How important is it to state a hypothesis during the interview? Does it make a difference in impression?

Hi Saeed, and thanks for your question,

Now, to put it shortly, the answer is yes and no. It all depends on the context and the case. If you you already have a strong idea about what the outcome might be, you could squeeze in the hypothesis at the beginning. However, the most important factor would be, based on the outcome of the case, to either confirm or refute your initial hypothesis through a final recommendation supported by your findings throughout the analysis.

Hope this helps, 

Best,
Fady

Hi Saeed,

There is no good reason to explicitly state your hypotheses, especially early in the case.

Rather, provide your initial structure, which covers all elements you want to analyze to understand the issue at hand/find an answer to the case question.

Then, prioritize and state what area you would want to analyze first, why, and how.

First broad (divergent thinking), then focus (convergent thinking). This way, you are implicitly showing your hypotheses as you point the interviewer to where you think the key areas are (also in a less awkward and scripted way).

Cheers,

Florian

It's not relevant. And getting a bad hypothesis or doing it the wrong way won't be perceived positively.

What you need is an approach that ALLOWS to test an hypothesis, i.e., your structure will clearly produce a recommendation / answer, as is not just a random selection of “relevant factors” or buckets.