What's the worst you've ever fucked up a case interview?
Or, when have you fucked up and how did it happen? Did you still end up getting second round somehow? I'm interested to know because I've just had my first interview and think I did somewhat below average on my first one but pretty decent on my second.
Interview for internship at boutique RE bank in NYC. Went in for a chat with a recruiter (thought it was going to be a simple chat/ interview to feel me out), ended up getting interrogated by an analyst. Was an ass (wearing french cuffs) asking me how much about RE I knew.
What I really fucked up though was what is the diff degree between min and hour hand at 3.15?
I said 0 hahaha. Good lord he must've thought I was retarded (I probably am). But 7.5 I believe. Idk what I was thinking.
Btw, its 22.5. The gap is 3/4 of the distance between 2 & 3 because with only 15 minutes going by, the hour hand will have only travelled 1/4 of the distance.
I answered stupidly on a similar question before. Sometimes its just nervousness, I empathize :)
Its 7.5 degrees.
no bro. 360 degrees on a clock. 360/12=30 degrees per hour. since the problem states 15 minutes, which is a quarter of 1 hour, we do 30*(1/4)=7.5 degrees
I had to spend 5 minutes trying to figure out why it's not 0. Don't feel too bad.
I did an excel test with a BB, I knew full well that it was built to not be compleatable in the time frame, but decided I was going to get it done. In the elevator I realized that I had put working capital net of debt as the the EV, so pissed.
I told the Bain recruiter his scenario didn't make any sense and nobody would ever do what he was suggesting in the case. He told me to play along and I told him I had no idea how to.
My first interview ever was at a law firm and the dude asked me a bunch of technical law questions, to which I had no answer to. Ended 5 minutes later and as he escorted me out I said 'see ya man'
Not a case interview per se but firm flew me 500 miles to their office for full day round of interviews with partners, etc. 1st interview went OK. 2nd one in the morning, senior guy asked me to walk through model assumptions from a deal listed on my resume. Told him "With all due respect, that deal closed 6 years ago. I'm sure we assumed between x and y, etc." Went to lunch with the associate. Came back and HR told me the rest of the partners had last minute meetings come up and I was free to chill in the city the rest of the day before my return flight. Never heard back from them.
^^of course, my current firm's interviews consisted of talking about sports, what fraternities we were in, golf and costs of living in different cities. Don't stress f-ing up. For every terrible interview, you'll get one that goes great.
A girl I know in HR did paired interviews. When she decided that she didn't like the candidate but wanted to confirm with her partner before ending the interview, she'd ask what the person did for holidays. Now I'm always leary when I get personal questions during interviews.
I was so wound up for one interview years ago that when the guy asked me what kind of beer I drink I panicked, a)thinking that they were punting me, b) worried that I'd either picked something too mainstream or too hipster.
I got my internship because in my 2nd interview the interviewer and I found out we were currently watching the same TV show. Turned to a conversation about Netflix shows we watch and got the offer the next week
Was asked about a hypothetical declining auto parts company by BCG. Asked a million questions to figure out differences between this company and all the other companies that were apparently succeeding.
After several minutes I clearly was too stupid to ask the right questions for this one and it felt like one of those "guess what I am thinking" "there is a dead guy in a field, how did he die?" puzzles.
Gave up and said the company should just sell out to a competitor because clearly management was incompetent for failing in an environment where all other competitors were succeeding. Was immediately told "thanks for coming in", left the building, and never heard back.
MBB Second rounds...confused a basic economic concept and wouldn't realize it until the interviewer babied me through it
This was before I even got the case (the behavioral part of the interview) - I was asked why I wanted to work for | insert name of MBB | over | insert name of other MBB I interned for |. Started with, " Well, what I really like about | third MBB | is...". Interviewer raised an eyebrow, I realized I messed up. The rest of the interview did not go well.
For a consulting interview: I had this lady give me a scenario and background of the situation, then ask me what "customer-specific issues the client was facing." I had no idea what she meant, so i rambled, only to find out later that it was a simple case revolving profits. But what really screwed me was during my calculations, I changed 8% to 8, just because it was easier to do that math on paper, and forgot to divide by 100 at the end, so my answer for a market sizing question was in the tens of billions rather than hundreds of millions. I realized how ridiculous it was as I was saying the number. Game over.
However, I did recover. I explained to the lady the mistake I made and that it was out of the ordinary, and she agreed to give me another case with my on-the-spot calculations that I knocked out of the park. In those instances where you know you have nothing left to lose (if you;ve already messed up as bad as I did), it doesnt hurt to ask for another chance to prove yourself. Luckily I go the next round.
Just had my very first case interview. A really easy one too, but I committed some deadly sins that I could shoot myself for.
Was a CLEAR NET PROFIT PROBLEM, and I had a brainfart and wrote down Cheng's business framework first and asked questions about that for way too long.
Then got back on track, had a couple of good ideas, did very well on back-of-the-envelope estimation, but fucked up again in the summary, because I completely overlooked three important points I had previously mentioned and instead generalized.
Will hear about the result tomorrow, but have no hopes really. I've been practicing live interviews and have been doing really well on cases including ones meant for senior positions. Total brainfart today, OMG
console me!
I had a case interview for a Big 4 firm and it was my first case interview ever. I didn't study for it and I was told it wasn't like a MBB or Capital One interview. It was a really chill case on an online bank acquiring a distressed brick and mortar bank and they clearly wanted a point of view and opinion from the risk perspective. I completely blanked out and said that the online bank should acquire the retail bank because the valuation will be lower (of course it is as the risk is much higher). There were 0 financial statements and the only charts were of the business and pricing models of the two banks. Obviously got dinged.
LEK final round. Case involved the client acquiring a competitor and having to merge the sales incentive programs of the two companies. I suggested that we determine the better incentive program by comparing sales results only to have the interviewer repeatedly point out for various reasons that I was making an apples to oranges comparison. Got really stuck at that point and ended up running out of time. Can't think of a single case I've ever done that went worse than that one but still ended up landing an offer somehow.
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