of business material as possible, getting a feel for all kinds of companies and industries - and especially the kinds of problems that can come up in each context and how they are solved. The material put out by the consulting firms themselves is a great place to start, but you should also follow the business news and find out about different companies and sectors as much as possible between now and interviews. Remember, if you’re going to be a consultant, this should be fun rather than a chore!

5.3 Public sector and NGO concepts

As we mentioned, there will be some cases (see section 6.6 for a more detailed example) where the key performance indicators (or KPIs in short) will not be connected to profit. The most common ones will involve the government of a country or an NGO, but they can be way more diverse and require more thought and application of first principles. We have laid out a couple of the key concepts or KPIs that come up below

5.3.1 Quantifiability

In many such scenarios you will be asked to make an important strategic decision of some kind or to optimise a process. Of course these are not restricted to non-private sector cases but this is where they really come into their own as there can be great variation in the type of decision and the types of field.

While there may be no familiar business concepts to anchor yourself onto, a concept that is essential is quantifiability . This means, however qualitative the decision might seem, consultants rely on data so you should always aim to have aspects of a decision that can be quantified, even if the data doesn’t present itself in a straightforward manner.

Let’s take a practical example. Your younger sibling asks you to help them decide which university they should choose if they want to study engineering. One way to structure your approach would be to segment the problem into factors affecting your sibling’s experience at university and experience post-university. Within the ‘at uni’ category you might think about the following:

• Financials : How much are tuition costs and accommodation costs?
• Quality of teaching and research : How are possible universities ranked in the QS guide based on teaching and research?
• Quality of resources : How well stocked is their library, are the labs well equipped etc.?
• Subject ranking : How is engineering at different unis ranked?
• Life on campus and the city : What are the living costs in the city where the university is based? What are the extracurricular opportunities and would your sibling like to live in that specific city based on them?

Within the ‘out of uni’ category you might think about:

• Exit options : What are the fields in which your sibling could be employed and how long does it take the average student of that university to find a job?
• Alumni network : What percentage of alumni are employed by major companies?
• Signal : What percentage of applicants from the university get an interview in major engineering companies and related technical fields?

You will perhaps notice that all the buckets discussed pose quantifiable questions meant to provide us with data necessary to make a decision. It’s no point to ask ‘Which university has the nicest teaching staff?’ as that can be a very subjective metric.

5.3.1 Impact

Another key concept to consider when dealing with sectors other than the private one is how impactful a decision or a line of inquiry is on the overarching issue , or whether all our branches in our issue tree have a similar impact. This can often come in the form of impact on lives, such as in McKinsey’s conservation case discussed below, namely how many species can we save with our choice of habitat.

5.4 Common consulting concepts

Consultants use basic business concepts on an every day basis, as they help them articulate their frameworks to problems. However, they also use some consulting specific tools to quality check their analysis and perform in the most efficient way possible. These principles can be applied to all aspects of a consultant’s work, but for brevity we can say they mostly impact a consultant’s systematic approach and communication - two very important things that are also tested in case interviews. Therefore, it’s imperative that you not only get to know them, but learn how and when to use them as they are at the very core of good casing. They are MECE-ness, the Pareto Principle and the Pyramid principle and are explained briefly below - you should, however, go on to study them in-depth in their respective articles.

Perhaps the central pillar of all consulting work and an invaluable tool to solve cases, MECE stands for Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive . It can refer to any and every aspect in a case but is most often used when talking about structure. We have a detailed article explaining the concept here , but the short version is that MECE-ness ensures that there is no overlap between elements of a structure (i.e. the Mutually Exclusive component) and that it covers all the drivers or areas of a problem (Collectively Exhaustive). It is a concept that can be applied to any segmentation when dividing a set into subsets that include it wholly but do not overlap.

Let’s take a simple example and then a case framework example. In simple terms, when we are asked to break down the set ‘cars’ into subsets, dividing cars into ‘red cars’ and ‘sports cars’ is neither mutually exclusive (as there are indeed red sports cars) nor exhaustive of the whole set (i.e. there are also yellow non-sports cars that are not covered by this segmentation). A MECE way to segment would be ‘cars produced before 2000’ and ‘cars produced after 2000’ as this segmentation allows for no overlap and covers all the cars in existence.

Dividing cars can be simple, but how can we ensure MECEness in a case-interview a.k.a. a business situation. While the same principles apply, a good tip to ensure that your structure is MECE is to think about all the stakeholders - i.e. those whom a specific venture involves.

Let’s consider that our client is a soda manufacturer who wants to move from a business-to-business strategy, i.e. selling to large chains of stores and supermarkets, to a business-to-consumer strategy where it sells directly to consumers. In doing so they would like to retrain part of their account managers as direct salespeople and need to know what factors to consider.

A stakeholder-driven approach would be to consider the workforce and customers and move further down the issue tree, thinking about individual issues that might affect them. In the case of the workforce, we might consider how the shift would affect their workload and whether it takes their skillset into account. As for the customers, we might wonder whether existing customers would be satisfied with this move: will the remaining B2B account managers be able to provide for the needs of all their clients and will the fact that the company is selling directly to consumers now not cannibalise their businesses? We see how by taking a stakeholder-centred approach we can ensure that every single perspective and potential issue arising from it is fully covered.

5.4.2 The Pareto Principle

Also known as the 80/20 rule, this principle is important when gauging the impact of a decision or a factor in your analysis. It simply states that in business (but not only) 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes. What this means is you can make a few significant changes that will impact most of your business organisation, sales model, cost structure etc.

Let’s have a look at 3 quick examples to illustrate this:

• 80% of all accidents are caused by 20% of drivers
• 20% of a company’s products account for 80% of the sales
• 80% of all results in a company are driven by 20% of its employees

The 80/20 rule will be a very good guide line in real engagements as well as case interviews, as it will essentially point to the easiest and most straightforward way of doing things. Let’s say one of the questions in a case is asking you to come up with an approach to understand the appeal of a new beard trimmer. Obviously you can’t interview the whole male population so you might think about setting up a webpage and asking people to comment their thoughts. But what you would get would be a laundry list of difficult to sift through data.

Using an 80/20 approach you would segment the population based on critical factors (age groups, grooming habits etc.) and then approach a significant sample size of each (e.g. 20), analysing the data and reaching a conclusion.

5.4.3 The Pyramid Principle

This principle refers to organising your communication in a top-down , efficient manner. While this is generally applicable, the pyramid principle will most often be employed when delivering the final recommendation to your client. This means - as is implicit in the name - that you would organise your recommendation (and communication in general) as a pyramid, stating the conclusion or most important element at the top then go down the pyramid listing 3 supporting arguments and then further (ideally also 3) supporting arguments for those supporting arguments.

Let’s look at this in practice: your client is a German air-conditioning unit manufacturer who was looking to expand into the French market. However, after your analysis you’ve determined that the market share they were looking to capture would not be feasible. A final recommendation using the Pyramid Principle would sound something like this: ‘I recommend that we do not enter the German market for the following three reasons. Firstly, the market is too small for our ambitions of $50 million. Secondly the market is heavily concentrated, being controlled by three major players and our 5 year goal would amount to controlling 25% of the market, a share larger than that of any of the players. Thirdly, the alternative of going into the corporate market would not be feasible, as it has high barriers to entry.Then, if needed, we could delve deeper into each of our categories

6. Case examples or building blocks?

As we mentioned before, in your preparation you will undoubtedly find preparation resources that claim that there are several standard types of cases and that there is a general framework that can be applied to each type of case. While there are indeed cases that are straightforward at least in appearance and seemingly invite the application of such frameworks, the reality is never that simple and cases often involve multiple or more complicated components that cannot be fitted into a simple framework.

At MCC we don’t want you to get into the habit of trying to identify which case type you’re dealing with and pull out a framework, but we do recognize that there are recurring elements in frameworks that are useful - such as the profitability of a venture (with its revenues and costs), the valuation of a business, estimating and segmenting a market and pricing a product.

We call these building blocks because they can be used to build case frameworks but are not a framework in and of themselves, and they can be shuffled around and rearranged in any way necessary to be tailored to our case. Hence, our approach is not to make you think in terms of case types but work from first principles and use these building blocks to build your own framework. Let’s take two case prompts to illustrate our point.

The first is from the Bain website, where the candidate is asked whether they think it’s a good idea for their friend to open a coffee shop in Cambridge UK (see the case here ). The answer framework provided here is a very straightforward profitability analysis framework, examining the potential revenues and potential costs of the venture:

While this is a good point to start (especially taken together with the clarifying questions), we will notice that this approach will need more tailoring to the case - for example the quantity of coffee will be determined by the market for coffee drinkers in Cambridge, which we have to determine based on preference. We are in England so a lot of people will be drinking tea but we are in a university town so perhaps more people than average are drinking coffee as it provides a better boost when studying. All these are some much needed case-tailored hypotheses that we can make based on the initial approach.

Just by looking at this case we might be tempted to say that we can just take a profitability case and apply it without any issues. However, this generic framework is just a starting point and in reality we would need to tailor it much further in the way we had started to do in order to get to a satisfactory answer. For example, the framework itself doesn’t cover aspects such as the customer’s expertise: does the friend have any knowledge of the coffee business, such as where to source coffee and how to prepare it? Also, we could argue there may be some legal factors to consider here, such as any approvals that they might need from the city council to run a coffee shop on site, or some specific trade licences that are not really covered in the basic profitability framework.

Let’s take a different case , however, from the McKinsey website. In this scenario, the candidate is being asked to identify some factors in order to choose where to focus the client’s conservation efforts. Immediately we can realise that this case doesn’t lend itself to any pre-packaged framework and we will need to come up with something from scratch - and take a look at McKinsey’s answer of the areas to focus on:

We notice immediately that this framework is 100% tailored to the case - of course there are elements which we encounter in other cases, such as costs and risks but again these are applied in an organic way. It’s pretty clear that while no standard framework would work in this case, the aforementioned concepts - costs and risks - and the way to approach them (a.k.a building blocks ) are fundamentally similar throughout cases (with the obvious specificities of each case).

In what follows, we’ll give a brief description of each building block starting from the Bain example discussed previously, in order to give you a general idea of what they are and their adaptability, but you should make sure to follow the link to the in-depth articles to learn all their ins and outs.

6.1 Estimates and segmentation

This building block will come into play mostly when you’re thinking about the market for a certain product (but make sure to read the full article for more details). Let’s take our Bain Cambridge coffee example. As we mentioned under the quantity bucket we need to understand what the market size for coffee in Cambridge would be - so we can make an estimation based on segmentation .

The key to a good estimation is the ability to logically break down the problem into more manageable pieces. This will generally mean segmenting a wider population to find a particular target group. We can start off with the population of Cambridge - which we estimate at 100.000. In reality the population is closer to 150.000 but that doesn’t matter - the estimation has to be reasonable and not accurate , so unless the interviewer gives you a reason to reconsider you can follow your instinct. We can divide that into people who do and don’t drink coffee. Given our arguments before, we can conclude that 80% of those, so 80.000 drink coffee. Then we can further segment into those who drink regularly - let’s say every day - and those who drink occasionally - let’s say once a week. Based on the assumptions before about the student population needing coffee to function, and with Cambridge having a high student population, we can assume that 80% of those drinking coffee are regular drinkers, so that would be 64.000 regular drinkers and 16.000 occasional drinkers. We can then decide whom we want to target what our strategy needs to be:

This type of estimation and segmentation can be applied to any case specifics - hence why it is a building block.

6.2 Profitability

We had several looks at this building block so far (see an in-depth look here ) as it will show up in most scenarios, since profit is a key element in any company’s strategy. As we have seen, the starting point to this analysis is to consider both the costs and revenues of a company, and try to determine whether revenues need to be improved or whether costs need to be lowered. In the coffee example, the revenues are dictated by the average price per coffe x the number of coffees sold , whereas costs can be split into fixed and variable .

Some examples of fixed costs would be the rent for the stores and the cost of the personnel and utilities, while the most obvious variable costs would be the coffee beans used and the takeaway containers (when needed). We may further split revenues in this case into Main revenues - i.e. the sales of coffee - and Ancillary revenues , which can be divided into Sales of food products (sales of pastries, sandwiches etc., each with the same price x quantity schema) and Revenues from events - i.e renting out the coffee shop to events and catering for the events themselves. Bear in mind that revenues will be heavily influenced by the penetration rate , i.e. the share of the market which we can capture.

6.3 Pricing

Helping a company determine how much they should charge for their goods or services is another theme that comes up frequently in cases. While it may seem less complicated than the other building blocks, we assure you it’s not - you will have to understand and consider several factors, such as the costs a company is incurring, their general strategic positioning, availability, market trends as well as the customers’ willingness to pay (or WTP in short) - so make sure to check out our in-depth guide here .

In our example, we may determine that the cost per cup (coffee beans, staff, rent) is £1. We want to be student friendly so we should consider how much students would want to pay for a coffee as well as how much are competitors are charging. Based on those factors, it would be reasonable to charge on average £2 per cup of coffee. It’s true that our competitors are charging £3 but they are targeting mostly the adult market, whose willingness to pay is higher, so their pricing model takes that into account as well as the lower volume of customers in that demographic.

6.4. Valuation

A variant of the pricing building block, a valuation problem generally asks the candidate to determine how much a client should pay for a specific company (the target of an acquisition) as well as what other factors to consider. The two most important factors (but not the only ones - for a comprehensive review see our Valuation article ) to consider are the net present value (in consulting interviews usually in perpetuity) and the synergies .

In short, the net present value of a company is how much profit it currently brings in, divided by how much that cash flow will depreciate in the future and can be represented with the equation below:

The synergies refer to what could be achieved should the companies operate as one, and can be divided into cost and revenue synergies .

Let’s expand our coffee example a bit to understand these. Imagine that our friend manages to open a chain of coffee shops in Cambridge and in the future considers acquiring a chain of take-out restaurants. The most straightforward example of revenue synergies would be cross-selling, in this case selling coffee in the restaurants as well as in the dedicated stores, and thus getting an immediate boost in market share by using the existing customers of the restaurant chain. A cost synergy would be merging the delivery services of the two businesses to deliver both food and coffee, thus avoiding redundancies and reducing costs associated with twice the number of drivers and vehicles.

6.5. Competitive interaction

This component of cases deals with situations where the market in which a company is operating changes and the company must decide what to do. These changes often have to do with a new player entering the market (again for more details make sure to dive into the Competitive Interaction article ).

Let’s assume that our Cambridge coffee shop has now become a chain and has flagged up to other competitors that Cambridge is a blooming market for coffee. As such, Starbucks has decided to open a few stores in Cambridge themselves, to test this market. The question which might be posed to a candidate is what should our coffee chain do. One way (and a MECE one) to approach the problem is to decide between doing something and doing nothing . We might consider merging with another coffee chain and pooling our resources or playing to our strengths and repositioning ourselves as ‘your student-friendly, shop around the corner’. Just as easily we may just wait the situation out and see whether indeed Starbucks is cutting into our market share - after all, the advantages of our product and services might speak for themselves and Starbucks might end up tanking. Both of these are viable options if argued right and depending on the further specifics of the case.

6.6. Special cases

Most cases deal with private sectors, where the overarching objective entails profit in some form. However, as hinted before, there are cases which deal with other sectors where there are other KPIs in place . The former will usually contain one or several of these building blocks whereas the latter will very likely have neither. This latter category is arguably the one that will stretch your analytical and organisational skills to the limit, since there will be very little familiarity that you can fall back on (McKinsey famously employs such cases in their interview process).

So how do we tackle the structure for such cases? The short answer would be starting from first principles and using the problem driven structure outlined above, but let’s look at a quick example in the form of a McKinsey case :

The first question addressed to the candidate is the following:

This is in fact asking us to build a structure for the case. So what should we have in mind here? Most importantly, we should start with a structure that is MECE and we should remember to do that by considering all the stakeholders . They are on the one hand the government and affiliated institutions and on the other the population. We might then consider which issues might arise for each shareholder and what the benefits for them would be, as well as the risks. This approach is illustrated in the answer McKinsey provides as well:

More than anything, this type of case shows us how important it is to practise and build different types of structures, and think about MECE ways of segmenting the problem.

7. How Do I prepare for case interviews

In consulting fashion, the overall preparation can be structured into theoretical preparation and practical preparation , with each category then being subdivided into individual prep and prep with a partner .

As a general rule, the level and intensity of the preparation will differ based on your background - naturally if you have a business background (and have been part of a consulting club or something similar) your preparation will be less intensive than if you’re starting from scratch. The way we suggest you go about it is to start with theoretical preparation , which means learning about case interviews, business and basic consulting concepts (you can do this using free resources - such as the ones we provide - or if you want a more through preparation you can consider joining our Case Academy as well).

You can then move on to the practical preparation which should start with doing solo cases and focusing on areas of improvement, and then move on to preparation with a partner , which should be another candidate or - ideally - an ex-consultant.

Let’s go into more details with respect to each type of preparation.

7.1. Solo practice

The two most important areas of focus in sole preparation are:

• Mental math

As we mentioned briefly, the best use of your time is to focus on solving cases. You can start with cases listed on MBB sites since they are clearly stated and have worked solutions as well (e.g. Bain is a good place to start) and then move to more complex cases (our Case Library also offers a range of cases of different complexities). To build your confidence, start out on easier case questions, work through with the solutions, and don't worry about time. As you get better, you can move on to more difficult cases and try to get through them more quickly. You should practice around eight case studies on your own to build your confidence.

Another important area of practice is your mental mathematics as this skill will considerably increase your confidence and is neglected by many applicants - much to their immediate regret in the case interview. Find our mental math tool here or in our course, and practice at least ten minutes per day, from day one until the day before the interview.

7.2. Preparation with a partner

There are aspects of an interview - such as asking clarifying questions - which you cannot do alone and this is why, after you feel comfortable, you should move on to practice with another person. There are two options here:

• Practicing with a peer
• Practicing with an ex-consultant

In theory they can be complementary - especially if you’re peer is also preparing for consulting interviews - and each have advantages and disadvantages. A peer is likely to practice with you for free for longer, however you may end up reinforcing some bad habits or unable to get actionable feedback. A consultant will be able to provide you the latter but having their help for the same number of hours as a peer will come at a higher cost. Let’s look at each option in more detail.

7.2.1. Peer preparation

Once you have worked through eight cases solo, you should be ready to simulate the interview more closely and start working with another person.

Here, many candidates turn to peer practice - that is, doing mock case interviews with friends, classmates or others also applying to consulting. If you’re in university, and especially in business school, there will very likely be a consulting club for you to join and do lots of case practice with. If you don’t have anyone to practice, though, or if you just want to get a bit more volume in with others, our free meeting board lets you find fellow applicants from around the world with whom to practice. We recommend practicing around 10 to 15 ‘live’ cases to really get to a point where you feel comfortable.

7.2.2. Preparation with a consultant

You can do a lot practising by yourself and with peers. However, nothing will bring up your skills so quickly and profoundly as working with a real consultant.

Perhaps think about it like boxing. You can practice drills and work on punch bags all you want, but at some point you need to get into the ring and do some actual sparring if you ever want to be ready to fight.

Practicing with an ex consultant is essentialy a simulation of an interview. Of course, it isn’t possible to secure the time of experienced top-tier consultants for free. However, when considering whether you should invest to boost your chances of success, it is worth considering the difference in your salary over even just a few years between getting into a top-tier firm versus a second-tier one. In the light of thousands in increased annual earnings (easily accumulating into millions over multiple years), it becomes clear that getting expert interview help really is one of the best investments you can make in your own future.

Should you decide to make this step, MyConsultingCoach can help, offering bespoke mentoring programmes , where you are paired with a 5+ year experienced, ex-MBB mentor of your choosing, who will then oversee your whole case interview preparation from start to finish - giving you your best possible chance of landing a job!

7.3. Practice for online interviews

Standard preparation for interview case studies will carry directly over to online cases.

However, if you want to do some more specific prep, you can work through cases solo to a timer and using a calculator and/or Excel (online cases generally allow calculators and second computers to help you, whilst these are banned in live case interviews).

Older PST-style questions also make great prep, but a particularly good simulation is the self-assessment tests included in our Case Academy course . These multiple choice business questions conducted with a strict time limit are great preparation for the current crop of online cases.

7.4. Fit interviews

As we’ve noted, even something billed as a case interview is very likely to contain a fit interview as a subset.

We have an article on fit interviews and also include a full set of lessons on how to answer fit questions properly as a subset of our comprehensive Case Academy course .

Here though, the important thing to convey is that you take preparing for fit questions every bit as seriously as you do case prep.

Since they sound the same as you might encounter when interviewing for other industries, the temptation is to regard these as “just normal interview questions”.

However, consulting firms take your answers to these questions a good deal more seriously than elsewhere.

This isn’t just for fluffy “corporate culture” reasons. The long hours and close teamwork, as well as the client-facing nature of management consulting, mean that your personality and ability to get on with others is going to be a big part of making you a tolerable and effective co-worker.

If you know you’ll have to spend 14+ hour working days with someone you hire and that your annual bonus depends on them not alienating clients, you better believe you’ll pay attention to their character in interview.

There are also hard-nosed financial reasons for the likes of McKinsey, Bain and BCG to drill down so hard on your answers.

In particular, top consultancies have huge issues with staff retention. The average management consultant only stays with these firms for around two years before they have moved on to a new industry.

In some cases, consultants bail out because they can’t keep up with the arduous consulting lifestyle of long hours and endless travel. In many instances, though, departing consultants are lured away by exit opportunities - such as the well trodden paths towards internal strategy roles, private equity or becoming a start-up founder.

Indeed, many individuals will intentionally use a two year stint in consulting as something like an MBA they are getting paid for - giving them accelerated exposure to the business world and letting them pivot into something new.

Consulting firms want to get a decent return on investment for training new recruits. Thus, they want hires who not only intend to stick with consulting longer-term, but also have a temperament that makes this feasible and an overall career trajectory where it just makes sense for them to stay put.

This should hammer home the point that, if you want to get an offer, you need to be fully prepared to answer fit questions - and to do so excellently - any time you have a case interview.

8. Interview day - what to expect, with tips

Of course, all this theory is well and good, but a lot of readers might be concerned about what exactly to expect in real life . It’s perfectly reasonable to want to get as clear a picture as possible here - we all want to know what we are going up against when we face a new challenge!

Indeed, it is important to think about your interview in more holistic terms, rather than just focusing on small aspects of analysis. Getting everything exactly correct is less important than the overall approach you take to reasoning and how you communicate - and candidates often lose sight of this fact.

In this section, then, we’ll run through the case interview experience from start to finish, directing you to resources with more details where appropriate. As a supplement to this, the following video from Bain is excellent. It portrays an abridged version of a case interview, but is very useful as a guide to what to expect - not just from Bain, but from McKinsey, BCG and any other high-level consulting firm.

8.1. Getting started

Though you might be shown through to the office by a staff member, usually your interviewer will come and collect you from a waiting area. Either way, when you first encounter them, you should greet your interviewer with a warm smile and a handshake (unless they do not offer their hand). Be confident without verging into arrogance. You will be asked to take a seat in the interviewer’s office, where the interview can then begin.

8.1.1. First impressions

In reality, your assessment begins before you even sit down at your interviewer’s desk. Whether at a conscious level or not, the impression you make within the first few seconds of meeting your interviewer is likely to significantly inform the final hiring decision (again, whether consciously or not).

Your presentation and how you hold yourself and behave are all important . If this seems strange, consider that, if hired, you will be personally responsible for many clients’ impressions of the firm. These things are part of the job! Much of material on the fit interview is useful here, whilst we also cover first impressions and presentation generally in our article on what to wear to interview .

As we have noted above, your interview might start with a fit segment - that is, with the interviewer asking questions about your experiences, your soft skills, and motivation to want to join consulting generally and that firm in particular. In short, the kinds of things a case study can’t tell them about you. We have a fit interview article and course to get you up to speed here.

8.1.2. Down to business

Following an initial conversation, your interviewer will introduce your case study , providing a prompt for the question you have to answer. You will have a pen and paper in front of you and should (neatly) note down the salient pieces of information (keep this up throughout the interview).

It is crucial here that you don’t delve into analysis or calculations straight away . Case prompts can be tricky and easy to misunderstand, especially when you are under pressure. Rather, ask any questions you need to fully understand the case question and then validate that understanding with the interviewer before you kick off any analysis. Better to eliminate mistakes now than experience that sinking feeling of realising you have gotten the whole thing wrong halfway through your case!

This process is covered in our article on identifying the problem and in greater detail in our Case Academy lesson on that subject.

8.1.3. Analysis

Once you understand the problem, you should take a few seconds to set your thoughts in order and draw up an initial structure for how you want to proceed. You might benefit from utilising one or more of our building blocks here to make a strong start. Present this to your interviewer and get their approval before you get into the nuts and bolts of analysis.

We cover the mechanics of how to structure your problem and lead the analysis in our articles here and here and more thoroughly in the MCC Case Academy . What it is important to convey here, though, is that your case interview is supposed to be a conversation rather than a written exam . Your interviewer takes a role closer to a co-worker than an invigilator and you should be conversing with them throughout.

Indeed, how you communicate with your interviewer and explain your rationale is a crucial element of how you will be assessed. Case questions in general, are not posed to see if you can produce the correct answer, but rather to see how you think . Your interviewer wants to see you approach the case in a structured, rational fashion. The only way they are going to know your thought processes, though, is if you tell them!

To demonstrate this point, here is another excellent video from Bain, where candidates are compared.

Note that multiple different answers to each question are considered acceptable and that Bain is primarily concerned with the thought processes of the candidate’s exhibit .

Another reason why communication is absolutely essential to case interview success is the simple reason that you will not have all the facts you need to complete your analysis at the outset. Rather, you will usually have to ask the interviewer for additional data throughout the case to allow you to proceed .

NB: Don't be let down by your math!

Your ability to quickly and accurately interpret these charts and other figures under pressure is one of the skills that is being assessed. You will also need to make any calculations with the same speed and accuracy (without a calculator!). As such, be sure that you are up to speed on your consulting math .

8.1.4. Recommendation

Finally, you will be asked to present a recommendation. This should be delivered in a brief, top-down "elevator pitch" format , as if you are speaking to a time-pressured CEO. Again here, how you communicate will be just as important as the details of what you say, and you should aim to speak clearly and with confidence.

For more detail on how to give the perfect recommendation, take a look at our articles on the Pyramid Principle and providing recommendations , as well the relevant lesson within MCC Academy .

8.1.5. Wrapping up

After your case is complete, there might be a few more fit questions - including a chance for you to ask some questions of the interviewer . This is your opportunity to make a good parting impression.

We deal with the details in our fit interview resources. However, it is always worth bearing in mind just how many candidates your interviewers are going to see giving similar answers to the same questions in the same office. A pretty obvious pre-requisite to being considered for a job is that your interviewer remembers you in the first place. Whilst you shouldn't do something stupid just to be noticed, asking interesting parting questions is a good way to be remembered.

Now, with the interview wrapped up, it’s time to shake hands, thank the interviewer for their time and leave the room .

You might have other interviews or tests that day or you might be heading home. Either way, if know that you did all you could to prepare, you can leave content in the knowledge that you have the best possible chance of receiving an email with a job offer. This is our mission at MCC - to provide all the resources you need to realise your full potential and land your dream consulting job!

8.2. Remote and one-way interview tips

Zoom case interviews and “one-way” automated fit interviews are becoming more common as selection processes are increasingly remote, with these new formats being accompanied by their own unique challenges.

Obviously you won’t have to worry about lobbies and shaking hands for a video interview. However, a lot remains the same. You still need to do the same prep in terms of getting good at case cracking and expressing your fit answers. The specific considerations around remote interviews are, in effect, around making sure you come across as effectively as you would in person.

8.2.1. Connection

It sounds trivial, but a successful video interview of any kind presupposes a functioning computer with a stable and sufficient internet connection.

Absolutely don’t forget to have your laptop plugged in, as your battery will definitely let you down mid-interview. Similarly, make sure any housemates or family know not to use the microwave, vacuum cleaner or anything else that makes wifi cut out (or makes a lot of noise, obviously)

If you have to connect on a platform you don’t use much (for example, if it’s on Teams and you’re used to Zoom), make sure you have the up to date version of the app in advance, rather than having to wait for an obligatory download and end up late to join. Whilst you’re at it, make sure you’re familiar with the controls etc. At the risk of being made fun of, don’t be afraid to have a practice call with a friend.

8.2.2. Dress

You might get guidance on a slightly more relaxed dress code for a Zoom interview. However, if in doubt, dress as you would for the real thing (see our article here ).

Either way, always remember that presentation is part of what you are being assessed on - the firm needs to know you can be presentable for clients. Taking this stuff seriously also shows respect for your interviewer and their time in interviewing you.

8.2.3. Lighting

An aspect of presentation that you have to devote some thought to for a Zoom interview is your lighting.

Hopefully, you long ago nailed a lighting set-up during the Covid lockdowns. However, make sure to check your lighting in advance with your webcam - bearing in mind what time if day your interview actually is. If your interview is late afternoon, don’t just check in the morning. Make sure you aren’t going to be blinded from light coming in a window behind your screen, or that you end up with the weird shadow stripes from blinds all over your face.

Natural light is always best, but if there won’t be much of that during your interview, you’ll likely want to experiment with moving some lamps around.

8.2.4. Clarity

The actual stories you tell in an automated “one-way” fit interview will be the same as for a live equivalent. If anything, things should be easier, as you can rattle off a practised monologue without an interviewer interrupting you to ask for clarifications.

You can probably also assume that the algorithm assessing your performance is sufficiently capable that it will be observing you at much the same level as a human interviewer. However, it is probably still worth speaking as clearly as possible with these kinds of interviews and paying extra attention to your lighting to ensure that your face is clearly visible.

No doubt the AIs scoring these interviews are improving all the time, but you still want to make their job as easy as possible. Just think about the same things as you would with a live Zoom interview, but more so.

9. How we can help

There are lots of great free resources on this site to get you started with preparation, from all our articles on case solving and consulting skills to our free case library and peer practice meeting board .

To step your preparation up a notch, though, our Case Academy course will give you everything you need to know to solve the most complex of cases - whether those are in live interviews, with chatbots, written tests or any other format.

Whatever kind of case you end up facing, nothing will bring up your skillset faster than the kind of acute, actionable feedback you can get from a mock case interview a real, MBB consultant. Whilst it's possible to get by without this kind of coaching, it does tend to be the biggest single difference maker for successful candidates.

You can find out more on our coaching page:

Explore Coaching

Of course, for those looking for a truly comprehensive programme, with a 5+ year experienced MBB consultant overseeing their entire prep personally, from networking and applications right through to your offer, we have our mentoring programmes.

You can read more here:

Comprehensive Mentoring

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Hacking the Case Interview

If you’re interviewing for a business role at Amazon, there is a good chance that you’ll receive at least one case study interview, also known as an Amazon case interview. Amazon roles that include case study interviews as part of the interview process include:

• Business Analyst
• Business Development
• Corporate Strategy
• Product Manager
• Product Marketing

To land an Amazon job offer, you’ll need to crush every single one of your case interviews. While Amazon case study interviews may seem ambiguous and challenging, know that they can be mastered with proper preparation.

If you are preparing for an upcoming Amazon case interview, we have you covered. In this comprehensive Amazon case interview guide, we’ll cover:

• What is an Amazon case study interview
• Why Amazon uses case study interviews
• The 6 steps to ace any Amazon case interview
• Amazon case interview tips
• Recommended Amazon case study interview resources

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 tech and consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

What is an Amazon Case Study Interview?

Amazon case study interviews, also known as Amazon case interviews, are 20- to 30-minute exercises in which you are placed in a hypothetical business situation and are asked to find a solution or make a recommendation.

First, you’ll create a framework that shows the approach you would take to solve the case. Then, you’ll collaborate with the interviewer, answering a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions that will give you the information and data needed to develop an answer. Finally, you’ll deliver your recommendation at the end of the case.

Case interviews have traditionally been used by consulting firms to assess a candidate’s potential to become a successful consultant. However, now a days, many companies with ex-consultants use case studies to assess a candidate’s capabilities. Since Amazon has so many former consultants in its business roles, you’ll likely encounter at least one case study interview.

The business problems that you’ll be given in an Amazon case study interview will likely be real challenges that Amazon faces today:

• How can Amazon improve customer retention for their Amazon Prime subscription service?
• How can Amazon improve its digital streaming service?
• How can Amazon increase ad revenues from merchant sellers?
• How should Amazon deal with fake products among its product listings?
• How can Amazon Web Services outcompete Microsoft Azure?

Depending on what team at Amazon you are interviewing for, you may be given a business problem that is relevant to that specific team.

Although there is a wide range of business problems you could possibly be given in your Amazon case interview, the fundamental case interview strategies to solve each problem is the same. If you learn the right strategies and get enough practice, you’ll be able to solve any Amazon case study interview.

Why does Amazon Use Case Study Interviews?

Amazon uses case study interviews because your performance in a case study interview is a measure of how well you would do on the job. Amazon case interviews assess a variety of different capabilities and qualities needed to successfully complete job duties and responsibilities.

Amazon’s case study interviews primarily assess five things:

• Logical, structured thinking : Can you structure complex problems in a clear, simple way?
• Analytical problem solving : Can you read, interpret, and analyze data well?
• Business acumen : Do you have sound business judgment and intuition?
• Communication skills : Can you communicate clearly, concisely, and articulately?
• Personality and cultural fit : Are you coachable and easy to work with?

Since all of these qualities can be assessed in just a 20- to 30-minute case, Amazon case study interviews are an effective way to assess a candidate’s capabilities.

In order to do well on the personality and cultural fit portion, you should familiarize yourself with  Amazon’s Leadership Principles before your interview. At a high level, these principles include:

• Customer obsession : Leaders start with the customer and work backwards
• Ownership : Leaders are owners and act on behalf of the entire company
• Invent and simplify : Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify
• Learn and be curious : Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves
• Insist on the highest standards : Leaders have relentlessly high standards
• Think big : Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results
• Frugality : Accomplish more with less
• Earn trust : Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully
• Dive deep : Leaders operate at all levels and stay connected to the details
• Deliver results : Leaders focus on key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion

The 6 Steps to Solve Any Amazon Case Interview

In general, there are six steps to solve any Amazon case study interview.

1. Understand the case

Your Amazon case interview will begin with the interviewer giving you the case background information. While the interviewer is speaking, make sure that you are taking meticulous notes on the most important pieces of information. Focus on understanding the context of the situation and the objective of the case.

Don’t be afraid to ask clarifying questions if you do not understand something. You may want to summarize the case background information back to the interviewer to confirm your understanding of the case.

The most important part of this step is to verify the objective of the case. Not answering the right business question is the quickest way to fail a case interview.

2. Structure the problem

The next step is to develop a framework to help you solve the case. A framework is a tool that helps you structure and break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable components. Another way to think about frameworks is brainstorming different ideas and organizing them into different categories.

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

Before you start developing your framework, it is completely acceptable to ask the interviewer for a few minutes so that you can collect your thoughts and think about the problem.

Once you have identified the major issues or areas that you need to explore, walk the interviewer through your framework. They may ask a few questions or provide some feedback.

3. Kick off the case

Once you have finished presenting your framework, you’ll start diving into different areas of your framework to begin solving the case. How this process will start depends on whether the case interview is candidate-led or interviewer-led.

If the case interview is a candidate-led case, you’ll be expected to propose what area of your framework to start investigating. So, propose an area and provide a reason for why you want to start with that area. There is generally no right or wrong area of your framework to pick first.

If the case interview is interviewer-led, the interviewer will tell you what area of the framework to start in or directly give you a question to answer.

4. Solve quantitative problems

Amazon case study interviews may have some quantitative aspect to them. For example, you may be asked to calculate a certain profitability or financial metric. You could also be asked to estimate the size of a particular market or to estimate a particular figure.

The key to solving quantitative problems is to lay out a structure or approach upfront with the interviewer before doing any math calculations. If you lay out and present your structure to solve the quantitative problem and the interviewer approves of it, the rest of the problem is just simple execution of math.

5. Answer qualitative questions

Amazon case study interviews may also have qualitative aspects to them. You may be asked to brainstorm a list of potential ideas. You could also be asked to provide your opinion on a business issue or situation.

The key to answering qualitative questions is to structure your answer. When brainstorming a list of ideas, develop a structure to help you neatly categorize all of your ideas. When giving your opinion on a business issue or situation, provide a summary of your stance or position and then enumerate the reasons that support it.

6. Deliver a recommendation

In the last step of the Amazon case interview, you’ll present your recommendation and provide the major reasons that support it. You do not need to recap everything that you have done in the case, so focus on only summarizing the facts that are most important.

It is also good practice to include potential next steps that you would take if you had more time or data. These can be areas of your framework that you did not have time to explore or lingering questions that you do not have great answers for.

Amazon Case Interview Tips

Below are eight of our best tips to help you perform your best during your Amazon case study interview.

1. Familiarize yourself with Amazon’s business model

If you don’t understand Amazon’s business model, it will be challenging for you to do well in their case interviews. If you are interviewing for the Amazon Web Services team, you should know how Amazon makes money as a cloud service provider. If you are interviewing for the Amazon Prime team, you should be familiar with how their subscription service works.

2. Read recent news articles on Amazon

A lot of the times, the cases you’ll see in an Amazon case study interview are real business issues that the company faces. Reading up on the latest Amazon news will give you a sense of what Amazon’s biggest challenges are and what major business decisions they face today. There is a good chance that your case study interview will be similar to something that you have read in the news.

3. Verify the objective of the case 

Answering the wrong business problem will waste a lot of time during your Amazon case study interview. Therefore, the most critical step of the case interview is to verify the objective of the case with the interviewer. Make sure that you understand what the primary business issue is and what overall question you are expected to answer at the end of the case.

4. Ask clarifying questions

Do not be afraid to ask questions. You will not be penalized for asking questions that are important and relevant to the case. 

Great questions to ask include asking for the definition of an unfamiliar term, asking questions that clarify the objective of the case, and asking questions to strengthen your understanding of the business situation.

5. Do not use memorized frameworks

Interviewers can tell when you are using memorized frameworks from popular case interview prep books. Amazon values creativity and intellect. Therefore, make every effort to create a custom, tailored framework for each case that you get.

6. Always connect your answers to the case objective

Throughout the case, make sure you are connecting each of your answers back to the overall business problem or question. What implications does your answer have on the overall business problem?

Many candidates make the mistake of answering case questions correctly, but they don’t take the initiative to tie their answer back to the case objective.

7. Communicate clearly and concisely

In an Amazon case study interview, it can be tempting to answer the interviewer’s question and then continue talking about related topics or ideas. However, you have a limited amount of time to solve an Amazon case, so it is best to keep your answers concise and to the point.

Answer the interviewer’s question, summarize how it impacts the case objective, and then move onto the next important issue or question.

8. Be enthusiastic

Amazon wants to hire candidates that love their job and will work hard. Displaying enthusiasm shows that you are passionate about working at Amazon. Having a high level of enthusiasm and energy also makes the interview more enjoyable for the interviewer. They will be more likely to have a positive impression of you.

Recommended Amazon Case Study Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to learn the most robust, effective case interview strategies in the least time-consuming way:

• Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
• Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
• The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.
• Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with former consulting interviewers
• Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer
• Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple interviews

Land Multiple Tech and Consulting Offers

Complete, step-by-step case interview course. 30,000+ happy customers.

35 Case Interviews Examples from MBB / Big Four Firms

Studying case interview examples is one of the first steps in preparing for the  management consulting  recruitment process. If you don’t want to spend hours searching the web, this article presents a comprehensive and convenient list for you – with 35 example cases, 16 case books, along with a case video accompanied by detailed feedback on tips and techniques.

A clear understanding of “what is a case interview” is essential for effective use of these examples. I suggest reading our  Case Interview 101  guide, if you haven’t done so.

McKinsey case interview examples

Mckinsey practice cases.

• Diconsa Case
• Electro-Light Case
• GlobaPharm Case
• National Education Case

What should I know about McKinsey Case interviews?

At McKinsey, case interviews often follow the interviewer-led format , where the interviewer asks you multiple questions for you to answer with short pitches.

How do you nail these cases? Since the questions can be grouped into predictable types, an efficient approach is to master each question type. However, do that after you’ve mastered the case interview fundamentals!

For a detailed guide on interviewer-led cases, check out our article on McKinsey Case Interview .

BCG & Bain case interview examples

Bcg practice cases.

• BCG – Written Case – Chateau Boomerang

Bain practice cases

• Bain – Coffee Shop Co.
• Bain – Fashion Co.
• Bain – Mock Interview – Associate Consultant
• Bain – Mock Interview – Consultant

What should I know about BCG & Bain case interviews?

Unlike McKinsey, BCG and Bain case interviews typically follow the candidate-led format – which is the opposite of interviewer-led, with the candidate driving the case progress by actively breaking down problems in their own way.

The key to acing candidate-led cases is to master the case interview fundamental concepts as well as the frameworks.

Some BCG and Bain offices also utilize written case interviews – you have to go through a pile of data slides, select the most relevant ones to answer a set of interviewer questions, then deliver those answers in a presentation.

For a detailed guide on candidate-led cases, check out our article on BCG & Bain Case Interview .

Deloitte case interview examples

Deloitte practice cases.

Undergrad Cases

• Human Capital – Technology Institute
• Human Capital – Agency V
• Strategy – Federal Benefits Provider
• Strategy – Extreme Athletes
• Technology – Green Apron
• Technology – Big Bucks Bank
• Technology – Top Engine
• Technology – Finance Agency

Advanced Cases

• Human Capital – Civil Cargo Bureau
• Human Capital – Capital Airlines
• Strategy – Club Co
• Strategy – Health Agency
• Technology – Waste Management
• Technology – Bank of Zurich
• Technology – Galaxy Fitness

What should I know about Deloitte case interviews?

Case interviews at Deloitte also lean towards the candidate-led format like BCG and Bain.

The Deloitte consultant recruitment process also features group case interviews , which not only test analytical skills but also place a great deal on interpersonal handling.

Accenture case interview examples

Accenture divides its cases into three types with very cool-sounding names.

Sorted in descending order of popularity, they are:

These are similar to candidate-led cases at Bain and BCG. albeit shorter – the key is to develop a suitable framework and ask the right questions to extract data from the interviewer.

These are similar to the market-sizing and guesstimate questions asked in interviewer-led cases – demonstrate your calculations in structured, clear-cut, logical steps and you’ll nail the case.

These cases have you sort through a deluge of data to draw solutions; however, this type of case is rare.

Capital One case interview examples

Capital One is the odd one on this list – it is a bank-holding company. Nonetheless, this being one of the biggest banks in America, it’s interesting to see how its cases differ from the consulting ones.

Having gone through Capital One’s guide to its cases, I can’t help but notice the less-MECE structure of the sample answers. Additionally, there seems to be a greater focus on the numbers.

Nonetheless, having a solid knowledge of the basics of case interviews will not hurt you – if anything, your presentation will be much more in-depth, comprehensive, and understandable!

See Capital One Business Analyst Case Interview for an example case and answers.

Other firms case interview examples

Besides the leading ones, we have some examples from other major consulting firms as well.

• Oliver Wyman – Wumbleworld
• Oliver Wyman – Aqualine
• LEK – Cinema
• LEK – Market Sizing
• Kearney – Promotional Planning
• OC&C – Imported Spirits
• OC&C – Leisure Clubs

Consulting clubs case books

In addition to official cases, here are a few case books you can use as learning materials.

Do keep in mind: don’t base your study on frameworks and individual case types, but master the fundamentals so you can tackle any kind of case.

• Wharton Consulting Club Case Book
• Tuck Consulting Club Case Book
• MIT Sloan Consulting Club Case Book
• LBS Consulting Club Case Book
• Kellogg Consulting Club Case Book
• INSEAD Consulting Club Case Book
• Harvard Consulting Club Case Book
• ESADE Consulting Club Case Book
• Darden Consulting Club Case Book
• Berkeley Consulting Club Case Book
• Notre-Dame Consulting Club Case Book
• Illinois Consulting Club Case Book
• Columbia Consulting Club Case Book
• Duke Consulting Club Case Book
• Ross Consulting Club Case Book
• Kearney Case Book

Case interview example – Case video

The limitation of most official case interview examples is that they are either too short and vague, or in text format, or both.

To solve that problem for you, we’ve extracted a 30-minute-long, feedback-rich case sample from our Case Interview End-to-End Secrets Program .

This is a candidate-led, profitability case on an internet music broadcasting company called Pandora.

In 30 minutes, this candidate demonstrates the exact kind of shortcoming that most candidates suffer during real case interviews – they come in with sharp business senses, then hurt their own chances with inadequate techniques.

Here are seven notable areas where the candidate (and you) can improve:

Thanking Throughout the case, as especially in the opening, he should have shown more appreciation for the time the interviewer spent with him.

Structured opening The candidate’s opening of the case feels unstructured. He could have improved it by not mixing the playback and clarification parts. You can learn to nail the case in a 3-minute start through this video on How to Open Any Case Perfectly .

Explicitness A lot of the candidate’s thought process remains in his head; in a case interview, it’s better to be as explicit as possible – draw your issue tree out and point to it as you speak; state your hypothesis when you move into a branch; when you receive data, acknowledge it out loud.

Avoiding silence The silence in his case performance is too long, including his timeout and various gaps in his speech; either ask for timeout (and keep it as short as possible) or think out loud to fill those gaps.

Proactivity The candidate relies too much on the interviewer (e.g: asking for data when it can easily be calculated); you don’t want to appear lazy before your interviewer, so avoid this.

Avoiding repeating mistakes Making one mistake twice is a big no-no in consulting interviews; one key part of the consulting skill set is the ability to learn, and repeating your mistakes (especially if the interviewer has pointed it out) makes you look like someone who doesn’t learn.

Note-taking Given the mistakes this candidate makes, he’s probably not taking his notes well. I can show you how to get it right if you watch this video on Case Interview Note-Taking .

Nonetheless, there are three good points you can learn from the candidate:

The candidate sums up what he’s covered and announces his upcoming approach at the start and at key points in the case – this is a very good habit that gives you a sense of direction and shows that you’re an organized person.

The candidate performs a “reality check” on whether his actions match the issue tree; in a case interview it’s easy to lose track of what you’re doing, so remember to do this every once in a while.

The candidate prompts the interviewer to give out more data than he asked for; if anything, this actually matches a habit of real consultants, and if you’re lucky, your interviewer may actually give out important pieces you haven’t thought of.

These are only part of the “ninja tips” taught In our Case Interview E2E Secrets Program – besides the math and business intuition for long-term development, a key feature is the instant-result tips and techniques for case interviews.

Once you’ve mastered them, you can nail any case they throw at you!

For more “quality” practice, let’s have a mock case interview with former consultants from McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Oliver Wyman, Strategy& and many other consulting firms. They will help you identify your problem areas and give you actionable feedback, making your preparation much easier and faster.

Hi! This is Kim and welcome to another performance in the Tips & Techniques part of our amazing End-to-end program. You are about to hear a really interesting performance.

There is a common Myth that Profitability cases are easier. Well, for beginners, that’s may make sense, but I would argue that Profitability cases can be really tricky and candidates without good foundation will make about the same level of mistakes regardless of type of cases given.

The profitability case we are about to watch will show that. It’s a very unconventional

Profitability. It started out like a typical one but getting more and more tricky toward the end.

The candidate is fairly good in term of business intuition, but the Tips & Techniques aspect needs a lot of fine tune! Now let’s go ahead and get started! 

It’s actually a little better to playback the case information and ask clarifications. The candidate does not distinguish between the two and do both at a same time. Also, the candidate was asking these clarifications in an unorganized and unstructured fashion. This is not something terrible, but could have been better, especially when this is the very first part of the case, where the crucial first impression is being formed.

My pitch would sound like this:

“That’s a very interesting problem and I am happy to get the chance to solve it. First of all let me tell you my understanding of the case context and key objectives. Then I would like to ask a few clarifying questions regarding a few terminology and concepts. Both of these are to make sure that I will be solving the right problem.

So here is my understanding of the case: The client is ABC. Here are some DEF facts about the situation we just talked about. And the key case question is XYZ.

Does that correctly and adequately summarize the case?”

Once the interviewer confirms, I would move to the clarification part as follows: “Now I would like to ask a few clarification questions. There are three of them: No 1, … No 2, … and No 3, …”

You may see above pitch as obvious but that’s a perfect example of how you should open any cases. Every details matters. We will point out those details in just a second. But before we do that, it’s actually very helpful if you can go back, listen carefully to the above pitch, and try to point out the great components yourselves. Only after that, go back to this point and learn it all together.

Alright, let’s break down the perfect opening.

First of all, you hear me say: “That’s a very interesting problem and I am happy to get a chance to solve it”. This seems trivial but very beneficial in multiple ways:

1. I bought myself a couple of seconds to calm down and get focused. 2. By nature, we as human unconsciously like those who give us compliments. Nothing better than opening the case with a modest compliment to the interviewer.

And (c) I showed my great attitude towards the case, which the interviewer would assume is the same for real future consulting business problems.

You should do that in your interviews too. Say it and accompany it with the best smile you can give. It shows that you are not afraid of any problems. In fact, you love them and you are always ready for them.

Secondly, I did what I refer to as the “map habit”, which is to always say what you are about to do and then do it. Just like somebody in the car showing the drivers the route before cruising on the road. The driver would love it. This is where I said: “Let me tell you my understanding of the case context and key objectives. Then ABC…”.

Third, right at the beginning of the case, I try to be crystal clear and easy to follow. I don’t let the interviewer confused between playing the case vs. asking clarification questions. I distinguish between the two really carefully. This habit probably doesn’t change the outcome of how the case goes that much, but it certainly significantly changes the impression the interviewer has of me.

Fourth, in playing back the case, each person would have a different way to re-phrase. But there are three buckets to always include:

1. Who is the client 2. The facts regarding the client and the situation and (c) The key question and the objective of the case.

Fifth, after playing the case context and objectives, I pause for a second and ALIGN with the interviewer: “Does it correctly and adequately summarize the case?”. This is a habit that every consulting manager loves for young consultants to do. Nobody wants first-year folks to spend weeks of passion and hard-work building an excel model that the team can’t use. This habit is extensively taught at McKinsey, Bain and BCG, so therefore interviewers would love somebody that exhibits this habit often in case interview.

Lastly, when asking clarification questions, you hear me number them very carefully to create the strong impression that I am very organized and structured. I said I have three clarifying questions. Then I number them as I go through each. No.1, No.2, and No.3.

Sometimes, during interviews it’s hard to know exactly how many items you are going to get. One way is to take timeout often to carefully plan your pitch. If this is not possible in certain situations, you may skip telling how many items you have; but you should definitely still number your question: No.1, No.2; and so on. 

Just a moment ago, the candidate actually exhibited a good habit. After going through his clarification questions, the candidate ended by asking the “is there anything else” question. In this case, I actually give out an important piece of data.

Though this is not very common as not every interviewer is that generous in giving out data. But this is a habit management consultants have to have every day when talking to experts, clients, or key stakeholders. The key is to get the most data and insights out of every interview and this is the type of open-ended question every consultant asks several times a day.

To show of this habit in a case interview is very good!

There are three things I would like you to pay attention to:

First, it took the candidate up to 72 seconds to “gather his thoughts”. This is a little too long in a case interview. I intentionally leave the 72 seconds of silence in the recording so you get an idea of how long that is in real situations. But it’s worth-noting here is not only that. While in some very complicated and weird cases, it’s ok to take that long to really think and gather ideas. In this case, the approach as proposed by the candidate is very simple. For this very approach, I think no more than 15 to 20 seconds should be used.

No.2, with that said, I have told I really like the fact that this candidate exhibits the “map” habit. Before going straight to the approach he draws the overall approach first.

No.3. You also see here that the candidate tried to align the approach with me by asking my thoughts on it. As I just said on the previous comment, this is a great habit to have. Not only does it help reduce chance of going into the wrong direction in case interviews, but it also creates a good impression. Consulting interviewers love people doing it often!

Here we see a not-really-bad response that for sure could be much better. The candidate was going into the first branch of the analysis which is Revenue. I would fix this in 3 aspects:

First, even though we just talked about the overall approach, it’s still better to briefly set up the issue tree first then clearly note that you are going into one branch.

Second, this is not a must, but I always try to make my hypothesis as explicitly clear as possible. Here the candidate just implicitly made a hypothesis that the problem is on the revenue side. The best way to show our hypothesis-driven mindset is to explicitly say it.

Third, you hear this a ton of times in our End-to-End program but I am going to repeat it again and again. It is better to show the habit of aligning here too. Don’t just go into revenue, before doing that, give the interviewer a chance to agree or to actually guide you to Cost.

So, summarizing the above insights, my pitch would sound something like this:

“So as we just discussed, a profit problem is either caused by revenue or by cost. Unless you would like to go into cost first, let’s hypothesize that the problem is on revenue side. I would like to look deeper into Revenue. Do we have any data on the revenue?”

And while saying this, you should literally draw an issue tree and point to each as you speak.

There is an interesting case interview tip I want to point out here. Notice how the candidate responds after receiving two data points from me. He went straight into the next question without at least acknowledging the data received and also without briefly analyzing it.

I am glad that the candidate makes this mistakes… well, not glad for him but for the greater audience of this program. I would like to introduce to you the perfect habit of what you should react and do every time you have any piece of data during case interviews. So three things you need to do:

Step 1: Say … that’s an interesting piece of data. This helps the interviewer acknowledge that you have received and understand the data. This also buys you a little time. And furthermore, it’s always a good thing to give out modest compliments to the interviewer.

Step 2: Describe the data, how it looks, is there any special noteworthy trend? In this case, we should point out that revenue actually grew by more than 50%.

Also notice here that I immediately quantified the difference in specific quantitative measurement (in this case, percentage). Saying revenue went up is good, but it’s great to be able to say revenue went up by more than 50%.

Step 3: Link the trend identified back to the original case question and the hypothesis you have. Does it prove, disprove, or open up new investigation to really test the hypothesis? In this case, this data piece actually opened up new investigating areas to test the hypothesis that the bottleneck is within revenue.

My sample pitch for this step 3 would sound like this: “It’s interesting that revenue went up quite a bit. However, to be able to fully reject our hypothesis on the revenue, I would like to compare our revenue to that of the competitors as well.”

Then only at this point, after going through 3 steps above, I ask for the competitors’ revenue like the candidate did.

Notice here that I ended up asking the same question the candidate did. This shows that the candidate does have a good intuition and thought process. It’s just that he did all of these implicitly on his head.

In consulting case interview, it’s always good to do everything as explicitly as possible. Not only is it easier to follow but it helps show your great thought process.

… the rest of the transcript is available in our End To End Case Interview

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Preparing for case interviews is a hard task when you only have 1 week, so the first part you need to learn during this time is fundamentals of case interview

Case interview in consulting is difficult with the passing rate is around 10%. This is because big consulting firms keep an extremely high recruitment standard

A case interview is where candidates is asked to solve a business problem. They are used by consulting firms to evaluate problem-solving skill & soft skills

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Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide

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Welcome to our preparation tips for case interviews!  Whether you are just curious about case interviews or are planning to apply for consulting internships or full-time jobs, these tips and resources will help you feel more prepared and confident.

A case interview is a role playing exercise in which an employer assesses how logically and persuasively you can present a case. Rather than seeing if you get the “correct” answer, the objective is to evaluate your thought process. ( Adapted with permission from Case In Point: Complete Case Interview Preparation by Marc Cosentino). 

Case interviews are very commonly used in the interview process for consulting firms and companies in similar industries. In the case interview, you will typically be given a business problem and then asked to solve it in a structured way. Learning this structure takes preparation and practice. You can learn more and practice using the resources listed below.  

Why are Case Interviews Used?

Case interviews allow employers to test and evaluate the following skills:

• Analytical skills and logical ability to solve problems
• Structure and thought process
• Ability to ask for relevant data/information
• Tolerance for ambiguity and data overload
• Poise and communication skills under pressure and in front of a client

How can I prepare for Case Interviews?

1.) Read Management Consulted’s “Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide (2024)”

Management Consulted is a FREE resource for Tufts students : case and consulting resources such as 500 sample cases, Case Interview Bootcamp,  Market Sizing Drills, Math Drills, case videos, consulting firm directory, and more

2.) Review additional resources:

• Case in Point – This book, by Marc Cosentino, is a comprehensive guide that walks you through the case interview process from beginning to end. This guide has helped many students over the years and can serve as an excellent foundation for how to approach business problems
• Casequestions.com – The companion website to Marc Cosentino’s book listed above offers preparation for case interviews, along with links to top 50 consulting firms
• Management Consulting Case Interviews: Cracking The Case – tips for case interviews from the other side of the table, from Argopoint, a Boston management consulting firm specializing in legal department consulting for Fortune 500 companies
• Preplounge.com – Free case preparation access for to up to 6 practice interviews with peers, selected cases, and video case solutions
• RocketBlocks – Features consulting preparation such as drills and coaching
• Practice sample online cases on consulting firm websites such as McKinsey , BCG , Bain , Deloitte and more!  

3.) Schedule a mock case interview appointment with  Karen Dankers or Kathy Spillane , our advisors for the Finance, Consulting, Entrepreneurship, and Business Career Community.

4.) PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE cases out loud on your own (yes, that can feel odd) or preferably, with another person. See #2 and #3 above for resources and ideas to find partners to practice live cases

5.) Enjoy and have fun solving business problems!

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A case interview is a type of job interview technique used mainly by management consulting firms to screen candidates by assessing analytical skills in a pressured real-time environment. Below are several resources that may be helpful when preparing for a case interview.

• CaseInterview.com Free blog content, but registration required. Caters to aspiring management consultants. Founded by Victor Cheng, author of "Case Interview Secrets," who is a frequently cited expert on the case interview.
• Interview Preparation Tips (Bain) Includes case interview guidance.
• Practice Case Interviews (Boston Consulting Company) Reviews consulting interview process and tips.
• Preparing for the Case Interview (Deloitte) Deloitte's case interview prep tool allows you to practice problem-solving skills, analytical ability, and strategic and logical thinking.
• FirstHand (formerly Vault) Access provided by Boston University Career Center. Registration is required for first time users . Follow these steps to create your account: 1. Go to Firsthand and click " Get Started ". 2. Click on “ Register now ” at the bottom of the box. Enter your BU email address on the next page. Complete the registration process and then click “ Create Account ” to get started. 3. Click on the link Firsthand e-mails you to confirm your email address (this can take several minutes to process). Note : Firsthand will send you a follow up email to “complete your profile.” This is not required, and completely optional. Excellent resource on what it can be like to work within an industry, company, or profession. How to Find the Vault Guides and Rankings : Vault Guides are under “The Library .” Select The Library tab on the left side of the page, and you’ll see a link for Guides in the top navigation bar. Vault Rankings are under “Careers .” Select the Careers tab on the left side of the page to see rankings in various fields. The Careers tab also includes FirstHand Industries and Professions which include Industry profiles and Profession profiles.

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Strategy & BizOps Guide

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•      I. Case interviews
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Strategy & Biz Ops case interviews

What to expect, sample interview questions and 5 key tips to help you prepare..

Question bank | Full case examples | Prep tips

If you've ever been defeated by a case in a management consulting interview, know that many others, including me, have too.

The good thing about having been in those interviews is that you have experienced a case interview and have a sense of what a case interview looks and feels like. It's an experience that's to your advantage as you approach case interviews in strategy & operations (stratops) interviews.

The stratops case interview is an interactive conversation between you and your interviewer(s). To succeed, structuring your thoughts and thinking aloud are key. These help your interviewer understand your thinking pattern, especially how you prioritize, as many stratops case questions involve selecting the best path for a company from several competitive alternatives.

Similar to a consulting case, some stratops cases require developing a framework and structure with which to explore the issue faced by the company. Others, however, are free-form conversations. However, unlike consulting cases, Strategy & Business Operations cases are more specific to a company and their actual problems and are less likely to go into graphs, charts, and math. Below are some sample questions that demonstrate the types of cases you could get. These are company and industry agnostic so feel free to add in the additional lens of the company or industry you are applying to.

If this feels new to you, feel free to refer to the sample walkthroughs to get a sense of how to frame your thinking and your answer. There is no one answer but make sure to stay structured and answer all parts of the question.

Sample Strategy & BizOps case questions (Top)

Example question #1: our company is interested in investing more money in new online and offline marketing channels to drive growth. how would you go about determining how much to spend and evaluate the effectiveness of new campaigns, example question #2: we currently make operational and financial plans on an annual basis. however, we are hoping to start looking more long term and you have been asked to put together a 5 year and a 10 year forecast, what are the key metrics that you hope to forecast and how would you go about it, example question #3: our company currently works solely on a cost per click model where we make money every time a user clicks on a link to a client’s good. it is heavily dependent on user traffic and we are now thinking about building out new revenue models that would allow us to grow revenue. what are potential models you would suggest, what data do you need, and how would you go about making a decision, example question #4: our company is hoping to grow by moving more downstream of our existing product and owning more of the customer pipeline. to make the move, would you suggest a buy, build, partner or multi pronged strategy, example question #5: we currently have a large set of suppliers that we work with who do not all perform at the same level. moving forward, we hope to differentiate them by coming up with a global partner program to highlight our best partners. how would you go about implementing the program- sample walkthrough provided below., example question #6: our company is interested in opening a new office location with a physical building, how do you go about selecting the city, example question #7: we want to launch a new product but have not been able to find enough external data to help us size the market. what would be your plan of attack to help size the potential market and what types of customer tests would you build to help collect data, example question #8: after a reorg, you’ve been tasked with creating a cohesive team culture and bringing together the teams under one roadmap, what is the structure you would propose including meetings and materials for alignment, example question #9: the company has decided to invest more in competitive research and wants a regular review of the competitive landscape. how do you go about putting together the analysis and what information would you choose to bring in, example question #10: the company is hoping to establish a monthly business review to bring together leaders from different departments and review key metrics. your team has been tasked to take on the project and bring it to life. how would you set up a monthly business review what teams would you involve, what types of metrics would you track, and how would you go about presenting it to get buy in, example question #11: our company really values feedback from frontline teams that work with clients, however, there are too many pieces of data for any one person to sort. how do you go about collecting these ideas and completing the feedback loop to ensure that the ideas are getting to the right product teams and clients feel heard, example question #12: the sales team has been missing their targets for the last two quarters and you have been asked to dig into what could be going on. what are some of the key factors that you would look at to evalue where the problem is.

💡 Tip: Our biz ops interview prep can help

Full Strategy & BizOps case examples (Top)

Below, are answers to two Strategy & BizOps interview questions from Jessie Wang , a McKinsey Associate who previously managed strategy and analytics teams at Indeed and Expedia.

1. Our company is interested in investing more money in new online and offline marketing channels to drive growth. How would you go about determining how much to spend and evaluate the effectiveness of new campaigns?

Step 1: Understand our existing landscape

Key questions to ask:

• What channels do we use today?
• What is our channel mix? Are we focused on online (e.g. SEO, SEM, targeted ads etc) or are we primarily offline (e.g. radio, print etc.)?
• How are our current campaigns performing? How many new users are we acquiring? What is their average spend? How long are they spending with us? What is their overall lifetime value? What is the average ROI for our existing campaigns?

Step 2: Determining how much we should spend

• Meeting break even - We need to understand the customer lifetime value by different segments of customers. Customer segments could include customers by acquisition channel and then segmented for different geographies or campaigns. Once we know the average value the customer will generate in their lifetime, this is the max amount that we can spend to acquire them. The customer lifetime value can be thought about as how much the customer will spend with your company before they churn.
• Strategic value- We can also consider spending over the lifetime value of the customer if there are key competitors in the space or the market has significant market size that we want to go after. At this point, it is an investment.

Step 3: Evaluate the effectiveness

• An effective campaign is one where we have high ROI on customer spend compared to customer acquisition cost. We need to measure this on a per campaign level if possible. If attribution is too difficult at this level, we can also evaluate based on channel or at a geographic level.
• Other measures of success could include driving up the customer lifetime value over time if the campaign is bringing in better customers than what we have today.

Feel free to list the questions that you would need to answer to do more- Because you won’t know the ins and outs of the company, the expectation is more that you would know what questions you want to ask rather than come up with numbers or a correct answer. The interviewer will provide you with more information if they want you to provide more detailed analysis.

Make a primary recommendation and then add in secondary considerations- Your primary recommendation should be what you think the answer is but there are likely other considerations or risks that make your answer more holistic.

2. We currently have a large set of suppliers that we work with who do not all perform at the same level. Moving forward, we hope to differentiate them by coming up with a global partner program to highlight our best partners. How would you go about implementing the program?

Step 1: Understand the program value proposition

• Help us as a company prioritize the partners we should devote more time to and allow us incentivize good marketplace behaviors
• Help our customers understand which partners to work with and how they are performing as not all partners may be equal
• Help our partners gain more recognition and business by standing out from competitors

Step 2: Define the different approaches that we could take

• Tiered approach with guidelines and qualifications at each level
• Key questions to answer include: How often do we review performance and redefine tiers? What metrics do we measure? Do we need a different scale based on partner location, size, focus etc?
• Ranked approach based on a scoring rubric with a clear top and bottom
• Key questions to answer include: Are there enough differentiating characteristics? Does a hierarchy bring more value to the table or does it add confusion? Can all customers access all partners or do partners have specific focuses?
• Badging system for different qualifications
• Key questions to answer include: What are the badges worth including? What is the right number of badges? What scale or threshold should we set to receive a badge?

Step 3: Rollout and go to market

• Determining the criteria - First, we need to work with partners to determine the key criteria and make sure that differences in size, scope, geography are taken into account. These criteria and thresholds also need to be announced publicly to allow new entrants or people who are not our partners today a chance to participate.
• Grace period - After we have defined the criteria, we need to give partners time to meet the standards that we set before we announce.
• Pre-announcement - Before we go to launch, we should check with partners to ensure that there is alignment on the data and results of each criteria and that partners are aware of where they wil be in our partner program. This is also a chance to create joint marketing and communications around what the new title will mean.
• Announcement - Once we are live, we need to continue to update our partner program and create benefits to incentivize our partners to improve in the areas we want.

Relate this to what you know - If you’ve ever used a site like Poshmark or Amazon, you know that sellers often have differentiators that the platform has assigned based on their performance. Poshmark has Ambassadors and Amazon has Best Seller. While these examples may be more consumer focused, the intention is similar to hte partner program mentioned in this case so don’t be afraid to leverage what you may have seen work for other companies!

One step at a time - Candidates often jump to implementation without considering the purpose of the program and the different ways the program could work. By starting from the basic building blocks, it will give you better insights in your go to market strategy.

Case interview prep tips (Top)

Adequate preparation is essential to successfully scaling case questions during your interviews. As you navigate the interview process, these 5 tips will come in handy.

1. Practice, practice and practice

It is almost impossible to wing a case interview. Like Dave Chapelle recently said on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman on Netflix, "it's easy to do something if you've seen it before." A case interview is definitely not something you want to tackle in an interview the first time you see it.

2. Context matters

Case interviews at stratops interviews are nowhere near as difficult as those for management consulting interviews, as they are more straightforward and involve fewer twists than you'd see in a consulting case interview. In fact, while generalist consulting interviews may expect you not to be an expert in the field in which the case is set, for stratops interviews, many companies expect you to have knowledge of the business or industry in which they operate. There is only so much "creativity" you can show about a business for which you are unfamiliar before you end up completely in the weeds with no hope of redemption! Before your interview, get familiar with the industry - trends, challenges, key players - and find out who the company's direct competitors are.

3. Be organized

The interview may take twists and turns, and you will need to find your way back to where you started from to give a good summary and final recommendation. Typically, your responses to the initial case questions lead to subsequent questions. Figure out a system of compiling your responses to each section, so that you can give a cohesive and holistic final response. The worst thing you can do is to contradict your initial stance with your final response.

4. Engage your interviewer

Approach your interview as a conversation rather than as an exam. Have a back and forth going with your interviewer - ask clarifying questions and incorporate the interviewer's responses as you work through the case. Avoid getting into "exam mode" - working on your own and then presenting your interviewer with a final solution.

5. Quantitative skills are important

Depending on the company and the department in which the stratops role reports into, your case interview may include a quant assessment. It could be in the form of mental math questions or a request for you to demo your Excel or SQL capabilities. Brush up and get comfortable with your numbers prowess!

To wrap up, the case questions you can expect to receive during the interview will likely be around a current problem the company is facing - growth strategy case, new business or market entry or just about anything the interviewer feels would give a good sense of your stratops skills. While the difficulty level of the stratops cases is on the medium scale when compared with management consulting interviews, you should approach your preparation, and indeed your interview, with the same diligence and professionalism as you would a management consulting case interview!

P.S. Are you preparing for Strategy & BizOps interviews?

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Business case prep

Our interview process includes a total of three to four 45-minute interviews. Both sessions include a real-world case discussion that allows you to demonstrate your analytical skills. 

The business case is your opportunity to show us how you go about solving sophisticated business problems and how you structure your thoughts.

Here are some tips to help you do well in the business case interview:.

• Listen carefully; ask questions if there are any points you don’t understand.
• After the interviewer outlines the case parameters, summarize the case for the interviewer in your own words to confirm you understand the problem.
• Take a minute to think; don't be afraid of the silence.
• Find a way to structure the problem; this will guide your discussion with the interviewer. Briefly explain the framework you plan to use, giving the interviewer a chance to comment. In general, the simpler the framework, the better. Once the interviewer endorses your framework, stick to it.
• Start with the first element of your framework and work through the answer out loud so the interviewer can evaluate your analytical structure and help you along.
• Be aware of the time you have; move through your framework at a pace that allows you to touch on all the elements you described at the beginning.
• Pause every so often so your interviewer has a chance to course correct. If your interviewer gives you advice, take it – assume it’s intended to be helpful.
• Toward the end of the case discussion, be prepared to take a stand and make a recommendation. You might feel uncomfortable making a call with so little data and so little time to discuss all the issues. Remember that this is just an exercise. Make your recommendation based on the conclusions you were able to reach from your discussion.
• Be confident and – perhaps most important – relax and try to have some fun. You’ll feel more self-assured if you practice, practice, practice before the interview.
• You can get sample cases to practice on from the consulting club at your school. Don’t read the cases ahead of practicing – find a partner (ideally a second-year student who just completed a consulting internship) to test you. Don’t be embarrassed if you don't do well. No one performs well on all cases, especially in the beginning.

Remember, there is no single right way of answering a case. If you’ve shown your thought process and come to logical and reasonable conclusions, you will successfully " crack the case. "

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The number you see in the middle of the doughnut pie chart is the simple average of these scores. If you hover over the various sections of the donut, you will see the % breakdown of each score given.

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The number you see in the middle of the doughnut pie chart is the simple average of these scores. The higher the number, the more difficult the interviews on average. If you hover over the various sections of the doughnut, you will see the % breakdown of each score given.

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The % of Interns Getting a Full Time Offer chart is meant to provide a realistic estimate of the hiring practices of the company based on the reviews at this company.

The number you see in the middle of the doughnut pie chart is the simple average of these scores. If you hover over the various sections of the doughnut, you will see the % breakdown of each score given.

The percentile score in the title is calculated across the entire Company Database and uses an adjusted score based on Bayesian Estimates (to account for companies that have few reviews). Simply put, as a company gets more reviews, the confidence of a "true score" increases so it is pulled closer to the simple company average and away from the average of the entire data set.

Interviews at D.E. Shaw

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ZS Interview Experiences for Business Operations Associate

The overall interview experience was good, the interviewer was calm and composed.

Round 1: Case Study Round –

I was given an online platform and there was a case study problem to solve it I was given 1 hour and I had to upload the file within this time frame.

Round 2: De-briefing Round –

I was asked to explain my approach towards the round-1 case study.

Round3: HR + Behavioural

As this was my first interview, I was feeling nervous, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. This is because the HR who took my interview was very friendly throughout the interview. The interview started with an introduction of mine and continued with some guesstimate questions and puzzles and also resumed probing. I have answered most of the questions and was selected for the role.

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