Importance Of Preparing For Your Case Interview

Submitted By vagupta
Words: 2261
Pages: 10

Preparing For Your Case Interview

Where your ideas make a difference.

At A.T. Kearney we are looking for people who love to reach out. People who want to stretch their talents. People who will challenge themselves to achieve meaningful, measurable results for their clients, their firm, and themselves. People with ideas. Your interest in a consulting career with us suggests that you may be one of those people, and we have designed our interview process so that you will have every opportunity to show it. The A.T. Kearney interview sequence consists of two rounds, typically completed within a 3-week period. The first includes two 45-minute interviews conducted back-to-back on campus or in another convenient location. The second, which normally takes place at our nearest office, involves three 45-minute meetings with one or more of A.T. Kearney’s senior people. If you are invited to complete the full sequence, you can expect that both interviews in the first round and two in the second will be case-oriented. This means that in addition to discussing our firm and your future it, the A.T. Kearney consultants you meet will also present you with real-world business problems and ask you to develop solutions. Experience shows that the applicants who are the most successful in a case interview are those who enter it with the right frame of mind and the best preparation. The following information is designed to help you achieve both.

Why The Case Format? While we look for many qualities in an applicant, the most important is his or her ability to think and communicate as we believe a successful consultant should. A case interview offers you the opportunity to demonstrate your consulting potential. The case format is a simulation in which your interviewer, in the role of client, presents you with a complex business problem and seeks your initial recommendations for solving it. In the process of developing and conveying your ideas, you will have the chance to display many of the characteristics that make for successful consulting. These include your ability to gather and synthesize information, to postulate alternate solutions, to formulate the one with the greatest impact, and to communicate it with power and poise. Ultimately both you and we will come out of the case interview with a better sense of your “fit” with the consulting profession in general and with A.T. Kearney in particular.

1

What To Expect The case format presents challenges different from those of a more conventional interview. Here, you will not only discuss your qualifications but also demonstrate them. The cases you encounter will be based in part on actual A.T. Kearney engagements or projects. They will focus on areas such as the following: § § § § § Industry Analysis Market Expansion Profit Improvement Pricing Alternatives Investments

How To Succeed During Your Case Interview In general, the best way to approach problems like those listed above is to enter the interview as a consultant would enter a client’s office or board room – ready to use your imagination, gather and analyze information, arrive at solid conclusions, and communicate them persuasively. We asked for the advice of A.T. Kearney consultants who have conducted case interviews, and they offered the following: 1. Approach The Case Logically. The most important thing is to rely on what your education has trained you to do: use your logic and knowledge to identify the essence of a problem and shape a solution that will produce tangible, measurable results. § Listen and Clarify. The interviewer, like a real client, will offer you an initial set of facts. Be certain you understand them completely. Be certain, also, that you help the client clearly express the objectives his or her hypothetical company expects to accomplish as a result of your recommendations. In the interview, as in a real consulting situation, the client may not provide all the information you need without some probing