Once you communicate your approach to the interview do you need to do the calculations while saying it out loud (eg 460 times 12 equals.. XY) or can do it silently and just communicate the final result or intermediate resukts (eg revenues and costs before profit).
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Great question! One way to test if it should be 'out loud' or silent is, would someone following along be able to explain what I am doing? For example, 90% x $10M is simple enough, but HOW you arrived at that 90% and $10M value will require vocal clarification. Remember that consulting interviews are not just to test your math skills, but also to understand your modes of thinking.
Another way to think of it is-- tutoring. Case interviews actually work very similar to tutoring (interviewer is the student/learner, interviewee is the teacher/tutor). If you were tutoring the case materials to someone, would they need you to explain the logic? Chances are, yes for assumptions etc, and no for basic math steps.
Hope this helps, and reach out if any follow up questions!
Sunny
Nope! And please don't, it's only a down-side risk with no benefit!
A lot of people think "talk through your math" means talking through everything - it doesn't!
Essentially, make sure you explain what you want to solve for, why, and exactly how. Then, just go and do it! (And pop your head up to flag key numbers/results).
Hey there,
Agree with Ian.
Cheers,
Florian
Hi there,
You don’t need to communicate every single math calculation. However you should also not just say the final number.
After you aligned with the interviewer on the math formula, you should present the interim steps of the calculation so that you are aligned with the interviewer. If you do a mistake and just say the final number when there are multiple steps involved, the interviewer can just say the answer is wrong and you will have no idea of where the mistake is.
In general, you can consider the following steps for any math question:
Best,
Francesco
Just explain your approach/steps, do your work in silence and announce the result. Talking while you think is risky...
