I have attended 4-5 mock consulting case interviews so far. I am able to crack the case to an extent. But the last 2 cases are something special. In the last but one case, after understanding the problem statement, I asked my first question to start my information gathering process. The very first question made the 2 interviewers to laugh…I couldn’t understand what’s going on…then, we continued. At the end of the case interview, they told me that the question that I asked was exactly reproduced word-by-word in the solutions document! That isn’t my problem!!! They even suspected that I have read the case before…wherein I haven’t…

Today’s case interview went one step further. The ideal approach for today’s case suggested a set of questions that the student should ask to finally arrive at a conclusion. But, I arrived at the expected conclusion within 3 minutes of my interview, with just 2 questions!!! Interviewer just kept me engaged for another 10 minutes by leading me into different areas. Finally, the interviewer rejected me saying he couldn’t evaluate my thought process!! Hmm…I made whole lot of assumptions in mind and asked the question that led me to the right conclusion…I know that I am a high-context person. But didn’t realize that I am very-high-context!! Need to shift to low-context…Case interviews need low-context culture! After all, the thought process is what is being evaluated in interviews!

To give an analogy, what I did was analogous to writing the final answer without writing down the intermediate steps. Might work well in objective type examinations, but not in subjective type exams!!!

BTW, I am doing these exercises just for learning. I don’t have any hopes of getting a consulting job, as academics plays a major role. And I don’t have attractive grades! But this preparation might come handy down-the-line…