Crack the Case Interviews
BWIB Professional Development
Overview
•
•
•
•
•
Purpose of Case Interviews
Types of Cases
Tips
Basic Concepts and Frameworks
Samples
Purpose of Case Interviews
• What’s a Case?
– A Case interview is the analysis of a business
question.
• Most of the interviews don’t have a specific answer
that you are expected to give. What the interviewer is
looking for is a thought process that is both analytical
and creative.
• You are expected to show them how logical, analytical,
and creative in your way of dealing with questions.
Purpose of Case Interviews
• What firms are looking for?
Types of Cases
• Brain Teasers or Guesstimates
• Business Cases
Types of Cases
• Brain Teasers or Guesstimates
– “What is the size of the skateboard market in the
U.S?”
– “How many watermelons are sold in the U.S each
year?”
• Responses should demonstrate
– Comfort with ambiguity
– Ability to structure
– Facility with numbers
– Poise
Types of Cases
• Business Cases
– Falling Profits Case: Ask you for the reason in dropping
profits.
– New Product Introduction: Ask you to recommend a
strategy for introducing a new product.
– Entering a new market: Ask you to analyze whether a
company should enter a new market or develop a new
line of products or services.
– Entering a new geographic market: Ask you to analyze
whether a company should expand into a new country
or region.
– Mergers and Acquisitions: Ask you to determine
whether a particular acquisition would be advisable.
Business Cases Cont.
– Competitive response case: Ask you to
recommend how your client should react to a
move by its competitor.
– Change in government/regulatory environment
• Responses should demonstrate
– Big picture perspective
– Ability to structure
– Broad functional skills
– Comfort with details, analysis
Tips
• Take notes
– The cases might be given in oral or written form. If it’s given
in oral form, you should definitely take notes. This means
that you should bring your own notepads and pens to the
interview, sometimes, it’s even god to bring some graphing
paper.
• Make no assumptions
– When you have a question, definitely ask them! Don’t make
assumptions that the interviewers do not explicitly say.
Also, remember that “not asking questions is a fatal error in
a case interview!”
• Listen to the answers you get
– Always remember not to get caught up in asking the perfect
questions and don’t listen to the answers you receive. Make
sure you respond to the information you receive and
incorporate it into your analysis.
Tips Cont.
• Maintain eye contact
– Eye contact demonstrates confidence and authority.
• Take your time
– It’s perfectly fine to take your time to think through your
answers, but remember to keep it short. You don’t want
your interviewer to wait for 5 minutes, when the case itself
is only 15-20 minutes.
• Lay out a road map for your interviewer and THINK
OUT LOUD!
• Quickly summarize your conclusions
– Think of it as doing a “60 second elevator pitch.” If you are
not comfortable with it, make sure your practice at home.
Tips Cont.
• Present your thinking in a clear, logical
manner. Where useful, use frameworks and
business concepts to organize your answer:
– In general, you will want to follow the following
steps; use certain business concepts when useful.
•
•
•
•
Understand the scope of the engagement
Pinpoint the objectives
Identify the key players
Work towards a recommendation
DON’TS!!!!
• Forget to conclude the case – regardless of
progress made or rime constraints
• Waffle or be indecisive
• Forget the original question
• Overly worry about basic math mistakes
• Get lost in the details
• Lose eye contact with your interviewer
• Keep your though processes to yourself
Statistics You SHOULD Know
Basic Frameworks
• Five Stages of a Business Case Scenario
– Confirm your understanding of Scenario (5%)
– Ask questions to obtain additional information
(10%)
– Develop your hypothesis and framework (10%)
– Work through the case (65%)
– Summarize and pull up (10%)
Basic Concepts For Starters
• Cost-benefit analysis
– Another way of saying “weigh the pros and cons” of a decision
before making a recommendation.
• Internal vs. external market factors
– Used most often why the case is about dropping profits.
• Fixed vs. variable costs
– When making decisions in the short run, only variable costs
should be considered since the company can’t change its fixed
costs in the short run. (Note: In the long run, nearly all costs
are variable, even things like rent. For example, over the long
run, the firm can move to smaller offices, or even to another
state or country with lower operating costs.)
• Opportunity cost:
– When analyzing a possible decision in a case interview, try to
examine all possible opportunity costs that the subject of the
case might incur by making or not making a particular decision.
Framework Examples: The “Three Cs”
Framework Examples: The “Four Ps”
Five Forces Market Analysis
Sample Guesstimate
• How many balls can fit into a Boeing 747?
Calculate Volume of a Golf Ball
Calculate Volume of 747
Calculate the Answer
Case Example