The case interview A way to assess decision-making skills

The case bewerberinterview A way to assess decision-making skillsThe case interview A way to assess decision-making skillsIn a classical job interview, the interviewer asks you questions about your previous career experiences. The thinking is that a track record of past performance is a likely indicator of future performance. However, some employers have discovered that resumes might include Ford Motor Company just announced a $200 million financial loss. How do you get the company back to being profitable? Amazon.com is considering a $1 billion investment to roll out drone-based package delivery. What factors should they consider in making this decision? What do you recommend they do?During the case, you are expected to ask questions to gather data relevant to the situation, analyze the data, and arrive at a client recommendation. By the end of the case interview, youre expected to present your recommendation along with the facts, figures, and evidence youve gathered that support yo ur conclusion.If your recommendation isnt based on the data you requested and hopefully analyzed, you dont pass. If your recommendation is contradicted by the facts of the situation, you dont pass. If the logic of your conclusion has holes and flaws, you dont pass. If you overlooked a key factor and never considered it, you also dont pass.As someone who has taught over 90% of the new consultants at McKinsey, Bain Company, and Boston Consulting Group how to tackle the case interview, here are a few strategies for how to do your best1) Develop and communicate a problem-solving plan. Organize or structure your approach before you dive into the details. If youre analyzing a company thats losing money, you might say, First, Id abflug by gathering data on the companys revenues to see whether theyve decreased. Second, I would analyze the companys expenses to see whether they have increased. Doing so demonstrates youre able to plan your work before you start. In real life, consulting firms dont give you a blank check to consume unlimited amounts of a clients resources. Engagement managers want you to have a work plan before they authorize travel or allocation of billable hours.2) Use a hypothesis to solve problems more efficiently. If the interviewer asks, Should client X make investment Y? you could easily ask a million questions. A faster and more cost-efficient way to solve client problems is to use hypothesis statement like this Well, lets assume Y is a good idea. What factors would have to be true for that hypothesis statement to be valid? Well, I can think of three factors that must be true for Y to be a good idea The hypothesis forces you to consider the most vital factors, while ignoring the hundreds of other factors that arent remotely as important.3) Think out loud. The only way the interviewer can assess your thinking process is if you reveal it to them. The interviewer is more interested in how you arrived at a conclusion than the conclusion itself. If yo u use a thinking process thats linear, logical, and analytical during a case interview, youre very likely to use the exact same process in a client engagement. If you come up with ideas seemingly out of nowhere, thats a highly unpredictable thinking process that makes consulting firms extremely nervous. The only way for them to tell which kind of thinking process you use is to think out loud.Employing these strategies, youll deliver your best possible case performance. This will give the employer a chance to see if youre a good fit for their firm. The case interview also gives you a chance to see if you would enjoy the kind of work that consultants at that firm face every day.Victor Cheng, a former McKinsey consultant and case interviewer, is the author of Case Interview Secrets. Hes also the founder of CaseInterview.com.