Have you ever
game planned for the ultimate case interview,
where you're gonna have to break down a problem, do some math,
follow creative structures and ultimately come up with a recommendation -
but then gotten thrown completely for a loop in a more conversational case
interview? Well, a lot of our readers and clients
have and so we decided to bring you a video today
focused on how you can solve case interviews that are more
informal in nature. I'm Jenny Rae Le Roux, the managing director of Management
Consulted, the world's leading resource on consulting interviews,
and our focus today is on the informal interview and specifically,
Deloitte's deployment of the informal interview.
What I want to talk about today are a few do's and don'ts
for informal case interviews. First of all, I'll start with
how you can recognize them. Informal case interviews are usually introduced
by partners or managers in a different way than regular interviews are.
You'll notice if they don't have a lot of paperwork in front of them,
and if they say "we just want to have an open-ended chat today
about a problem that I'm currently working on," that that's a cue
for they don't have the work done on their side and it probably means it's
meant to be informal on yours. So, once you've assessed that an
interview is going to be an informal interview, you'll want to start it off in
the same way that you would a regular case interview,
by listening to the beginning and by restating the question back to them.
But that's where the similarities end. After that, you're going to want to make
sure that you focus on keying in on how you would
solve the problem. The power of an informal interview is
that it demonstrates your thought process, not how you solve for an
answer. And your rigidity, your linearity, which
is not always considered a great thing, is a test here when you're in these
kinds of interviews. So, instead of where you would normally
go into "may I have two minutes to build a
structure?" You're going to say "would you mind if I just lay out for you
while I'm doing it on paper, my thought process for how I would go
about solving this case?" That gives them the ability to give you
a red flag if you're headed down the informal direction when they think you
should be formal, but it also gives an opportunity for you
to just say "okay, here is what I'm planning to do, I'm
about to let you into my thought process,"
and no matter what kind of case you're in, that's a good thing. If they don't
stop you, then you'll go ahead and do that. You'll let them know the things
in a couple of categories you would think about in the case
similar to the way that we would recommend you do a creative
question inside the case a little bit later.
So you pull the creative process up to your initial structure
and you begin the case in a very conversational way. You let them know
three categories or four categories of areas that you'd want to look at,
you give them some subcategories that you want to talk about, and then
you let them know where you would want to start if you had full information
or full access to go get the information, and then ask them at the end
"is there anywhere in particular that you would like to begin?"
Once you've done that, they will guide you into whether they want you to pursue
further parts in the case just through open-ended questions,
but effectively, an informal interview or a Deloitte interview that is an
informal case, will appear like a series of creative questions that you're doing
structured brainstorming to every single time. Here are a couple of
the no-no's for informal interviews. Don't take them
so informally to the point where you don't write anything down.
The interviewer is still evaluating the structure and clarity of your thought
process, and we've tested it out on thousands of
candidates, if you don't use structure and you just
talk into the air, it's much more difficult to appear clear
and concise, so you're going to need to write as you're thinking in every step
of the case. The second thing is that in a case like
this, you need to tell them what data you would want but
not push to ask for the data. They're less
interested, again, in you solving the problem and
more in understanding how you would solve a real life problem
like this. So you're going to be mentioning things
like "there are three points of data that I would be really interested in testing
out," and you're going to write them down and you're going to read them out and
then at the end you would say "do you have any data, or would you like to take
the discussion in a different way?" So you keep it conversational by leaving
the end of each part of the case quite open. Ultimately,
the final thing that you don't want to do is try to push too hard
for data and answers. Remember, this is about your thought process and about the
clarity with which you've defined the problem, not your answer to the problem.
They're looking for you to persuade them in the way that you structure and
approach the problem, not in the way that you solve the
problem. Informal case interviews, when you've practiced
diligently, can come across as real curveballs,
but if you take these things to heart make sure that you structure,
write, and verbally go through your process,
and if you make sure you stay away from the no-no areas like
being too rigid, pushing too hard for answers or data,
and pushing too hard for your ideas, you'll find that these
kinds of cases are actually easier to pass,
as long as you're prepared for them. If you have questions about case interviews,
we'd love to help you. Join us at www.managementconsulted.com or on
social.
