Hi,
In the real case interviews, you don't necessarily finish the case. In fact, you can easily pass the interview without finishing any case. One thing that is important is the ability to provide a soft recommendation:
Indeed, in many cases, you can't provide a definite answer. Consultants may be testing several things:
- Are you comfortable enough with providing preliminary recommendations based on limited data? (Imagine a CEO whom you met in the elevator and who wants to know the preliminary findings)
- Will you make a mistake of providing a recommendation with a high level of certainty without having a proper supporting data?
Imagine a case when you have to make a decision about whether a PE fund should acquire a company. You make a proper structure (Market, Competitors, Company, Feasibility of Exit) and in 25 min of a case, you've managed only to go through the Market and Competitors branches of the analysis. What will be your recommendation?
In this case, you have to provide a Soft Recommendation:
- You start with an objective ("Our objective was to understand whether we should buy this company")
- You provide a preliminary recommendation highlighting the uncertainty("According to the limited data we have so far, our preliminary recommendation is to buy this company and there are three reasons for that..." or "Purely based on the data we have about the market it looks like it's a good idea for a number of reasons..")
- You provide the reasons ("First of all the market is big at X and growing at Y, Secondly the competition is fragmented with the target company having x% of the market. Thirdly...")
- You Mention the pieces of data that you need to provide a full recommendation ("But to come up with a final recommendation I would like to look at the company financials, key capabilities and..." or "But to be 100% sure in our recommendation we need to check...)
Best,
Vlad
That is really insightful, Thank you Vlad!