With new opportunities available at workplace, individuals who possess the right skills are in demand. The hiring managers often resort to various methods to determine suitability of candidates. To ascertain if a person fits the requirements, interviews are being conducted in different ways as per the job role. If you are looking forward to making a career in consulting industry, you are bound to come across case interviews. A case interview is a peculiar way used by management consulting firms to have a better screening of candidates. It helps them know their thought process and action plans in an articulate manner. These interviews usually focus on business problems and analyze the logical skills of a candidate. Here are a few points for facing a case interview.
Write down notes
As this is going to be a one-on-one interview, which requires extensive calculations, you might be given a pen and paper or a marker to present your logics and complex computations skills on the board. The will also test how good are you in communication. Taking notes can help you to remember all the key points the interviewer has said in the case question. Doing so will not raise the need to ask the same questions again and you will have sufficient data to understand the question.
Do not rely on assumptions
Most of the times, the queries asked in an interview are not hypothetical situations or something which the interviewer might have made up at the last moment. These questions are often real-life scenarios that might have occurred in the past and are designed to test your approach to the problem. Even if the interviewer might not give away the precise details, you should never start imagining extraordinary things. Understand the persona of your interviewer and make use of your notes to get more clarification on a point that you are not clear on.
Clarify your doubts by asking questions
The interviewers often purposefully leave the essential points to judge the candidates and determine if they have kept up with the spoken conversation. When given a chance to ask questions regarding the case, an individual must make full use of the opportunity to strike a conversation with the recruiter. You might be given a situation you have no idea about. Start by stating, “it looks like an interesting problem to solve” and go on delving to get the information that he/she might not have given you upfront. This is the time when you could put up sensible questions and turn an interview into an interactive discussion, thus involving the interviewer in the thought process.
Create your own approach to solve the problem
Even if you are excited and cannot wait to start solving the case, take a moment to recollect all the information you know and then decide on steps you will be taking to tackle it. Complement the interviewer for giving you the case problem, and break it down into parts. This will help you focus on each component and get to the root of the problem. By having a structural approach to the problem, you can identify the bottleneck and then easily connect the dots between different components to reach a solution.
Become efficient in dealing with numbers
The questions in such interviews are aimed at examining your talent to deal with stressful situations and decision-making power. While there is no perfect solution to the case question given to you, it is a test to know how good you are at making rough calculations and do you have a quantitative mind. The only way to sail through this part is to be excellent with the formulas and being proficient at doing mathematical calculations mentally. Note down the frequent formulas you will require to get a solution and do some advance preparation for fractional values and percentages. If you have written all the things on a paper or on the board, the interviewer will be in a better position to understand where you are heading and may even give out subtle hints to get you back on track.
Be loud with your thoughts
A case interview gives the individual a chance to represent his/her way of thinking. Hence, just don’t go on doing your paperwork until you reach the final answer. Make sure that the recruiter gets to know about your thinking process and ideas that cross your mind. It displays that you can rapidly put your thoughts rationally and logically. If you feel less confident to speak out your thoughts loud or unfortunately encountered a passive interviewer, try conversing with yourself as to what you would do when a certain situation arises. As you go on examining, analyzing, and compiling the solution, present your recommended solution in a logical manner.
The interviewers often have to deal with many applicants, and they give the same problem to a bunch of candidates. He/she might not have the time to go through the detailed explanation of all.
Mapping the given case situation right from the start to end will help you summarize things and provide an apt conclusion, raise a chance of employment with different types of job resume with all the guide lines at BSR.
