Asking irrelevant information during Case interview
Dear WSO members,
I'm a top tier penultimate student from a non target school in West-Europe and I'm recently very interested in a career in consultancy. Since my local BCG office contacted me lately polling if I am interested in a career in consultancy, I began to really dig myself into the consultancy world. Due to my engineering background, I am now busy learning myself some business talk. I already bought CIP and watched Victor Cheng's case prep videos.
While reading the cases in CIP I figured out that I have a bunch of questions in my head that I should ask according to the appropriate framework, but I never come straight to the point and I think I ask too many questions. Does some of you monkeys have/had the same problem as me and what did you do about it?
Also I think reading all the available cases is quite monotone and after reading 3 cases a day, my concentration is gone. I hold a case book where I write every problem and solution - like mentioned in CIP - so that makes it a bit more interactive.
What are your experiences in preparing cases by just reading it? Should I consider to look for a partner to exercise it through skype? I didn't do any interview yet so I can't really offer my partner a lot of experience, except for my own knowledge?!
Thanks in advance for helping me,
kind regards,
BlackLegion
Asking irrelevant questions is definitely not a good thing. The interviewer wants to see that you can direct your thinking appropriately and focus your questions on the exact problem at hand.
And YES, working through cases with a partner is absolutely the best way to prepare! Much better than reading through cases on your own, because you get a chance to practice actually speaking during a case interview, and you also get live feedback.
This exactly. Maybe 10% of your case prep time should be devoted to individual study. Doing cases with a partner and, very importantly, giving cases is essential to mastering the skill.
I agree with both of the posters above, doing cases and giving cases are very important and you learn a lot more, a lot faster than you would otherwise. I'd say the next best thing to a live case partner is Victor Cheng's recorded cases (LOMS) and then using the transcripts from those and reading through them with a partner.
As for irrelevant questions, if you use a hypothesis driven approach and you're justifying your questions then there should be no room for irrelevant questions unless you're stuck.
If you need case partners over skype you can PM me to set up some times. I'm doing a lot of practice right now.
@"brj": interesting comment. Thanks! @"Lerg": I will try to use a more hypothesis driven approach. good tip! I'll PM you because indeed I think it's time for me to do some live cases.
Okay I can't PM yet, so please PM me ;)
From my experience, firms are able to calibrate candidates' backgrounds quite well. Case interviews are designed to judge raw brainpower and ability to think in a structured way. For an engineer from a non-target, expectations regarding preparation/being able to speak business jargon are not the same as for a business student from a target. Still, try to get as much practice as possible. If you have the chance to influence timing (which you typically can as processes in most Western European countries are not as structured as US interview calendars), then try to interview with 2-3 tier 2 consulting firms first, and keep BCG for last. Nothing beats real life practice.
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