When applying to top consulting firms, one of the most crucial stages of the interview process is the case interview. This format is designed to assess your analytical competencies, problem-solving skills, and ability to think strategically under pressure. Let's take a look at what to expect.
A case interview is a 30-minute simulation of a typical business project that consultants may have worked on. Cases provide a real example of an on-the-job experience and the assumption is that if a candidate is successfully able to tackle a case interview, he or she is also more likely to be a successful management consultant.
Case studies are the most important and usually the longest part of consulting interviews. In addition to the case study, the interview typically includes introductory small talk, a personal fit interview, and closing questions (see the illustration below).
Many companies review and standardize their consulting cases prior to a real interview to ensure that the case is neither too difficult nor too easy. Companies also ensure that a variety of skills are tested during the interviews.
The Typical Flow of a Case Interview
The case interview typically follows a structured flow to ensure that both the interviewer and the candidate cover all necessary aspects of the business problem. It involves the following phases:
1. Case Presentation and Problem Understanding
To start off, the interviewer will present a specific business problem or scenario. This could range from market entry considerations, to profitability issues, or organizational changes. The problem is usually based on real-world business issues that the consulting firm dealt with in the past.
You are expected to listen carefully, take notes, and clarify any points that are not clear to fully understand the scope and context of the problem.
👉 To get a better feeling for possible case prompts, check out the following beginner cases.
You have been hired to support the owner of a bike-shop as a business consultant. The bike-shop has suffered a significant revenue decline during the last year, and now the owner would like you to assess the situation and options for the way forward.They want to know last year’s profit, i.e. how it was affected by the revenue decline, and what the priority actions are to survive the next year. (short term)In addition they would like to understand the strategic competitive position of the shop better and how to increase revenues again mid- to long-term.
Our client (FastFood Co) is a fast-food company that has > 20 restaurants in the city. Recently, the business has encountered significant challenges, with net profit drops to negative.The client wants us to help them turn around the business. How would you help them?
Afterwards, you outline a structured approach or framework to tackle the problem. Common frameworks include the SWOT analysis, Porter’s Five Forces, or the 4P's, with which you can structure your information. This step demonstrates your ability to break down complex issues into manageable parts.
However, keep in mind that it is not enough to simply memorize the standard framework concepts. While standard frameworks are useful for a rudimentary outline of a case problem, they need to be optimized and adapted to the individual case. Don't worry, as this is a skill you can develop, but it definitely requires thorough preparation and practice.
Once you have crafted your structure, clearly explain your framework to the interviewer, ensuring he or she understands your thought process and logical flow.
3. Analysis and Problem Solving
Next, you dive into the analysis. During the interview, your interviewer may provide additional data, charts or exhibits. Analyze this information to support your framework and build your argument. Formulate hypotheses based on your analysis and test them against the data provided. If needed, adjust your approach based on your new findings.
During the quantitative analysis, perform the necessary calculations to support your findings. This could include market sizing estimations, profitability calculations or a cost analysis. Good mental math skills will definitely help in this phase.
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Once you have worked through your structure, provide clear, and actionable recommendations based on your analysis. Use the Pyramid Principle of communication, highlight your key findings and explain how they address the problem.
You should also be ready to justify your suggestions with evidence from your analysis (i. e. data) and discuss possible next steps or further areas of investigation that the client may wish to consider.
After all, the interviewer may question your conclusions or ask for further clarification. Be prepared to defend your recommendations and discuss alternative perspectives.
After, all the best way to prepare for your interview is practice. Explore our Case Library with real examples now!
Your client tk Commodity Trade (tk ComT) is a global materials trader - they buy and sell raw materials. tk ComT had stable EBITDA margins in recent years. They consider expanding their target market and entering the Lithium (electric vehicle battery grade) trade, due to the current high demand for electric cars and Lithium-ion batteries. The client is concerned about minimizing the cash spending and about improving the payback period for this market-entry campaign, due to corporate cash policy.As a consultant, you are expected to calculate the size of the Lithium market and to assess the payback periods for an organic market entry (with own resources) as well as for the acquisition of an established company. Finally, the client expects a proposal about the best market entry strategy and potential opportunities and risks.
The client, VacuLuxe Innovations, is a manufacturer for vacuum pumps, e.g. rotary vane pumps, cryogenic pumps located in Germany. The company has grown from a start-up to a major corporation over the last 50 years. However, after benchmarking the economics of their business, the client discovered that their direct spend (i.e., COGS supplier spend) represented a higher percentage of their revenue than their closest competitors.The client's top management has engaged the SCM and procurement specialized consultancy Inverto to advise the company in this critical situation.An initial meeting with the CPO of VacuLuxe Innovations will be conducted tomorrow. VacuLuxe Innovations aims to discuss optimization potentials in the current collaboration with suppliers as well as levers to improve the supply chain resilience & carbon footprint. Unfortunately, VacuLuxe Innovations has only submitted the following high level data for their direct spend yet.
Your friend is an aspiring artist and is asking for your consulting advise on a problem that he has been struggling with. Your friend (the artist) is trying to understand how many hours people listen to the number one music streaming platform (the one with the green logo) in total and on average per year. How would you approach this problem to help your friend answer his question?
You have successfully completed your trainings for your new role as Consultant at a consulting firm from PrepLounge’s FastTrack Application pool. After a briefing done by the CEO of an internationally known, globally operating industry corporation regarding the upcoming examination of the commercial printer paper subdivision of the organization, you are discussing the project with your project manager during lunch. Specifically, the question at hand is, how to get back on the track of growth. The CEO is willing to invest and has asked your team to provide and evaluate opportunities for growth.
This question set helps you build a solid foundation in M&A modeling by covering the key drivers of accretion and dilution, deal structuring, and synergy analysis. You’ll review the mechanics of a basic merger model, explore how different financing methods impact EPS, and understand strategic considerations like purchase price allocation and debt capacity.You should expect to spend 30–40 minutes on the full set. Use the model answers to test your understanding, identify gaps, and sharpen your ability to communicate M&A concepts clearly and confidently.
Your client is a D2C (direct to customer) online fashion business in a developing country. It is a new brand, launched about 2 years ago and founded by ex-investment bankers. Their brand focuses on trendy, edgy design that is less main-stream (versus big brands like H&M, Uniqlo, Zara etc) for adult men. While they have been growing fast, they want to understand how they can further improve their sales.
The European Union pursues the target of lowering the CO₂ emissions of their residents. Therefore, the EU introduced a CO₂ tax to create incentives for consumers to switch to more climate friendly alternatives and stabilize carbon dioxide emissions. Accordingly, and as E.ON’s strategy focuses on creating a better tomorrow for its customers, E.ON is investing significantly to grow its ‘Customer solutions’ area with climate-friendly solutions, including its heating solutions business. You have recently joined E.ON Inhouse Consulting and E.ON’s Head of Heating Solutions has hired you to conduct an analysis concerning the European CO₂ tax. Specifically, you are asked to assess whether the EU uses the right tool to steer consumers towards more climate-friendly heating systems.
Du berätst den USB-Stick Produzenten "Sticky". Das bisher profitable USB-Stick Geschäft wird dieses Jahr zum ersten Mal rote Zahlen schreiben. Dein Klient würde gerne wissen, wie er wieder Gewinne erzielen kann.
An online travel agency earns a 10% commission on all of its bookings. Currently, their profits before taxes are $1 m, while the industry average is around $2.5 m. The client wants to know why they're making less than the industry average?
You are part of the Strategy & Operations team at Revolut.Revolut has had significant growth over the past couple of years, with customer base growing 20-30% per year. Our apps have also been highly rated in the various app stores - be it GooglePlay or on the Apple store.Revolut's current customer strategy is to segment customers based on their subscription tiers/plans. Standard: FreePlus: $3.99/mthPremium: $7.99/mthMetal: $14.99/mthUltra: Ultra $55/mthKey differentiation between the plans are in the pricing and features. Namely, the more expensive tiers like Metal and Ultra have additional features such as personalized and premium card design, free access to lifestyle apps (e.g. Financial Times, Class Pass etc), better FX rates and priority customer support.It's great that Revolut has been expanding rapidly, but we are starting to see some stresses on our existing operations and processes. One key area of concern is in customer service, our satisfaction scores have started to trend down and call center headcounts and costs have been increasing in recent years, but we are struggling to handle the load of incoming requests and tickets.You have been tasked to lead a project to solve this problem without ballooning costs.
Your client, REA, is a reinsurance company.REA recently acquired another reinsurance company (approximatively same size): the choice of this company was notably based on its product portfolio as well as its market presence which appeared complement with REA.However, the acquisition is not well received by the market. The acquisition price is considered too high and the transaction has not been well graded. REA management asks you to evaluate the transaction.
Your client is the Government of Indonesia, specifically a joint committee formed between a few key ministries including the Ministry of Marine Affairs & Fisheries, Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Environment & Forestry. Indonesia is one of the largest developing countries in the world, with a population of about 285M people and an average monthly income of only USD 500. Located in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is actually a vast archipelago comprised of 17,000 islands, giving it one of the longest and most complex coastlines in the world. It is also part of the Coral Triangle, an area demarcated by scientists as the global epicenter of marine diversity. Your client tells you that Indonesia's once pristine coral reefs have seen a rapid decline over the past decade. They have come to you for help and want to figure out what is causing the problem.
Your client is a big financial services company in Germany that just implemented a Client Relationship Management (CRM) system. Its intention is to provide the leadership with a real time view into the organisation’s sales channel.Before the introduction of the CRM system the sales teams have maintained the client sales information in separate Excel spread sheets. This made it very complicated for the managers to have an overview of the latest information.At the end of the fiscal year, all sales teams have to migrate their sales data into the new system. They want our advice regarding the necessary change management.
Dubai Airport has decided to counter the chaos in the airport taxi service by commencing a bidding process to assign airport taxi services to 3 operators only. After years of cheating passengers, black-market drivers and unlicensed cabs, the airport has had enough of the problems and is now taking action. They are retracting all existing permits and are issuing 2,100 new permits to the three largest operators in the country.Our client is a local Big-three taxi operator with a 3,000 car fleet, but he is not servicing the airport yet. He has a spare capacity of 500 taxis and he is considering applying for 500 new permits, but he doesn’t know if he will get a positive return on his investment.He asked us to help him determine if he should pursue applying for the permits or not.
You’re advising FreshHarvest AG, a fast-growing food distribution company based in Germany. They operate on tight margins, high volumes, and have recently secured several new retail partners. The CFO wants to better understand how working capital decisions and seasonal dynamics impact their free cash flow profile and ultimately their valuation.Your task is to assess how working capital evolves over the forecast period, how payment term shifts affect cash flow, and how to reflect seasonality in a dynamic forecasting model.This case will test your analytical skills, cash flow understanding, and judgment around operational finance levers.
Fast Dish, a publicly traded Quick Service Restaurant (Franchise) company with over €20 billion in revenue and more than 20.000 restaurants globally, has recently faced major challenges with regards to supply chain management and sustainability.The client's top management has engaged the SCM and procurement specialized consultancy Inverto to advise the company in this critical situation.
Your client is the CEO of a Europe-based mobile Telco operator, SuperMovil. Their business model is very unique: they are a “virtual Telco”. They differ from traditional mobile operators (e.g. Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telefónica/O2, etc.) in that they do not own optic fiber, antennas and satellites, but instead partner with the cited traditional Telcos and rent capacity in order to offer their services. Hence, they differ from the classical Telco, since they don't make big CAPEX investments. Your client has expressed interest in expanding her company’s operations to a new country. Which are all the factors you would take into consideration to orchestrate this geographical expansion? *Note: The M&A department has shortlisted 10 countries as top candidates, but this info will be provided and worked on later on in the case.
AlpenGlide is a well-known ski resort located in the Austrian Alps. Their revenues have stagnated over the recent years, and management is concerned that they are not capturing their full revenue potential.AlpenGlide has engaged Simon-Kucher to help understand what’s behind the stagnation and recommend actionable levers to unlock new revenue growth opportunities.
Your client is a leading retail coffee chain. They are present in several countries globally and are a popular brand in most of the markets that they operate in, with several thousands stores in operation.A key focus of the company currently is diversity & inclusion. In their biggest market which is the US, 1 in 4 people have some sort of disability. One realization the client has had is that their retail stores are not as inclusive to individuals with disabilities. McKinsey has been brought on to help them design more inclusive spaces in their retail stores.
Mastering the case interview is a crucial step in securing a consulting job. To perform well, you need to demonstrate structured thinking, analytical skills, and clear communication while solving a real-world business problem.
The interview typically follows a structured flow, starting with an introduction and resume discussion, followed by the case presentation, where you clarify the problem and outline a logical framework. From there, you analyze data, test hypotheses, and apply quantitative skills to arrive at well-supported recommendations. Finally, you summarize your findings and engage in a discussion to defend your approach.
Success in case interviews comes down to practice. Familiarizing yourself with common frameworks is useful, but true preparation involves adapting them to different cases, improving your problem-solving speed, and refining your communication. By structuring your thoughts clearly, staying flexible in your approach, and confidently presenting your findings, you’ll increase your chances of impressing your interviewer and landing an offer at a top consulting firm. 🚀
Let's Move On With the Next Articles:
The Personal Fit Interview
Basics of Case Interviews
The personal fit interview is a crucial part of the selection process in consulting. It’s often underestimated by candidates who tend to focus on the challenging case interviews only. But the personal fit interview is just as important! It’s all about determining if you’ll fit well within the team and align with the company culture. Read this article to find out why the personal fit interview matters so much and how to prepare effectively.
Consulting interviews are not just about your skills and knowledge — companies also want to see how well you align with their culture and values, often called "personal fit". This part of the interview is your chance to show you’re a natural addition to the team.Here’s a look at three common personal fit questions and some tips on how to answer them confidently and thoughtfully.
Every case interview has a certain structure. An important factor on how your case interview is going to proceed is if the interview is interviewer-led or candidate-led.We’d like to explain the two interview formats – candidate-led cases and interviewer-led cases – highlight their differences, and provide you with tips on how to excel in each of them.
