One important thing to note: To ultimately be successful in management consulting, there’s a way of thinking and approaching problems that’s highly valued.

For example, if you work in a top consulting firm and you’re very good at thinking analytically and thinking logically, you’re going to do well. You’re going to get promoted in those firms, particularly if you can prove your ability to think and communicate in a way that’s very client-friendly. You want clients to like and respect you.

A case interview basically is a simulation of that skillset, and that’s what the interviewer is trying to see.

Now, there’s a common mistake that many interviewers complain about. I see a lot of candidates make this mistake. They forget that the interview is a simulation of the real job.

They think the interview is some arbitrary, sadistic, mental exercise designed to torture candidates. It’s just something that you have to pass in order to do the real work. In reality, the case interview is a simulation, a time-compressed version of the real work. Stop and look at everything that you do in a case interview. Focus on how it translates into actual client work.

Another mistake I see a lot of candidates make is that they try to memorize case interview frameworks.

You’ll see lots of frameworks out there, including my own. Be careful with them. The value of a framework is to learn how to think analytically while solving certain kinds of business problems.

When you get good, you don’t want to follow the framework to the letter. You want to understand the underlying principles behind the framework and then apply them in a custom manner to the business problem that you’re facing in the case interview.

Frameworks are like recipes. The interviewers do not want you to memorize the recipe and just recall it during the case interview. This is not a memory recall assessment. It is a way-of-thinking skill assessment.

What the interviewer wants you to do is to use the underlying principles of analytical thinking and apply them to the specific situation. If chefs had a case interview process, they wouldn’t be asked to recall a specific recipe. They would be asked to cook something given particular ingredients.

You can’t use a memorized recipe because the scenario is too specific. It doesn’t matter which recipe you happened to memorize. But, if you know how to cook, you know that cooking has certain principles.

You always need heat. You always need some kind of oil or fat to cook in. You some kind of seasoning. You need a base ingredient like meat or a particular vegetable. You need accent flavors, such as herbs and seasonings.

Just as there are underlying principles behind cooking, there are underlying principles to analyzing business problems.

The key is to learn from the frameworks, see underlying insights, understand why they work and the purpose behind them, and then ultimately ignore the frameworks, create your own, or modify them to fit a specific situation.

I’ll give you a great example. I have many students who say that they memorize all of my frameworks. They practice them a lot, and somewhere in the practicing process, usually around 30 to 50 hours in, something clicks for them.

They finally get why the framework exists. Then, they throw away the frameworks entirely and they start to just think their way through these case situations. I had that personal experience. I have many students who got multiple offers from multiple firms. The top firms express this sentiment as well.

Again, the key thing is that it’s not a framework memorization test. It is a test to assess the way that you think.

The frameworks are a common approach to thinking. But, you don’t want to use them verbatim. Some frameworks don’t always apply to the specific situation that the interview is presenting. In other words, the frameworks are very general and very broad. The problems you’re being presented with are usually more specific.

It’s important that you aren’t overly attached to the framework. Rather, you need to understand why the framework exists so that you can gather certain kinds of data that are relevant. As you figure out what data is relevant, you have a better idea of what’s going on. Once you reach that stage, you can better understand which parts of the framework don’t apply.

So, that’s important to realize.

In terms of practice, you need to practice a lot. You need to practice the case process individually and with somebody else if you can. Try to find a case interview partner or a case interview coach because there is a social aspect of the case interview.

Frankly, it’s a little bit stressful.

For example, there’s math in case interviews. If I give you a math question, say, “What’s four plus four?” You know it’s eight. But, if I give you a more complex math problem, and I stare at you while you solve it, you may feel a little self-conscious.

You have someone trying to make eye contact with you. You’re trying to maintain a dialogue while doing analytical work. It’s more difficult.

It’s important that you practice this social aspect. Interviewers will ask you questions. They’ll challenge you. They’ll disagree with you. They’ll ask if you are sure about that answer. They’ll give you a new piece of information. It’s very interactive.

It’s important that you practice that interactive aspect of the case interview. You need to be accustomed to receiving questions, prompts, interruptions, and new data. You have to be able to have a dialogue, much like you would if you were working with a client.

Clients ask you questions. Clients interrupt you. Clients say, “Well, there’s this other piece of information. Have you thought about that?” Then, you have to incorporate it in real time.

This is all a simulation of interacting with clients.

The key things to understand are the basics of a case: the categories of cases, the frameworks, and how to approach certain cases, then practice them a lot.

As you get good with the frameworks, you can be less reliant on them. That would be ideal.

Interviewers often complain that too many candidates asked them the same exact questions that are listed on the framework.

These candidates aren’t actually listening to the answers that they are getting from the interviewer. They get new data and information, but they aren’t changing their line of questioning.

Adjusting your line of questioning based on new information is a vital skill to demonstrate in a case interview. Here’s why:

If you present a question to a client, they give you data, then you ask questions that do not reflect the new data, the client would think you’re playing dumb. They may think that you’re not paying attention to them, and they may be quite offended.

In the case interview, the framework helps you get started on the case. It’s very useful for the first few minutes. But, it becomes less useful as you progress. The data that the interviewer gives you should change your line of inquiry and your line of reasoning.

The client would expect you to be thoughtful about the information that you’ve received from them. When you don’t adjust your questions and still analyze in the exact same way as if you had no new data, it shows the client that you’re not really paying attention to their situation.

It’s important to recognize that.

In the next section, you will learn how to practice the concepts that I have discussed so that you can perform at your best during the case interview.

Additional Resources

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