If you're a business-school student -- at the undergraduate or MBA level -- chances are you already know something about how

to handle a very specialized kind of job interview -- the case interview. Many business-school courses revolve around case analysis, and many business students have become pros at picking business cases apart. Still, the thought of doing so within a tight time-frame (usually 15-20 minutes) in the already highly pressured situation of a job interview can be daunting -- if not downright terrifying. The case interview is employed primarily by management-consulting firms, as well as investment-banking companies, and is increasingly being used by other types of corporations as at least part of the job-interviewing process. Some firms use case interviews only for MBA-level job candidates, while others use them for undergraduates, as well. Business students who are not totally comfortable with case analysis and liberal-arts students with little or no exposure to the case method can take comfort in knowing that a vast collection of resources is available, both on and off the Internet, to tell you everything you need to know to succeed in a case interview. We'd be foolish to try to reinvent any of that great resource material, so the purpose of this article is to give you a brief overview of the case-interview process. We then provide a sampling of excellent resources to help you delve further into this tricky interviewing mode. Perhaps most helpful are the resources provided by companies who actually conduct case interviews. There's nothing like going to the source when you want to know what your interview will be like. To invoke a definition of the case interview offered by MIT's Careers Handbook, it's an interview in which "you are introduced to a business dilemma facing a particular company. You are asked to analyze the situation, identify key business issues, and discuss how you would address the problems involved." Case interviews are designed to scrutinize the skills that are especially important in management consulting and related fields: quantitative skills, analytical skills, problem-solving ability, communications skills, creativity, flexibility, the ability to think quickly under pressure, listening skills, business acumen, keen insight, interpersonal skills, the ability to synthesize findings, professional demeanor, and powers of persuasion. Above all, the firm will be looking for someone who can do the real work at hand. Management-consulting companies, for example, want to know that you are the kind of person who can make a good impression on clients. Describing a presentation on case interviewing given at Columbia University by representatives of McKinsey and Company, Jim Oh notes that consulting firms value case interviews because "there is no right background for consulting. Consulting requires working in unfamiliar territories, thinking on your feet, and performing in situations where you never have enough time." Experts agree on many of the fine points for approaching case interviews: y Practice extensively before undergoing a case interview. Use books and Web sites in our resources section for practice cases. Some companies that use case interviews provide good information on their own Web sites. Boston Consulting Group, for example, provides an interactive case you can work through for practice, as well as additional cases you can rehearse with friends. Vault.com, which has some of the best resources on the Internet regarding case interviewing, suggests starting out by practicing explaining something like how to change a tire. Move on to assessing a situation for friends or family members, such as which bank they should choose for a checking account. In all cases, try to avoid "um's" and other filler words. Practice summarizing in a minute or less, advises Vault.com. Boston Consulting Group notes that Harvard Business School produces numerous case studies that can be used for practice; the studies are likely available in your business-school or career-services library. Other experts suggest talking to alumni from your school or others who've been through a case interview, as well as reading business magazines and periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal to get a sense of how companies deal with the kinds of issues likely to be asked about in case interviews. Some universities offer case interview workshops. y Listen carefully to the question. Paraphrase it back to the interviewer to ensure your understanding. As StudentAdvantage.com puts it in its article on case interviewing, "Listening is the most important skill a consultant has. The case isn't about you or the consultant; it's about the client." You may also want to take notes; in most cases the interviewer will allow you to do so. Vault.com suggests bringing not only a pad of paper but a pad of graph paper in case you want to create a graph as part of your conclusion.

Silence -- but not too much of it -- is golden. The interviewer expects you to take a minute or so to collect your thoughts, so don't be afraid of silence. It's a nice idea, however, to ask the interviewer if it's OK to take a moment to ponder the case. And don't take too much time. Experts agree that five minutes would be excessive. Remember that rarely is there one "right" answer for analyzing a case. Your process for reaching your conclusions is equally important to the interviewer as is the conclusion itself. In fact, the interviewer wants to observe as much of that process as possible, so it's important -- once you've taken the time to gather your thoughts -- to "think out loud" as you're working through the case. Although there is probably not one right answer, the McKinsey representative who spoke at Columbia warns against "wrong approaches," including "ignoring or forgetting important facts, defending impossible ideas, and force-fitting the wrong structure onto a problem." Don't be afraid to ask questions. The case interview is meant to be interactive, with lots of back and forth between you and the interviewer. Questions are expected, especially because the information provided about the case will likely be incomplete. The interviewer will be looking at your resourcefulness in collecting information. Make sure you ask your questions in a logical -- not random -- progression. Vault.com notes that it's helpful to adopt "the persona of an actual consultant trying to learn about the assignment" and warns that failing to ask questions is a fatal error in the case interview. Be sure, also, to listen carefully to the answers to your questions. And don't get rattled if the interviewer wants to know why you want the information you're asking for. It's all part of understanding your thought process. Construct a logical framework with which to explore the critical issues of the case. Many of the principles you learned in business school can serve as a framework. Examples include Porter's Five Forces, the SWOT analysis, Value Chain Analysis, and the Four P's of marketing. If you have some business experience, you can can also draw on applicable situations you've encountered. Make sure your conclusion is grounded in action, not just theory. Be able to explain and defend your reasoning. Prioritize the issues and objectives. Don't get bogged down trying to deal with every aspect of the case. As you ask questions, you should be able to pick up clues as to which issues are most important. Some of those clues might be meant to lead you back on track if you've gone astray, so be sure to listen carefully. If direction is not forthcoming, don't be afraid to take control of the conversation, advises Vault.com, to get to the meat of the case. Don't be afraid to think outside the box. Creativity and brainstorming may be just what the interviewer is looking for.

Some of the standard advice about case interviews is the same advice that applies to any kind of interview: y y y Maintain eye contact. Eye contact will help you engage the interviewer, establish rapport, and contribute to the interactivity of the interview. Project confidence. Your ability to work the case confidently, without getting flustered or frustrated, is key. Demonstrate your enthusiasm. Behaving as though you feel it's fun to tackle this kind of problem is integral to showing how well you'd fit in as a consultant or whatever position you're interviewing for. Assure your interviewer though your enthusiastic demeanor that you are exactly the kind of person he or she would enjoy working with.

Types of case questions: y y y y y y y Calculation/estimation/guesstimate/numerical/market sizing case Problem case Probing case Business operations case Business strategy case Resume case (case based on a company at which you worked) Brainteaser/logical puzzle/IQ question

Questions for the company What challenges or needs did the client face in their industry that led them to look for a solution like yours? This question can help to identify the problems the client faced which drove them to look for a new solution. Finding out why a client was dissatisfied with their prior solution, will help to build a compelling before and after narrative for the case study. As good follow up question is to ask about the requirements the client was looking for in a new solution. During the implementation of the solution what problems developed and how did you work with the client to solve these problems? Aside from the initial problems, it s also important to highlight challenges that occurred during the implementation of the solution. Integrating a new products or services into a business is never simple, and this allows the company to illustrate their high level of customer service, technical support and critical problem solving. Providing examples of how the company can solve problems and move ahead, will eliminate the reader s fears and anxieties about implementing a new solution. Questions for the client Describe your selection process and what you found most attractive about the company and its solution? It s helpful to know how the relationship came about. Did the client send out RFPs, did they evaluate 10 potential solutions before choosing this one? A case study writer can tranform this kind of information to make the company look like the top competitor in its market. Asking what the client found most attractive about the company s solution, will get the client to state their goals, or what pressure points they wanted to address with the company s solution. What business processes does this solution enhance and how much does it reduce the cost to complete these particular processes? How much time does the solution save your employees? This question will help the writer determine exactly how the solution is being used by the client and which areas of the business it affects most. The second part of this question, asking about time and cost, will hopefully generate some qualitative results, or benefits, such as increased productivity lower costs, and less opportunity costs. These answers will add a deeper story line to the case study, beyond the hard-number results such as return on investment or gross revenue. What are three words that describe your experience working with this company and why would you recommend this company s solution to your peers? I don t know how many times I ve heard We re very satisfied with the solution, from a client during a case study interview. To avoid getting this canned response, ask for three words to describe their experience working with the company. This should give them pause to stop and think, and generate a fresher testimonial. Asking if the client would recommend the company or solution to peers can help provide a response that s aligned with the reader s needs. For example, the client might answer I would recommend this solution to companies seeking a competitively priced software provider with great customer service. The next time your company embarks on a case study be sure the writing process involves conducting blog interviews on the company side and the client side. Case studies built on targeted interview questions like the examples above, will result in a more valuable content marketing asset.

If you are going to apply to a consulting company, it's very likely that they will give you a case study interview. This consists of giving you a problem and you trying to think and organize a solution. Microsoft Tech Case Study Interview
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Design a kitchen for people in wheelchairs: Barrier Free Kitchen Design - good intuitive advice, must have enough space between the cabinets and island to manuever a wheelchair, o three basic activity centers: stove/cooktop/oven, fridge and freezer, sink/dishwasher o must have enough space between the cabinets and island to maneuver a wheelchair o must have lots of knee space! under the sink, preparation space o lowered countertops o cooktop controls should be mounted on the front o oven should be on the ground o cabinets should be on the ground, roll out cabinets o more storage space: lazy susan corner cabinets

Deloitte Case Interview Workshop notes Business Case Interview Skills needed to think through a Business Case:
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Logical/Analytical Thought process Communication Creativity Business insight Ability to sort through extraneous information Ability to come to a concise and clear recommendation Organizational skills Working under pressure

Types of Business Cases:

Market Sizing: aka ESTIMATE! i.e. "How much paint would you need to paint a fleet of navy airships?" o Example: "How many golf balls are made in the US per year?" 1. What is the number of golfers in US? There are 250 million people in the US and let s say 20% of them golf. That makes for 50 million golfers. 2. What is the number of balls each golfer uses? Let s say each golfer uses about 2-3 balls per round of golf. 3. What is the number of rounds they play per year? Let s say each golfer plays about 10 rounds per year. 4. Therefore you have about 1,500,000,000 golf balls in the US General Business: analyze common business issues i.e. "Where should we relocate?" o Example: "We are a customer support call center for Blah Computers. Our costs are increasing, what should we do?" 1. Some things to think about would be profit/loss margin, N-tier architecture, people costs, server costs (i.e. powering the servers themselves and the cooling A/C systems for the servers), resource leveling 2. People costs: how much does it cost to maintain the servers with our people? Staffing issues: are they inexperienced, do they need better training, is it taking them too long to fix things, are they not happy with their jobs? 3. Server issues: maybe we need to upgrade our servers to newer, faster better servers to reduce the number of servers it takes to solve a problem.

4. Architecture issues: maybe the way the calls are being directed to the wrong people (i.e. better allocation of human resources), too much traffic to one specific group Brain Teasers: test your creativity i.e. "Why are manhole covers round?"

Approach: 1. Understand the problem 2. Obtain more information ask questions to gain clarity 3. Analyze the case and structure your thoughts, use a framework. o Porter s 5 Forces 1. Barriers of Entry 2. Threat of Substitution 3. Industry Competition 4. Buyer Power 5. Supplier Power o SWOT 1. Strenghts 2. Weaknesses 3. Opportunities 4. Threats o Four C's 1. Customers 2. Costs 3. Competitors 4. Capabilities o Four P's 1. Product 2. Price 3. Promotion 4. Place 4. Present a conclusion 5. Recommend a solution, present your insight. Timeline: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Breaking the Ice (1-5mins) Instructions, overview & approach (5mins) Overview of the Case (3-5mins) Nature of the Problem (3-5mins) - take fewer, important notes Ask questions! (5-15mins) Time to structure thoughts (5-10mins) - pictures/diagrams are good! Present recommendations (10mins) - collect your ideas, use an outline Follow-up questions (3-5mins) - how did you pick your framework? your solution?

Example 1: Drugs R'US and DrugCo Drugs R US is a large pharmaceutical drug producing company, sized at about 5000 employees. Drugs R US plans to buy a smaller company called DrugCo, which as roughly 300 employees and specializes in producing athletic sports drinks and other energy drinks. Drugs R US uses an industry standard online website frontend for its customers called ePharma and for its servers it uses an industry standard Oracle database. DrugCo uses all homegrown (custom-made) programs and web applications to manage its inventory and servers. Would it be worthwhile for Drugs R US to acquire DrugCo? (no right or wrong answer) Things to think about:

What section of the market does DrugCo cover? What kind of globalization does DrugCo achieve and what markets are there to gain with acquiring DrugCo (i.e. let s say DrugCo exports most of its products to Canada and Asia to be sold while Drugs R US holds a large market sector of pharmaceutical drugs in the US) Where is DrugCo situated, where are their locations? Would DrugCo have to move its people to Drugs R US locations or could they stay where they are? What would the cost be associated to relocating all of their employees? Would DrugCo be willing to uproot itself if it were a core job supplier in the local townships? Would it be more efficient/cheaper/better to impose the industry standards on the entire DrugCo company or would it be better to keep the two companies systems separate or would it be better to keep them separate but build and develop a program that would bridge the two systems (i.e save DrugCo s information in Drugs R US systems as well as its own)? What would the costs be associated to each of these three options? What kinds of products does Drugs R US specialize in? Would it be more profitable to develop and market their own sports drinks or to buy the patents/formulas from DrugCo or to buy the entire DrugCo company itself? Costs for each option? Are there any other industry standard systems that are easy, simple, and cheap to implement on both DrugCo and Drugs R US? Is DrugCo s homegrown system better than Drugs R US? Should Drugs R US try to implement the homegrown system? would you research to predict trends in gas prices?

Example 2: What Things to think about:

Current Trends: look at current and expected gas prices/price per barrel in the market Consumer Trends in the market: are more people buying more gas-friendly cars? Are there more hybrid/electric/alternative fuel cars in the market Global: Look at foreign policy, trade embargoes, tension with countries that are main exporters of oil (i.e. are we at WAR with OPEC nations?) Government policy: are they imposing new restrictions for carbon emissions and MPG? Are they restricting/promoting oil drilling in remote locations?

Client Goal: Should Great Burger acquire Heavenly Donuts as part of its growth strategy? Our client is Great Burger (GB) a fast food chain that competes head to-head with McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, KFC, etc. Description of Great Burger GB is the fourth largest fast food chain worldwide, measured by the number of stores in operation. As most of its competitors do, GB offers food and "combos" for the three largest meal occasions: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Even though GB owns some of its stores, it operates under the franchising business model with 85 percent of its stores owned by franchisees (individuals own and manage stores, pay franchise fee to GB, but major business decisions (e.g., menu, look of store) controlled by GB). McKinsey study As part of its growth strategy GB has analyzed some potential acquisition targets including Heavenly Donuts (HD), a growing doughnut producer with both a U.S. and international store presence. HD operates under the franchising business model too, though a little bit differently than GB. While GB franchises restaurants, HD franchises areas or regions in which the franchisee is required to open a certain number of stores. GB's CEO has hired McKinsey to advise him on whether they should acquire HD or not. QUESTION 1 What areas would you want to explore to determine whether GB should acquire HD? ANSWER 1 Some possible areas are given below. Great job if you identified several of these and perhaps others. y o o o o o y o o o y o o y o o Stand alone value of HD Growth in market for doughnuts HD's past and projected future sales growth (break down into growth in number of stores, and growth in same store sales) Competition are there any other major national chains that are doing better than HD in terms of growth/profit. What does this imply for future growth? Profitability/profit margin Capital required to fund growth (capital investment to open new stores, working capital) Synergies/strategic fit Brand quality similar? Would they enhance or detract from each other if marketed side by side? How much overlap of customer base? (very little overlap might cause concern that brands are not compatible, too much might imply little room to expand sales by cross-marketing) Synergies (Hint: do not dive deep on this, as it will be covered later) Management team/cultural fit Capabilities/skills of top, middle management Cultural fit, if very different, what percent of key management would likely be able to adjust Ability to execute merger/combine companies GB experience with mergers in past/experience in integrating companies Franchise structure differences. Detail dive into franchising structures. Would these different structures affect the deal? Can we manage two different franchising structures at the same time?

The team started thinking about potential synergies that could be achieved by acquiring HD. Here are some key facts on GB and HD. Exhibit 1 Stores Total North America Europe Asia Other Annual growth in stores Financials Total store sales Parent company revenue Key expenses (% sales) Cost of sales Restaurant operating costs Restaurant property & equipment costs Corporate general & administrative costs Profit as % of sales Sales/stores Industry average

GB 5,000 3,500 1,000 400 100 10% GB $5,500m $1,900m

HD 1,020 1000 20 0 0 15% HD $700m $200m

51% 24% 4.6% 8% 6.3% $1.1m $0.9m

40% 26% 8.5% 15% 4.9% $0.7m $0.8m

QUESTION 2 What potential synergies can you think of between GB and HD? ANSWER 2 We are looking for a few responses similar to the ones below: y o o o Lower costs Biggest opportunity likely in corporate selling, general, and administrative expenses (SG&A) by integrating corporate management May be some opportunity to lower food costs with larger purchasing volume on similar food items (e.g., beverages, deep frying oil), however overlaps may be low as ingredients are very different GB appears to have an advantage in property and equipment costs which might be leveragable to HD (e.g., superior skills in lease negotiation)

y o o o

Increase revenues Sell doughnuts in GB stores, or some selected GB products in HD stores GB has much greater international presence thus likely has knowledge/skills to enable HD to expand outside of North America GB may have superior skills in identifying attractive locations for stores as its sales per store are higher than industry average, whereas HD's is lower than industry average; might be able to leverage this when opening new HD stores to increase HD average sales per store Expand HD faster than it could do on own GB, as a larger company with lower debt, may have better access to capital
QUESTION 3 The team thinks that with synergies, it should be possible to double HDs U.S. market share in the next 5 years, and that GBs access to capital will allow it to expand the number of HD stores by 2.5 times. What sales per store will HD require in 5 years in order for GB to achieve these goals? Use any data from Exhibit 1 you need, additionally, your interviewer would provide the following assumptions for you:

y y

Doughnut consumption/capita in the U.S. is $10/year today, and is projected to grow to $20/year in 5 years. For ease of calculation, assume U.S. population is 300m. ANSWER 3 You should always feel free to ask your interviewer additional questions to help you with your response. Possible responses might include the following:

y y y y

Market share today: $700M HD sales (from Exhibit 1) $3B U.S. market ($10 x 300M people) = 23% (round to 25% for simplicity sake) U.S. market in 5 years = $20 x 300 = $6B HD sales if double market share: 50% x $6B = $3B Per store sales: $3B/2.5 (1000 stores) = $1.2M Does this seem reasonable?

Yes, given it implies less than double same store sales growth and per capita consumption is predicted to double. QUESTION 4 One of the synergies that the team thinks might have a big potential is the idea of increasing the businesses' overall profitability by selling doughnuts in GB stores. How would you assess the profitability impact of this synergy? ANSWER 4 Be sure you can clearly explain how the assessment you are proposing would help to answer the question posed. Some possible answers include:

y y

y y

y y

Calculate incremental revenues by selling doughnuts in GB stores (calculate how many doughnuts per store, times price per doughnut, times number of GB stores) Calculate incremental costs by selling doughnuts in GB stores (costs of production, incremental number of employees, employee training, software changes, incremental marketing and advertising, incremental cost of distribution if we cannot produce doughnuts in house, etc.) Calculate incremental investments. Do we need more space in each store if we think we are going to attract new customers? Do we need to invest in store layout to have in-house doughnut production? If your answer were to take into account cannibalization, what would be the rate of cannibalization with GB offerings? Doughnut cannibalization will be higher with breakfast products than lunch and dinner products, etc. One way to calculate this cannibalization is to look at historic cannibalization rates with new product/offering launchings within GB stores Might also cannibalize other HD stores if they are nearby GB storecould estimate this impact by seeing historical change in HDs sales when competitor doughnut store opens nearby

QUESTION 5 What would be the incremental profit per store if we think we are going to sell 50,000 doughnuts per store at a price of $2 per doughnut at a 60 percent margin with a cannibalization rate of 10 percent of GB's sales? Exhibit 2

Sales and profitability per store Units of GB sold per store Sales price per unit Margin Units of HD sold in GB stores Sales price per unit Margin Cannibalization rate of HD products to GB products
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300 thousand $3 per unit 50 percent 50 thousand $2 per unit 60 percent 10 percent

ANSWER 5 While you may find that doing straightforward math problems in the context of an interview is a bit tougher, you can see that it is just a matter of breaking the problem down. We are looking at both your ability to set the analysis up properly and then do the math in real time. Based on correct calculations, your response should be as follows: Incremental profit = contribution from HD sales less contribution lost due to cannibalized GB sales = 50K units x $2/unit x 60% margin 300K units x 10% cannibalization x $3/unit x 50% margin = $60K 45K = 15K incremental profit/store

QUESTION 6 You run into the CEO of GB in the hall. He asks you to summarize McKinseys perspective so far on whether GB should acquire HD. Pretend the interviewer is the CEOwhat would you say? ANSWER 6 You may have a slightly different list. Whatever your approach, we love to see candidates come at a problem in more than one way, but still address the issue as directly and practically as possible. Answers may vary, but here is an example of a response:

y o

o y y

Early findings lead us to believe acquiring HD would create significant value for GB, and that GB should acquire HD Believe can add $15 thousand in profit per GB store by selling HD in GB stores. This could mean $50 million in incremental profit for North American stores (where immediate synergies are most likely given HD has little brand presence in rest of world) We also believe there are other potential revenue and cost synergies that the team still needs to quantify Once the team has quantified the incremental revenues, cost savings, and investments, we will make a recommendation on the price you should be willing to pay We will also give you recommendations on what it will take to integrate the two companies in order to capture the potential revenue and cost savings, and also to manage the different franchise structures and potentially different cultures of GB and HD