The fundamentals of doing well in a case interview are pretty well known and accessible. It is essentially everything that is in the case interview bibles of Case In Point or Hacking the Case Interview. As an aside, as someone who did not have prior consulting experience, I personally found the lesser known, Crack the Case System, the most useful guide in acquiring the fundamentals. However, the reality is that the majority of candidates coming up for case interviews who make a diligent effort on case prep will likely be pretty solid with case interview fundamentals. Sure, cracking under the stress of doing a live case might eliminate a good chunk of the candidates. Taking them out though, there will still be a good chunk of candidates, all of whom have solid case interview performance. Given the limited number of consulting slots, what does it take to outcompete them? First, you have to have solid casing fundamentals yourself. Second, you need the all-important ‘wow factor’, the ability to visualize a problem in your own terms.
Demonstrating ‘wow factor’ can help you ace your case interview in two ways.
1. Demonstration of intellectual curiosity
A lot of times this involves taking a past professional experience and relating it clearly to the problem in a case. For example, when providing a recommendation in supply chain cases, I might mention the enormous resources invested into quality control that I saw in the aviation industry as an unforeseen expense for any new processes. Another example, when recommending implementing a new org structure, one of my classmates regularly relates to leadership skills in a team.
Even in consulting firms that lock their consultants to a particular industry and functional area care about intellectual curiosity. It is essentially a trait that shows the mental capacity to think of novel ways to solve problems. Even if a client brings a well-worn problem with lots of precedent, the distinguishing factor between a good consultant and great consultant is being able to take intellectual leaps by applying old solutions to the nuances of a new situation. It also shows that you are not a one trick pony that just happened to be really good in your previous career, but might have difficulty switching to consulting and consistently solving different types of problems.
2. Potential to connect with clients
A lot of times this is about thinking about a problem from the client / customer / end user perspective and identifying key opportunities and barriers for that person. Every single case, even public sector, has a customer or end user who plays a major role in the success or failure of the recommendation. If the case is about an experience, for example shopping, then you need to be able to convincingly talk through a hypothetical shopping experience and think about how it might be optimised given potential challenges. I once got an interesting case about women’s beauty products, which I personally do not utilise. I was able to think about my sisters and past girlfriends and what they have previously mentioned about beauty products. I was able to talk through a visualisation of how they expressed expectations of beauty product delivery and tie it to a business challenge.
Consulting firms look for this slice of relatability for many reasons. One is that they like people with worldliness in the sense of regular awareness about the world around them. This is because consulting is ultimately a people business and the more a consultant can pick up on and share observations with the client, the more effective they will be. Another is that they want to see an ability to break down a problem in an easily digestible way for others. In consulting, work can get complex with extensive data points and complex relationships to untwine. Being able to boil complex issues into a convincing narrative that can capture the attention of a client is what makes clients happy and is the stuff that wins more business for a consulting firm. Lastly, it is about demonstrating an ability to think quickly on the fly. Interestingly, one of the recent trends (some would say a fad) within consulting is to have consultants take improvised comedy classes to get better at being able to communicate effectively in situations where there is no time to prepare.
A Reminder:
Everyone needs to remember that consulting is ultimately a people business and the limited positions available make it competitive. Showing good core fundamentals will likely get you a 2nd round interview. Being able to wow people with visualisation skills will get you an offer.
Hall Wang is a dual degree MBA and Master of Public Policy candidate at Georgetown University. He has worked at America’s most innovative companies including Blue Origin and Facebook, as well as having done two combat deployments as a US Army Officer.
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