Case Interview 101 - Watch This Before Anything Else!

I still remember the first time I heard about case interviews I felt excited then I quickly got lost on where to start I heard people speak about some useless concepts that they had no idea what they were how they were related or where they fit into the big picture well later I realized that those concepts were not that mysterious at all it's just that nobody had quite done a good job teaching me in a structured and top-down way how to learn them in this video I'll try to be that first somebody to rescue you and others that in that same position that I found myself with all these rough starts welcome to our case interview 101 video the very first case interview lesson every newbie should watch [Music] hi my name is Ken Chen I'm a former McKinsey consultant than the founder of the platform management consulting prep the insights I'm about to share with you are the results of years of experience in both management consulting and in case interview coaching I have coached hundreds of candidates of various backgrounds from the brightest students of Harvard Wharton to some real newbies and no matter what many don't have good grasp of the basics of case interviews in this video I'll show you case interviews through the eyes of an absolute beginner we will meet and explain many concepts along the way this will ensure that you can learn these concepts in an intuitive way and still see the big pictures and how those concepts relate to each other so what is a case interview in the broadest sense a case interview is like a normal job interview but with business content involved by doing this companies can have a better idea of how well a candidate thinks analyzes and works through business problems so what does the format look like each company uses a slightly different format of case interviews but for the scope of this video we will focus on the most common format that the big three McKinsey Bain & BCG all use that is the one-on-one format with no case data revealed before the actual interview to better illustrate the concept we just discussed here's a typical example of a business problem in a typical case interview at McKinsey Bain and BCG let's say we have restaurant called in and out burger with recently falling profits how can you help the case interview will be a working session between the interviewer and the candidate to solve that business problem during this process the candidates skill sets will be exposed and evaluated what is evaluated in case interviews in case interviews the final result is not as important as the process in other words the interviewer will see whether you work through the business problem in the right way regardless of whether you're not you solved it correctly this is because consulting firms believe that if a candidate has a good methodology he or she can consistently solve many other business problems not just one whereas if a candidate just luckily solves a case using a rusty approach he or she may not be able to solve future cases so what is a right way to solve cases well there's several components to this number one a good method will look for the root cause or reason behind the problem not just the surface or the symptom of the problem for example if a patient is having pain in his chest a non root cause approach will be to provide some painkiller medications whereas a root cause method would be to run tests and see what is really causing the chest pain and cure that root cause could it be a bone issue or a lung problem or even a heart disorder so simply put look for the root cause now that we know how to find the root cause the next thing is to make sure that we can identify all root causes that leads us to number two a good method will break down the big problem into smaller pieces in a messy way the concept of me see me C stands for mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive which in simple language really means two things first the small pieces of those big ones cannot overlap with each other this is mutually exclusive for example an on me see weight to break down the student body of a course is a group of international students and a group of female students these two groups do overlap some international students can be female second those small pieces all added together has to equal the big problem for example an on me see weight to break down the student body of a course is a group of students from China and a group of students from the United States these two groups combined to do not necessarily equal the total student body in this example some me see ways to break that student body down are male and female or international students and domestic students now back to the original story we were discussing the second pone of a good method in case interviews which is to break down any big problem into smaller pieces in a mici way what would that look like in the in-and-out example then so here's a bad method could declining profitability maybe we do two-week management increase in competition increase in beef costs or shift of consumer tastes while all the above can very well be the root cause reason that's not an easy way to break down the big profitability problem there's some overlapping Xand no guarantee that all possible root causes are listed here's a good method declining profitability is either caused by a decreasing sales revenue or B increasing cost then within each branch we can further break down now you may wonder how do we consistently do this what is a good way for always breaking down big problems in the proper form this leads us to our next concept case interview frameworks the concept of case interview frameworks in simple language a framework is like a preset template the candidates can use to break down frequently seen business problems or cases by using frameworks you can be certain that your approach is always structured and me see some of those popular frameworks are the profitability framework use for profitability cases McKinsey M&A framework used for merger and acquisitions cases Porter's five forces used for market entry cases than others like for C for P etc frameworks have used for other general cases you'll find more detailed information on case interview frameworks in other videos and on our website wwm consulting prep comm okay let's come back to the big picture now that we can break down the problem in nisi ways we have to find the root cause fast the number three component of a good method is to appropriately prioritize which small piece to go deeper into this leads us to the next concept hypothesis the concept of hypothesis a hypothesis is an educated guess of where the root cause might be and therefore going into branches that are more likely to contain the root cause hypotheses should be based on information provided in the kake's see other videos and visit our website for more detailed information so to summarize a good method to approach and tackle business problem has three components number one look for the root cause reason and solve it not just the symptoms number two look for the root cause by breaking down the big problem into smaller pieces in a mici way number three use hypothesis to prioritize pieces that most likely contain the root cause what is the common flow of case interviews the flow of a case interview differs between interviewers and firms to easily visualize this let's imagine a spectrum where the two ends represent two types of case interviews on one end the interviewer rarely intervenes the candidate will lead the approach from structuring the problem drawing frameworks asking for data and solving the case this is referred to as the candidate drive case on the other end the interviewer significantly controls the process he or she may help out in structuring the case and has the candidate work on specific parts of the overall problem this is referred to as the interviewer drive case most case interviews fall in the middle of the spectrum so distinguishing the two types of case interviews only matters in the preparation process what does it take to do well in case interviews based on my experience this is probably one area that most students don't realize leading to an unbalanced and insufficient preparation for interview days so to answer the question there are three equally important factors that decide whether you get the offer or not number one how good are you with consulting math numbers and quantitative ability number two is what I refer to as case interview tips and techniques this includes a wide variety of habits from showing your structured mindset saying the right things ask me for a timeout at the right times getting clarifications too even organizing your notes certainly these are skills and habits that are learn about if one has the right materials and a good study plan number three is your business intuition how can you be insightful and creative and very business context a candidate insufficiently prepared for this is very much like a basketball player without physical strength and athleticism no matter how skillful he is he can't compete well of the three factors this is probably the hardest and it may take the longest time to prepare for so now what if this is actually your very first case interview lesson you may be wondering what are some of the next steps I should take for my study step one see you read some sample case interviews in action to connect what you learn in this video with the real illustration you may find this in our later videos on consulting firms websites or in various other prep materials no need to do a mock case interview at this point it can be very frustrating and discouraging if you haven't got the basics yet step 2 develop the habit of reading business publications to improve your business intuition the earlier you start doing this the better there are many good sources of business publications but I strongly recommend those from McKinsey Bain and BCG find the links below step 3 get started with your math practice again again the sooner the better watch your consulting math video or visit our website for more information step 4 learn those tips and techniques see our other videos or visit our website for the right materials and study plan step 5 only at this point you should do a mock case interview do it reflect study the area you don't feel comfortable with go back and do a few more mock cases and keep the cycle going on I hope this has been a good first lesson on your case interview preparation journey if you have any questions or comments please leave them below this will allow us to develop content that better suits your needs and concerns thank you for watching and don't forget to share this with your clubs and friends if you think this video is helpful for them as well a management consulting prep we believe everybody can make it Consulting are you a believer

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Views: 1,104,587

Keywords: Case Interview, Management Consulting (Competitive Space), case interview prep, case interview preparation, Boston Consulting Group (Business Operation), McKinsey & Company (Business Operation), Bain & Company (Business Operation), Kim Tran, MConsultingPrep, Management Consulting Prep, Case Interview Frameworks, Case Interview Hypothesis, case interview example

Id: 6R5bT4cJh0A

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 03 2014