Submitted by: Submitted by nick
Views: 616
Words: 6223
Pages: 25
Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 10/10/2010 01:44 AM
Consulting Preps: frameworks, cases and companies
Overview of Cases
1 A case is:
1.1 Description of a business situation
1.2 A problem
1.3 Based on a real situation
2 The purpose of a case is to judge problem-solving abilities, the basis of consulting.
3 What are consulting companies looking for in a candidate?
3.1 Problem solving skills
3.2 Personal impact
3.3 Leadership
3.4 Drive / Aspirations
4 What are consulting companies looking for in a case answer?
4.1 Ability to think through problems:
4.1.1 Clear, logical reasoning
4.1.2 Curious, probing mind ( candidate to engage in solving the problem
4.1.3 Ability to synthesize
4.1.4 Basic numerical agility
4.1.5 Intuitive business sense
4.1.6 Hypothesis generation ( use hypothesis to drive thinking and formulate questions
4.2 Ability to quickly build working relationships:
4.2.1 Effective communicator
4.2.2 Tolerance for ambiguity
4.3 There are two parts to a case:
4.3.1 Mechanics - how you structure the case and go through the analysis. This is akin to creating an outline before writing a paper.
4.3.2 Analysis - how you think and solve problems
4.4 Both are important.
5 A good approach:
5.1 Listen to introduction carefully
5.2 Carefully think through the problem at hand
5.3 Ask one or two clarifying questions, if necessary
5.4 Structure the problem, possibly with a logic tree - enables one to organize the data presented
5.5 Pick one branch to probe, develop hypotheses, ask for relevant facts, defend/refine hypotheses, probe further
5.6 Pick the second branch ...
5.7 Put it all together: try to answer the overall question
6 During the case, you want to communicate explicitly what you want to do with the case. Remember that you are trying to lead the interviewer...