On-Campus Recruiting is starting back up and I thought now would be a good time to talk about Case Interviews. You may have heard this term thrown around but do you really know what a case interview is? If you are hoping to go into the management, consulting or the investment banking area then you definitely NEED TO KNOW because a case interview will almost definitely be a part of your interview process. In a case interview the job applicant is given a question, situation, problem or challenge and asked to solve it. The case problem or challenge is often a business situation that the interviewer has worked on in real life, but it does not have to be.
The point of a case interview is so the firm can evaluate analytical ability and problem-solving skills; they are not looking for a “correct” answer but for an understanding of how you, the applicant, think and how you approach problems. Interviewers are generally looking for the following skills during a case interview:
- Numerical and verbal reasoning skills
- Communication and presentation skills
- Business skills and commercial awareness
Here are some great resources to help you prepare for and learn more about case interviewing:
- First thing first: go to the Vault and get the “Vault Guide to the Case Interview” (for free!). It’s “packed with information you need to know to prepare for your case or consulting interview, this guide provides the skinny on business frameworks, sample cases, guesstimates, brainteasers, and more! The guide includes more than 50 actual case interviews, guesstimates, brainteasers, and other consulting interview cases.”
[To get this login to the Vault, click on “Guides” along the top menu bar, go to “Interview and Resume Guides” and it’s the 3rd one down.] - Ace the Case
- Quint Careers: Mastering the Case Interview
- For more on interviewing in general visit our “Interviewing” section in myBucknell (under Prepare-Job Search Tools)
And to close, here’s a great “pop-up video” of case interviewing by the University of Toronto
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–qrJl2Gb8M