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While most students have experienced a traditional interview by the time they enter college, very few have participated in a case interview. Though commonly used by management consulting companies, case interviews are also used across a variety of industries hiring for roles that call for sharp analytical thinking skills.

Although standard interview questions allow you to talk about how you use your skills to solve problems, case interviews allow you to demonstrate your abilities first hand, often through a case study that is a realistic preview of the problems you will be tasked with solving in the job you are interviewing for. While reaching a correct and plausible solution is important in case interviews, there is a heavy emphasis on the decision making process and how the presented solution is reached.  

Case interviews often fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between candidate-led and interviewer-led cases. In a candidate-led case, the candidate has a fair amount of independence in approaching the case, with minimal intervention on the interviewer’s part in terms of questioning the candidate’s approach or presenting new mini-problems to solve. The opposite is true with interviewer-led cases, during which it is more important to solve the smaller problems that the interviewer presents well, with less of a focus on the larger solution. However, since most case studies fall somewhere in the middle of the two, it is necessary to find a good balance between answering the larger solution and answering the interviewer’s questions. 

There are three main components that are going to be evaluated during a case interview: math skills, problem solving techniques, and business intuition. Developing and training all three of these skills is the main way to prepare for case interviews. The first, math skills, are not usually going to be the focal point of an interview, but are necessary in analyzing the data the interviewer gives. Typically, there will be nothing too complicated and calculations will be fairly reasonable, although sometimes using large numbers and percent change. 

The second component is using the proper framework or problem solving techniques that are commonly used in the consulting world. This is likely the most unfamiliar, but also the most trainable skill out of the three. It involves breaking down surface level problems into smaller categories where you hypothesize where the root of the problem may be. For example, in a case about falling profits, you may separate revenue and costs into different potential sources of the problem. Then, delve further into revenue, until you either arrive at the segment of what seems to be the root cause of falling profits, or conclude that the problem is somewhere within the costs segment you have established. Using these techniques is the “process” that is valued so highly in case interviews, as it allows the interviewer to see how you think and your approach to solving problems. In order to improve these techniques, research practice case interviews or perform mock ones when possible, as once you have techniques down case interviews become a lot more approachable. 

The third component is business intuition, which involves understanding different industries and finding creative solutions to problems, for example being able to understand some of the factors that are driving change in the music industry to come up with a solution to increase revenue. Business intuition is likely the hardest of the three components to train and can be improved by gaining a better context of issues facing common industries and understanding strategies companies use to solve internal issues. 

If you are interested in practicing the case interview method, there are several resources online or through the Career Center’s Big Interview tool.