Today I’m going to talk about a very important aspect of the case interview, which is your conclusion to the case problem. The conclusion is often the aspect that doesn’t get the attention it really deserves, just like the introduction.
There’s a Nobel prize-winning economist named Daniel Kahneman who has done a ton of research on how people perceive events and experiences, and essentially how the memory of those events is formed. He has a theory called the ‘Peak End Theory’, which states that people’s memories of an event or experience are defined by two things: the peak, so that’s either the best part of the experience or the worst part of the experience, and then the end of the experience. This is really important and it has an obvious insight for case interviews, which is that the conclusion you provide can have an incredible weight on your interviewer’s perception and memory of your performance. As a result, getting your conclusion right is incredibly important and I’ve got four great tips that are going to help you end on a strong note.
1. Structure is everything!
It is extremely hard to over-emphasize how important structuring your conclusion is. Structured thinking and structured communication are at the crux of what management consultants are doing day in and day out. So just as you begin the case interview itself by structuring a nebulous business problem, you’re going to want to structure your conclusion as well.
The following is a simple concept to follow. “My recommendation is X, the supporting arguments are 1, 2, and 3. The caveats the client should consider are A, B, and C”. Now you don’t want to sound too robotic but what I’m trying to communicate is a sense of verbal scaffolding the idea of here’s my recommendation, here are the supporting arguments and then here are the next steps the client should consider. That will really help make your conclusion hit with impact in a clear and logical way that makes it easy for your interviewer to follow.
2. Data supported arguments
Tip number two, always use data supported arguments. After making your key recommendation you want to support it with a clear list of supporting arguments and you want those to include the key piece of analysis and data that you learn during the case.
Say for example you’re working on a case where a client is considering entering a European market for dental floss and over the course of the case you find that the potential market there is very large. One supporting statement could be that “The market opportunity is huge and is really attractive for the client”. Now another way to say this might be “The market opportunity is huge as we calculated it’s $400M annually and it’s growing at a 10% compounded annual growth rate. We expect this trend to continue for the next 10 years”. Both statements are true but the second one is clearly stronger because it’s supported by crisp data points, it really hits with impact and shows that you’re tying all the data and the analysis together in those key supporting points.
3. Next-level insights
Always highlight next-level insights. As you’re going through and listing your arguments and the key data points that support them, if there are next-level implications then you definitely want to make sure you call them out.
Let’s go back to the mini example where we’re talking about entering the European market for dental floss and we just calculated that the market size is $400M annually. Say we also learned throughout the case that our client has an internal metric that they use, which makes sure that they’re able to hit a $25M annual revenue run rate within three years of entering the market. Now you could do some math and figure out that that internal metric means that they would need to achieve approximate 6% market share. Highlighting this number is a next-level insight because it sets up comparisons for the client about how they are able to compete in another market and whether 6% sounds feasible to them.
4. Caveats and next steps
Always call out key caveats and next steps. Remember that you’ve only been on the case for 30-45 minutes by the time you’re giving your conclusion. For a complicated case it’s really going to have been hard for you to do full justice to the case in that time frame and the good news is that your interviewer understands that and they’re not going to expect it. But for that reason, it’s important to call out any key caveats that if discovered might change the recommendation you’re proposing and it’s important to do this because it really demonstrates that you’re thinking about the next level of your conclusion and recommendation. For example, consider cases where the outcome and the recommendation you’re proposing might change and what next steps could your team and you take to do further analysis and either rule those out or determine a better course of action.
Conclusion
Now that we’ve covered these four tips for concluding your case well we’re going to take all of these lessons, put them together and see a few sample conclusions in action in the next article.
Jason Oh is a management consulting professional at Novantas, specialized in financial services strategy consulting. He holds experience helping Fortune 500 financial institutions with commercial due diligence, go-to-market strategy, and distribution channel strategy. He’s also an avid traveller with passion for FinTech, marathon, and blogging.
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