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!
As a consultant at Mercedes-Benz Management Consulting (MBMC), you are actively shaping the future of automotive mobility. While you are contributing to decisive projects that design the future of the world’s No.1 premium carmaker, you also develop your own career path, and you have the unique possibility to build your personal brand and cultivate relationships with the top management.
Your client on your current project is the head of product strategy who reports directly to the CEO. She asks you to explore new profit pools and business opportunities regarding innovations and monetarization strategies.
Initially, you shall structure and explore potential business models, and discuss necessary conditions and implications of these business models. In a next step, you shall quantitatively analyze possible options and prepare them for decision. And of course, the client is interested in your recommendation.
Your client, large automotive OEM WyCar, has developed its first fully electric vehicle (EV) and introduced it as a pilot on the Austrian market last year. However, sales have been far below the expected numbers. The management has engaged you to support them in understanding the reasons and advise them on how to adjust the product offering.
A leading online real estate marketplace in Germany – your-new-home.com – is struggling with stagnating sales after many years of high growth rates. In a preliminary project with EY-Parthenon, the market environment has already been examined in detail – competitors, new entrants, customer needs, etc.
As a result, you are asked to identify growth areas and quantify the potential sales uplift for the management.
Your client, Fysikum, is an operator of squash centres in Sweden. The squash centres include sauna, spa, pool, gym and of course the squash courts. Due to the extreme success in Sweden the company is considering expanding to other countries of Europe, in particular Germany.
Therefore they asked us to evaluate this possible expansion.
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.
We are a premium brand apparel retailer facing a consistent decrease in market share. We would like you to figure out why this is happening and provide recommendations to reverse this trend.
Our client BeautyCo is a large European perfumery company with 500 shops across Europe. However, BeautyCo has been struggling with a decrease in profitability for some time and would like to work with us to understand what the causes and possible actions could be. Therefore, as a first step the client wants us to identify the cause of the profitability issues.
Our clients are two beer manufacturers from a well-developed country who just decided to merge. We can call them Company A and Company B. The decision about the merger has already been taken and our clients are certain it will soon be approved by regulators.
What is expected from you is to help them with two objectives: Firstly, they would like you to help them decrease the costs of their post-merger operations. Secondly, they would like you to help them develop a new marketing strategy.
How would you like to go about helping our clients?
Sprinker is a mid-sized, US-based publishing agency that develops, produces, and sells educational materials. It has come to their attention that some private schools are considering changing their first-grade textbooks, for which they would need a publishing agency.
Sprinker is interested in participating in the closed tender and wants to determine whether this would be economically viable.
Our client is a Canadian TV company, Universal TV. They recently entered the US market in the northeast to expand its market share and capture a large part of the 4 m consumers in a market that has little competition. However, in the past few years, Universal TV has been unable to realize a profit.
You are hired to figure out why this is the case and what their next move should be.
Duraflex is a German footwear company with annual men’s footwear sales of approximately €1 b.
They have always relied on the boot market for the majority of their volume. In this market they compete with three other major competitors.
In the fall of 2019, Badger – one of Duraflex’s competitiors – launched a new line of aggressively priced work boots. The strong success of this line has caused Duraflex’s management to re-evaluate their position in work boots.
With limited additional resources, the management must now decide if they should focus their efforts on competing with Badger in the work boot sector, or allocate their resources on further strengthening their position with casual boots. The management team approached you and asked for your advice. In order to advise them on their future work boot strategy please prepare first some insights regarding market size and competitive landscape.
CleanWave is a leading branded manufacturer of dishwashing products in Germany, primarily selling dishwashing tabs and liquids.
During the Covid period (2020–2021), the company experienced unusually strong growth in revenues and profits. Since 2022, however, CleanWave’s revenues and profitability have declined significantly.
Management believes this is mainly driven by weaker consumer demand and increased price pressure.
You are asked to:
- Estimate the size of the German dishwashing market
- Analyse the drivers of CleanWave’s declining revenues and profits
- Understand the impact of Covid and post-Covid market dynamics
- Develop strategic recommendations for CleanWave going forward
RetailBankingCo is a regional, US-based retail bank that is looking to increase its revenues. As a result, the client is considering introducing a commission-based incentive program for its sales force.
RetailBankingCo wants to determine the conditions under which implementing the incentive program would be economically viable.
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.
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 client is a global drug company producing and selling medicine (pills, powder, ointments, injections, etc.) for a variety of pets (dogs, cats, birds, fish etc.). In addition to organic growth, the company grew significantly over the past few years by acquiring several other pets medicine companies in different parts of the world.
During this period, profitability of the company decreased significantly. The CEO is concerned with this decline and wants to put in place a plan to raise the profitability to at least 70%.
FashionForward is a mid-sized, private-label fashion retailer headquartered in Europe with €600 million in annual revenue. Its product portfolio includes fast-fashion collections for men and women, sold in 220 stores across six countries, and online.
The company currently sources approximately 85% of its total production volume from Bangladesh, heavily relying on just three key suppliers for over 70% of that volume. Their procurement strategy is highly cost-driven, and supplier relationships are transactional. FashionForward has now asked Inverto to develop a new sourcing strategy.
Over the last 18 months, FashionForward has faced increasing procurement challenges:
- A drop in demand for trend-sensitive fashion categories
- Long lead times (up to 40 days), limiting reactivity to seasonal trends
- Repeated shipping delays and FX volatility from Banglades
- Overstocking in basics and stockouts of fashion-forward items
- ESG non-compliance flagged in two factories during an audit
- Growing pressure from the board to increase agility and reduce dependency on Bangladesh
We are a warehouser (B2B) and have been facing a decline in profits since past 2 years. We would like you to figure out why this is happening and provide recommendations to reverse this trend.
Johnny Depp, now 56 years old, has started to feel that his acting career is about to get over. His net worth crossed over $650 million at the peak of his career but has since dwindled, amid lawsuits and lifestyle expenses. As such, he thinks that his current wealth might not be enough for his upcoming years. So, he’s hired you as a consultant to help him find ways to multiply his worth. What can you suggest?
Our client, Hara Coffee Company, is a large coffee chain with over 200 locations in the United Kingdom. They import beans from numerous regions and batch-roast them in the UK, offering customers a vast selection of premium blends. In addition to serving delicious coffee, our client offers freshly made sandwiches, pastries, and salads of the highest quality. Hara Coffee Co. is also one of the most socially and environmentally responsible coffee brands in the United Kingdom, and their value proposition heavily relies on customers paying a premium for delicious products that do not compromise on sustainability metrics.
The rising cost of living has significantly reduced the revenue of coffee chains throughout the United Kingdom over the past year. People are increasingly choosing to brew their own coffee at home, with beans delivered by subscription. The CEO of Hara Coffee Company is intrigued by the expansion of coffee subscription models in the UK. They requested that our team investigate whether their chain could also introduce a coffee subscription model, in which customers pay a fixed monthly fee and receive a certain number of coffees throughout the month.
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.
[Common personal fit interview questions: Why consulting? Why this company? Tell me about yourself.]
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.
