PwC's Case Interview

So, I've had a few people pm me about my experience, so I'm just going to post it on here. Hopefully this helps.

If it's the same as mine, they will send you the case write up 48 hours in advance to prepare. I would suggest reading that for 48 hours straight. Know it backwards and forwards.

I'll just tell you what happened for me. No promises it will be the same. But before I say anything, I'll just tell you I didn't get an offer. But hopefully this helps.

They flew me to Chicago for the on site interview. I was there with maybe 30 other kids interviewing. We got to the office at 7:30. They had us all in a pretty big presentation room with tables set up for all of us. They spoke to us for 10 minutes (basically, just an introduction, thanks for coming)

At 8:00, they gave us all a folder with our schedules for the day and a sheet of questions for our case. We were to spend 45 minutes creating slides to answer these questions and then present to our interviewer. They provided us with paper to hand write the slides. The guidelines were 4-10 slides for a 15-30 minute presentation. This wasn't terribly tough. The only "curveball" was that you have no idea what the questions are before this. In the case write up there are some things to think about and I highly recommend doing all of your analysis beforehand just like you would a regular case. My case was about a company like Verizon entering the home security market. I was provided charts on market growth, competition, etc. I went through it like a regular case. Look at the company, look at the competitors, look at the customers, and then calculate an ROI. But then my question was "what are ways this company could implement their own supply chain?" Something I didn't look at before, because the case said the company didn't have the technology to do this. So you pretty much just have to make something up on the fly, however, knowing the case backwards and forwards helped a ton.

After that, you'll break and go onto your next thing. There were pretty much four groups, each with a different schedule. There is the case interview, two behavioral interviews, and a presentation/panel/q&a. Depending on your schedule you'll go to these in a certain order. I, luckily, had my case first, so it was fresh in my mind. I walked in, talked for a second, then jumped into the presentation. Mine lasted just over 15 minutes. The interviewer interrupted a couple times with some questions and at the end he will ask you more questions. DON'T GET FLUSTERED! I didn't, and he said that was something he was looking at. In my presentation, I had an estimated ROI and he asked about where I got those numbers. I took out some notes I had taken over the previous two days and showed him. He liked that a lot too. Have all your notes with you! They will tell you that you can't present your notes during the presentation, but afterwards when he starts asking questions, take them out and show him so he knows you're not just making things up. The interviewer was very impressed with my ROI calculation. He said the most important thing in a presentation to a client is the numbers. That's what really sells it. So I highly recommend having some numbers and being able to back them up. Then we just talked for a little bit. He asked me about my background. I asked him about some stuff. Overall, the case went really well. He said I set a really high bar as his first interview. So things to definitely do are to have some numbers in your presentation and be able to back them up, because they will ask about them. They will interrupt you mid-presentation, DON'T GET FLUSTERED. Otherwise, just try not to be nervous.

After that, I went straight to a behavioral interview. Very informal. Just talked about my background, things I've done. Then the list of "Tell me about a time where you..." questions. Honestly, I can't even remember what they were, sorry. "where you had to pick up a skill quickly" - That's all I can remember. But then he asked about what I do outside of school/work. I do a decent amount of sports betting so we talked about that for a while. He was really interested in that. That interview was pretty easy. My interviewer was really nice, so I felt really good about that. Takeaways....just be yourself, don't be nervous.

Then I had the presentation/panel. This was very informal. Some younger employees gave a quick presentation on pwc. Basically just telling us all why it's so awesome. Then it broke into a q&a. Nothing really to tell there.

After that, I had my last interview. Up to this point I was solid. Positive I would get an offer. Big mistake. My last interview was a behavioral with a partner. Started off with quick introductions. He told me a little about himself. I told him a little about myself. Then he threw a mini-case at me. It definitely took me off guard, I wasn't ready at all and I'm pretty sure this is what lost it for me. It was very informal. It was suppose to be very conversational. I went at it in a different way than he wanted me to and at the end, I was definitely frustrated with myself and I think it was obvious to him. Maybe that's what did it. Maybe he thought I couldn't handle stress well, I don't know. Then he asked me questions about my background. I told him about some work I did as a research assistant in undergrad. He was saying that what I was doing was wrong. I'm not sure if he was just trying to get me rattled or if he was actually a dick. I don't normally get flustered, but I think after flopping the mini case he gave me, I showed a little bit too much emotion.

There wasn't a formal goodbye or anything. After you finished your last interview, you could leave. So I walked around Chicago for the rest of the day until my flight. That was on a Friday. I'm pretty sure if you get an offer, they will tell you that night. They called me on Monday and told me I didn't get it.

Sorry this was so long. I hope it helps. Be ready for anything. Try not to get upset with yourself if you make a mistake, most likely, you can still save it.

Good luck