So.
There was a presentation by a recruiter from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu today, and he covered how to handle case interviews. Most of the stuff we covered was pretty commonly covered – ask questions, don’t jump to an answer, it’s okay to be quiet for a bit (this was new to me, think about how awkward it would feel), try to think aloud, be able to back up your answers because the why is generally more important, fire le missiles after a nap, etc. Good thing all this advice, along with everything else in your brain, goes PSHHEWWW light speed out the window once you’re actually being interviewed, and you become a candidate with the mental capacity of a coma victim. Durrr? *Wipes drool.*
Anyway, I jotted down one thing because I think I saw a lot of people falling into this trap actually during the presentation’s case: “Don’t get stuck.”
Wow Dan! No shit, Sherlock, right? But I thought it was worth writing because in a situation where there are 50 MBA’s (and 3 MS’s) in the same room all thinking about the case study, even in a relaxed environment, the only one I really noticed Mr. Kim – the recruiter presenting – whole-heartedly cheering on was this girl in the corner who emphasized trying to tie the case together from all the aspects you think can be considered important. (I don’t remember what she actually said, ha.)
To compare, people who gave still rather insightful comments in my opinion (or didn’t and totally repeated what someone else had just said with different words *growls*) just got a nod and a token of agreement – in these cases, the approach taken was always locked onto one perspective, like retention, or promotion, and such. I don’t think he totally heard most of them. Or really cared for that matter, since he’s probably heard them a billion times. So the fact that he was all like “YES! Totally correct!” when that girl spoke and looked a little impressed seemed really significant to me.
Although I doubt that everyone in the room really was only coming from one perspective – I mean when you’re called on, you’re not doing the whole damn case interview, you’re just saying an idea that is foremost in your brain at the moment – that’s what the don’t get stuck means. You might have a specialty in some area and can talk someone’s ear off about it, (good thing I don’t have to worry about this, huh,) but apparently it’s better to resist the temptation to focus too much on it and not bring and/or tie in other important facets of the case you could possibly cover in the time given.
I think what might be a way to avoid this, would be to try to step back and ask what questions can you answer without even exerting your coma-brain – because it’s already given in the background of the case study question itself. For example, “What does this company do?” – if we know that store X does x, y, and z in its operations because it says so, then why not treat all of them if you think they’re all important? (My totally un-experienced , un-founded, un-tested, on-ion un-opinion: the question thought to mention it, and the background info for these things isn’t very long.) Or, “What is the company wanting to improve?” – the company wants to improve x – which might be easily compartmentalized into y and z.
If we can judge from the recruiter’s reaction, it’d be best to be able to appreciate each facet of the case and still be able to answer “why?” than give a deep discertation of your specialty’s answer.
(Edit, because one of my sentences sounded like I was Miss Teen South Carolina.)
