Interviewer-Led And Candidate-Led Interview: 5 Differences
Adapt your posture and ace the case.
Lead or be led
In order to assess your skills, the interviewer will come up with a simple business issue such as: “Our client is a diversified German chemical company that wants to expand into Asia. What should they do?”. Depending on the firm you’ll interview at, you might be asked to take the lead and conduct your own analysis. However, in some cases, you might be asked take a step back and answer the interviewer’s questions.
Candidate-Led
The candidate is given few information at the start of the case. As a result, the candidate has to lead the case by asking relevant questions, gathering information and analyzing the most crucial bits of the case. This type of case is mostly used at the Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company (and sometimes at McKinsey & Company). In order to ace candidate-led cases, one should:
- Be extremely structured — As the interviewer doesn’t disclose a lot of information, you’ll need to draw an issue tree right from the start. This tree should be mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive (MECE) and seek to gather as much information about the key elements of the case.
- Formulate own hypothesis and assumptions — As information is shared, the candidate is expected to test and voice his assumptions. These assumptions and hypotheses should always be supported by evidence from the case.
- Dive deeper into the analysis— While the candidate has to come up with a general roadmap and structure for the case, he should also be able to investigate in detail the areas he thinks are most important.
- Iterate and update — The candidate should be able to update his structure as he gets new information from the interviewer. Previous assumptions should be reviewed and the original tree should be completed. At all time, the candidate has to make sure he doesn’t loose the bigger picture of the case.
Start by drawing an issue tree. Then, formulate your questions and develop your own hypothesis and assumptions as information is shared. End with a powerful recommendation that uses the most important elements of the case.
Interviewer-Led
The interviewer states a clear problem and shares data as the case goes on. The candidate’s analysis is important but may sometimes not be taken into account as the interviewer hands over new data points (tables, graphs). Most important is the candidate’s ability to deal with new insights and information. This type of case is mostly used at McKinsey & Company. In order to ace interviewer-led cases, one should:
- Manage data flows — The candidate might be overwhelmed with new graphs, tables and other information bits. Great candidates manage to link these together while keeping the big picture in mind.
- Lead — Being led by the interviewer doesn’t mean that the candidate can relax and enjoy the ride. The candidate should always keep the main issue of the case in mind and evaluate how the new information she acquires can help solve the case.
- Handle pressure — The interviewer's new information and specific questions might put the candidate off-track. The candidate should thus demonstrate that she is able to manage pressure by keeping track of the whole case, carefully noting down new information, provide answers to the specific questions and update the whole structure as new information comes in.
- Mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive — The structure you’ll design should present as little overlap as possible while covering the most important aspects of the case. This is the logic of the MECE approach. The candidate should be able to break the problem and information into several components that do not present redundancies and similarities with each other.
- “What else?” — On top of this, the candidate should be able to answer “what else”, “tell me more” and “explain in further details” - type of questions. The candidate should thus manage to stay calm, look at her analysis and provide additional insights to the interviewer.
An interviewer-led case puts the focus on handling new information and specific questions. The candidate should thus be able to streamline the information into exclusive buckets of information while coming up with answers and solutions to the bigger issue the case is trying to solve.
Credits
This article was built on great insights and articles from MyConsultingCoach, CaseInterview.com, and PrepLounge. Make sure you check these out!
